Spring 1989 Vol. 9, No. 2 $4.00 41( Living Without Religion _The Ethics of

Abortion in Can We Historical Achieve Perspective ? Vern and Bonnie Bullough and Other Technologies

Carol Kahn Steven B. Harris TE

Also: Ted Bundy, Pornography, and Capital Punishment Soviet and Psychoanalysis Under Perestroika, by Adolf Grü The Gospels as Literary Fiction, by Randel Helms Free Inceirf,

SPRING 1989, VOL. 9, NO. 2 ISSN 0272-0701 Contents

3 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 10 ON THE BARRICADES 62 IN THE NAME OF GOD EDITORIALS 4 Eupraxophy, Ethics, and , and Tim Madigan / Abortion in Historical Perspective, Vern and Bonnie Bullough / The Morality of Unbelief, / Humanism and the Roots of Morality, Tim Madigan / More On Belief and Morality, Tom Franczyk HUMANIST ETHICS 14 Can We Achieve Immortality? Carol Kahn 19 Many Are Cold But Few Are Frozen: A Humanist Looks at Cryonics Steven B. Harris 25 Humanist Ethics: Eating the Forbidden Fruit Paul Kurtz 30 Scientific Knowledge, Moral Knowledge: Is There Any Need for Faith? Bernard Davis 37 The Inseparability of Logic and Ethics John Corcoran 41 A Theory of Cooperation Leon Felkins ARTICLES 46 Glossolalia Martin Gardner 49 The Study of the Gospels as Literary Fiction Randel Helms 52 Soviet Atheism and Psychoanalysis Under Perestroika Adolf Grünbaum 54 On Ted Bundy, Pornography, and Capital Punishment Vern Bullough, Paul Kurtz 58 An Atheist Handles Life Harry Daum BOOKS 56 Abortion and the Law Mary Beth Gehrman / Books in Brief

Editor: Paul Kurtz Senior Editors: Vern Bullough, Gerald Larne Executive Editor: Tim Madigan Managing Editor: Mary Beth Gehrman Special Projects Editor: Valerie Marvin

Contributing Editors: Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities, University of Richmond; Paul Beattie, Unitarian Church, Pittsburgh; Jo-Ann Boydston, director, Dewey Center; Paul Edwards, professor of philosophy, Brooklyn College; Albert Ellis, director, Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy; Roy P. Fairfield, social scientist, Union Graduate School; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, University of Virginia Medical School; Antony Flew, philosopher, Reading University, England; R. Joseph Hoffmann, chairman, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Hartwick College, Oneonta, N.Y.; Sidney Hook, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, NYU; Marvin Kohl, philosopher, State University of New York College at Fredonia; Jean Kotkin, executive director, American Ethical Union; Ronald A. Lindsay, attorney, Washington, D.C.; Delos B. McKown, professor of philosophy, Auburn University; Howard Radest, director, Ethical Culture Schools; Robert Rimmer, author; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, University of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist, Upstate Medical Center, Syracuse; V. M. Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judge, India; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, Union College; Sherwin Wine, North American Committee for Humanism Associate Editors: Doris Doyle, Steven L. Mitchell, Lee Nisbet, Gordon Stein, Andrea Szalanski Editorial Associates: Robert Basil, Jim Christopher, Fred Condo Jr., Thomas Flynn, Thomas Franczyk, James Martin-Diaz, Molleen Matsumura Executive Director of CODESH, Inc.: Jean Millholland

Systems Manager: Richard Seymour Typesetting: Paul E. Loynes Audio Technician: Vance Vigrass Staff Steven Karr, Lisa Kazmierczak, Marlene Kulman, Anthony Nigro, Alfreds Pidgeon, Ranjit Sandhu

FREE INQUIRY (ISSN 0272-0701) is published quarterly by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH, Inc.), a nonprofit corporation, 3159 Bailey Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14215. Phone (716) 834-2921. Copyright ©1989 by CODESH, Inc. Second-class postage paid at Buffalo, New York, and at additional mailing offices. National distribution by International Periodicals Distributors, San Diego, California. Subscription rates: $22.50 for one year, $39.00 for two years, $54.00 for three years, $4.00 for current issue; $5.00 for back issues. Address subscription orders, changes of address, and advertising to: , Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005. Manuscripts, letters, and editorial inquiries should be addressed to: The Editor, FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005. All manuscripts should be accompanied by two additional copies and a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or publisher. Postmaster: Send address changes to FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005. absolutes. Who will establish the rules? And if, as Kurtz emphatically states, humanists believe in the "dignity and value Letters to the Editor of every human being," we are still left begging the question why? On what basis should we as human beings respect one another's "space"? I applaud the fundamental statements of More on the Declaration You are courageous to publish your Decla- this universal ethic. But if our feet are solidly ration of Interdependence. As in all risks, planted in mid-air (relativistic, individual "A Declaration of Interdependence: A New however, mistakes can be made. The incor- ethics with no concrete basis for "right liv- Global Ethics" (Fall 1988), covers the inter- poration of services provided by other ing") then how can we be expected to come action of human beings very well, and I agree humans as rights (that is, the right to ade- down to earth and treat other human beings with most of what is said. However, the quate education and health care) warrants as we would want to be treated? "interdependence of humankind with the discussion. earth and our responsonsibility toward the Noble as these sound, these rights are paid Mark Eckel, Chaplain earth and other life on it" is only sketchily for with someone else's money at a time when Shiloh Christian School mentioned. When it is, it appears to have the average American spends a greater Mandan, N.D. been added to satisfy some critic—it does portion of his working year earning money not give me the impression that it is an to pay his taxes than for any other integral part of the declaration. Without an expenditure. The Frailty of Reason ethics of responsibility for the earth and for Ironically, this desire for the right to other life forms, humankind will not fare health care has lead to violation of the I just wanted you to know Tim Madigan's well at all; quite the opposite. Many of what fundamental right to personal liberty, in- interview with Steve Allen and Jayne the authors call "rights" would become cluding freedom from involuntary servitude Meadows was great (Winter 1988). I wish to increasingly impossible. or slavery, as various state legislatures be one of the first to have the courage and Whenever our responsibility to humanity pressure physicians into providing unreim- stand up and say, "I AM IGNORANT." Now or to the world community is mentioned, bursed or under-reimbursed care by manipu- let me ask for help. HELP!!! so should be our responsibility for the earth lation of licensing and emergency-room and its resources, including other living coverage laws. Donald J. Hanek things. Social issues will not go away. How does Mystic Island, N.J. one answer the struggling young couple Meg Letterman whose taxes are raised to cover such "rights" Goldendale, Wash. as provision of obstetric care to the pregnant Tim Madigan's interview with Steve Allen and illegal immigrant who walks across the Jayne Meadows illustrated many of the border and never intends to pay any taxes? couple's admirable qualities. They are to be I am very favorably impressed with your And what of those who succumb to the oh- applauded in their willingness to stand up for Declaration of Interdependence. The idea is so-human frailties of overeating, smoking, humanist ideals. However, its last page wonderful and creative but I have some and drinking that engender such massive virtually destroyed my impression of Allen questions. social and economic costs? Is health care a and Meadows as educated and informed Does the "right to education" guarantee right for these uninsured irresponsibles while representatives of humanism as it applies to education for slow learners and those whose the rest of the taxpayers shell out for their economics. Two assertions are made in the disruptive behavior spoils class work? How care? Where is the incentive for self- interview that cannot pass without further much must we yield to such pupils? maintenance if the repair work is free? comment. The first is that the Great Depres- Does the "right to adequate health care" sion "represented literally a failure of capitalist mean care for drug users, smokers, and Christopher Lyon, M.D. economy." The second involves the observa- alcoholics on the same basis as for health Newport Beach, Calif. tion that the capitalists of Latin America turn nuts? priests and nuns into Marxists because they Does the "right to work" mean jobs for refuse to allow the people of these countries the disruptive, incompetent, and lazy? Don't Please help me. I cannot understand the to improve their lot. they now have the right to work? seemingly contradictory positions held by Both of these statements reflect a mis- Our St. Louis paper recently had a story the current secular humanist tradition. On understanding of capitalism and authoritarian about a man who had sired twenty-seven the one hand, humanists cry out for indi- power. Throughout the growth period of the children. Is this within his "right to bear and vidual rights based upon a relativistic system 1920s the Federal Reserve, under the intel- raise children"? (He was reported "on of ethics. As there are no absolutes in this ligent guidance of New York's Benjamin furlough" from his job.) scheme of "ought," men are free to practice Strong, was quite effective at allowing the Obviously I am prejudiced and unforgiv- anything their consciences dictate. money supply to grow in times of need and ing, but fortunately in Section (d), your On the other hand, Paul Kurtz et al. stabilize otherwise. After Strong's death, declaration allows me the right to "freedom recently emphasized the need for a universal however, the Fed's policy was in turmoil and of speech and expression." ethic. Are both possible? Who is to say power struggles were the order of the day. whether we should abide by laws dictated During the tumult of the stock crash and the Ray Buchan by the Neros, Ghans, de Sades, Hitlers, or ensuing panic, the Fed followed a policy of St. Louis, Mo. Stalins of this world? After all, there are no (Continued on p. 60) Spring 1989 3 The term eupraxophy thus better ex- presses what secular humanism is. Unlike religion, it rejects any supernatural view of Editorials reality, and unlike philosophy, it suggests that we can generate genuine convictions based upon reason and experience. As 411 eupraxophers, secular humanists are con- cerned with developing a comprehensive view of nature and achieving meaningful ethical norms and social ideals. Eupraxophy, Ethics, and Defending secular humanism today is made more difficult because virtually all of the official humanist organizations in the Secular Humanism United States consider themselves to be reli- gious. Incredibly, they all have religious tax exemptions—with the sole exception of the Paul Kurtz and Tim Madigan Council for Democratic and Secular Hum- anism, which publishes FREE INQUIRY and has an educational tax exemption. It is a an one be moral without being reli- sis on reasoned debate, empirical account- mistake for these organizations to treat Cgious? This question is often posed to ability, and pluralistic tolerance, offers a humanism as a religion simply because the secular humanists, usually in a defiant man- solution to this morass. It is for this reason organizations themselves ape some of the ner. Nonbelievers are challenged to prove that we cannot overstress how important it functions of theistic institutions. that they can lead significant lives without is that we not see secular humanism as just Let us be forthright: Secular humanism a religious foundation. Such a question is another religious belief system. Secular is a form of atheism or agnosticism. It finds puzzling, since it emanates from an abysmal humanism does not have the essential no credible evidence for the existence of a ignorance of the history of Western thought. attributes of religion: belief in a deity, the divine force in the universe, doubts the Those who charge that humanists, because wish for some sort of afterlife, "sacred" trustworthiness of "revelations," and is un- they reject belief in a personal deity and dogmas and texts, or ..an absolutist moral able to discover sufficient evidence for an sacred creeds, are immoral (or amoral) creed. Instead, it expresses a philosophical afterlife. To call secular humanism religious demonstrate their own unfamiliarity with and ethical point of view, and it draws upon is to pervert the meaning of both terms— modern thought and practices. the scientific method in formulating its and it lends ammunition to our theistic In this issue of FREE INQUIRY we address naturalistic view of nature. opponents who loudly proclaim that the the topic, What is the ethics of humanism? As detailed in previous issues of FREE "religion" of secular humanism is being Can a secure foundation for ethics be dis- INQUIRY, we thought it necessary to intro- taught in our nation's public school system. covered within the secular framework? Is duce a new term to describe what secular such a foundation even necessary? Perhaps humanism is: eupraxophy. The word is t should be pointed out that eupraxophy it is this obsession with foundationalism derived from the Greek roots eu (good or is not being introduced as a synonym (what John Dewey referred to as "The Quest well), praxis (practice or conduct), and for humanism, but rather as a more refined for Certainty") that leads to dogmatism and sophia (scientific and philosophical wisdom). description of humanism. Indeed, there have to fierce absolutism. As a eupraxophy, humanism has four main been eupraxophies other than humanism: We are today experiencing an intense characteristics: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and in moral debate, stimulated in large part by 1. It is a method of inquiry that uses ancient times had the attributes we have the rapidity of social and technological reason and evidence to test claims to truth listed above; one may also add Utilitarian- change. Moral absolutists wish us to retreat and that advocates the use of critical in- ism, Libertarianism, Marxism, Zen Bud- from the advances made on behalf of human telligence in dealing with human problems. dhism, and Confucianism. These eupraxo- freedom. For example, there is now a deter- 2. Its cosmic outlook is based upon the phies differ in their conceptions of reality, mined effort to once again criminalize abor- findings of science, rather than on mere knowledge, ethics, and political and social tion, fifteen years after the Supreme Court metaphysical speculation. values, but they are similar in that they do decision in Roe v. Wade paved the way for 3. Its ethical values and principles are not base their principles upon supernatural the right of free choice. In this issue, Bonnie concerned with enhancing the good life here or occult foundations. The secular huma- and Vern Bullough examine the difficult on earth. nistic eupraxophy has a thoroughly scien- struggle waged for abortion rights prior to 4. It has social polity, advocating democ- tific view of nature; it is committed to using this decision—a struggle in which humanists racy and human freedom. objective methods to evaluate truth claims were at the forefront. It appears that we may None of these characteristics are "reli- and is dedicated to democratic principles have to wage the battle again. Similarly for gious" per se. Nor are they merely philo- and human freedom. the demands that "pornography" be sophical or scientific. Science and philo- In this issue of FREE INQUIRY we attempt censored. sophy today have become highly specialized to demonstrate some of the ethical principles The confusion of morality with religion fields that often adopt a neutral stance on and values espoused by secular humanism. has led to great misunderstandings, in- important issues such as the meaning of life, It is our contention that the secular humanist tolerance, and, often, bloodshed, as one the nature of the universe, the makeup of eupraxophy is best able to confront the system of moral absolutism confronts the good society, and the principles of social challenges of the postmodern technological another. Secular humanism, with its empha- justice. world, a world where once-fanciful issues 4 FREE INQUIRY

such as cloning, biogenetic engineering, values, let us take the initiative and challenge surprise of most political observers, the law surrogate motherhood, and space travel have them to demonstrate how their ancient dog- passed quickly and was signed by the then- become real possibilities. We need to adapt matic beliefs can guide us in the rapidly governor Ronald Reagan. Similar ordi- to these new technologies and face them with changing world of the future. Secular nances were enacted by other states, and critical intelligence and a willingness to learn humanism, we submit, provides meaningful by 1970 some fifteen states had liberalized from our experiences. guidelines for leading the good life here and abortion laws. A number of court cases also Rather than passively wait for religious now, and offers a positive alternative to the extended abortion laws in various local believers to challenge us on our ethical religious belief systems of the day. • jurisdictions. As this was happening, however, the nature of the campaign began to shift, large- ly because of the rising consciousness of women. Beilinson himself called his legisla- tion a "crummy little law," because it did Abortion in Historical Perspective not go far enough. Those who wanted to go further were encouraged by a ground swell of opinion behind the concept of Vern and Bonnie Bullough abortion as a woman's right, as well as by improvements in medical technology and istorically the debate over legalized abortions, but allowed physicians to per- particularly in the techniques of abortion. Habortion is a fairly recent one. Abor- form therapeutic ones. Eventually all Historically abortions had been induced tion before quickening (the fetal movement nontherapeutic abortions were abolished by either by giving herbs or ergot to stimulate first felt between the eighteenth and twenti- individual states, though some were slower uterine contractions or by utilizing intrusive o eth weeks of pregnancy) was accepted under to move than others; Arkansas outlawed procedures that caused bleeding and con- English common law, which carried over to them in 1947, and Mississippi in 1956. tractions. Physicians who performed thera- the American colonies. It was also well Unfortunately the reasoning process that peutic abortions had turned to dilation and established in the canon law of the Roman brought about these changes proved to be uterine curettage as the standard procedure, Catholic church. faulty, for the laws simply drove women to which had cut the mortality rate signifi- The first challenge to this traditional illegal abortionists, many of whom failed cantly, particularly as infection control acceptance came in the nineteenth century. to adopt the latest techniques in medicine. improved through antibiotics and as Until this time most abortions were per- Most skilled medical practitioners refused methods for controlling bleeding developed. formed by midwives, and, while abortion to become involved in nontherapeutic Vacuum extraction, the current method of was not as dangerous as childbirth, the tech- abortions, fearful that they would not only choice for first-trimester abortions, is even niques used often led to infection and death. lose their license to practice, but go to jail less intrusive, so that abortions now carry There was considerable agitation by the if found out. The result was an escalating a much lower mortality rate than pregnan- medical community to gain greater control, series of complications from illegal abor- cies carried to term. and reformers of the day backed physicians tions, and even an increase in the death rate In other words, the public-health con- as they sought the enactment of legislation of women. cerns that had led to the virtual abolition strictly limiting abortion to cases in which The first note of change came from the of abortion were no longer valid. Once the the life of the mother was in danger. The American Law Institute's promulgation of limited list of conditions under which a legal development of aseptic techniques and the the Model Penal Code in 1962. This recom- abortion could take place was challenged, growth of public-health concepts in this mended that the concept of therapeutic a large variety of groups began to urge the country helped to advance the case against abortion be extended to include cases where extension of the concept of therapeutic the midwives; adding impetus to the change the woman was raped or became pregnant abortion. Included among these were most was a modification in canon law made by through incest, where the child might be of the mainline Protestant and Jewish sects, Pope Pius in 1869 that eliminated the con- born with a grave fetal defect, and where the American Medical Association, and cept of quickening as a distinction between pregnancy would seriously impair the phys- even a few Catholic groups. The ACLU, an animated and a nonanimated fetus. ical or mental health of the mother. The the Unitarian Universalists, NOW, huma- By 1828 New York had become the first proposal was met with an almost immediate nist organizations, and others went further, state to implement a law allowing only for positive response, both formally and in- arguing for abortion as a woman's right. therapeutic abortions performed under the formally. The number of therapeutic abor- direction of a physician, though the move- tions increased rapidly in certain states, as ctivist groups soon began to spring ment did not really gain momentum until the medical profession interpreted the term Aup all over the country to help arrange after the Civil War. This did not eliminate "mental or physical health" rather broadly. abortions for women who requested them. In the mid-1960s the ACLU of Southern Some local physicians cooperated with the Vern and Bonnie Bullough were active par- California adopted a statement recognizing groups and where no local health profes- ticipants in the struggle for abortion rights. abortion as essentially a woman's right, and sional could be found, arrangements were They were influential in the ACLU decision joined forces with other groups in a state- made to send people elsewhere. In Southern in southern California, were among the wide organization called Californians for California, for instance, many were sent founders of Southern Californians for Therapeutic Abortion. The California across the border to Mexico where abortions Therapeutic Abortion, and have written and initiative was strengthened by the decision could be had more easily. argued for a woman's right to choose for of Anthony Beilinson, then a Beverly Hills- In Washington, D.C., Dr. Miklan more than twenty years. based state legislator, to introduce legisla- Vuitch, a Yugoslav immigrant who had tion on therapeutic abortion. Much to the performed abortions in his native country,

Spring 1989 5 began performing them here more or less States. antichoice groups. Recently, because of the on demand after a desperate Hungarian Despite this, no issue today is as hotly rehearing of the abortion issue by the refugee had persuaded him to terminate her debated as abortion rights. Opposing it is a Supreme Court and the advent of RU486, pregnancy; soon women were being referred loosely knit coalition of religious funda- the so-called abortion pill developed in to him by a local abortion-support unit, and mentalists of various types—conservative France, antichoice activity has intensified. he continued to help them until he was Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Mor- In a last-ditch effort to change public arrested in 1964. His case became the first mons—who have defined life as beginning opinion, prolifers have adopted the tactics to make a frontal attack on the abortion at conception and themselves as its of the civil-rights movement and flung it laws. In 1969 he was acquitted in the U.S. guardians. They have declared a holy war into the face of the liberal supporters of District Court and the decision made the on all health professionals who participate abortion. If they succeed they may be able nation's capital the only area in the United in abortions, all women who seek them, and to prevent the entry of RU486 into the States where completely legalized abortions all supporters of the right to choose. They United States since, once the pill becomes were available. His acquittal, along with that demonstrate, burn clinics, and carry out available, abortion becomes a private issue. of Dr. Leon Belous, a founding member of successful single-issue political campaigns. If RU486 cannot be obtained with the bless- Californians for Therapeutic Abortions, gave It is a mistake to underestimate the poli- ing of the federal government, however, a new vigor to the movement. In 1970 Hawaii tical power of these groups. Ronald Reagan black market will develop and abortion will became the first state to legalize what came was the governor of the State of California again go underground. to be called abortion on demand. when the Beilinson law was passed—he It is to be hoped that the antichoice By 1969 the National Association for the signed it. The 1980 presidential campaign, movement will fail, but if it is successful, Repeal of the Abortion Laws had come into however, quickly converted him into a the United States will certainly have more existence, urging abortion on demand. By vigorous antichoice defender. The most lawbreakers than it has now. Interestingly, June 1972, a Gallup Poll indicated that 64 damaging aspect of this was his insistence the same individuals who are opposed to percent of the American population, in- that most of the justices he appointed agree advances in civil rights seem to be opposed cluding 56 percent of those who identified with him on this issue. to abortion; they shift their strategy from themselves as Catholics, agreed that the Many of the activists who helped to one issue to the other as they ride the tides decision to abort should be made solely by achieve abortion rights rested on their laurels of publicity. Humanists have been in the a woman and her physician. Conservative after 1973, so that although public-opinion forefront of the fight for abortion, not only organizations such as the American Bar polls continue to show majority support for in the United States but in Canada and Association and the American College of the prochoice position, prochoice activity has Europe. We must now recommit to the Obstetricians and Gynecologists agreed. been meager relative to the activities of the struggle. It is one we will win. • A number of cases were working their way up the ladder to the Supreme Court but the one that arrived at the top first was Roe v. Wade. "Jane Roe" of Dallas County, Texas, had instituted action in federal court The Morality of Unbelief in March 1970 seeking a declaratory judg- ment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes—which had not been modified for Tom Flynn a century—were unconstitutional and pre- vented her, an unmarried and pregnant Even when a man's belief is so fixed that Next, the believers ready the second part woman, from terminating her pregnancy he cannot think otherwise, he still has a of their one-two punch. If the humanists choice in regard to the action suggested through an abortion performed by a com- happen to criticize any religious practice, petent licensed physician under safe, clinical by it, and so cannot escape the duty of investigating on the ground of the however extreme, on moral grounds, the conditions. She claimed that the Texas strength of his convictions.... For it is believers accuse them of hypocrisy. "I statute violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, not possible to so sever the belief from thought you were pluralistic!" they cry. Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Al- the action it suggests as to condemn .the "How dare you impugn anyone's morality one side without condemning the other. though the District Court gave her declara- simply on the basis of their beliefs!" tory relief, allowing her to have an abortion, —William Kingdon Clifford Stated that way, the absurdities in this it stopped short of issuing an injunction stratagem are obvious. Still, in actual discus- against the enforcement of the Texas sta- sions many humanists—especially those who tutes. In 1973, however, the Supreme Court ave pity on secular humanists. When are not trained in philosophy—find effective declared the Texas laws unconstitutional and Hthey engage religious believers in responses elusive. recognized that a woman's right to choose moral debate, the result is often a double Though I am not a philosopher, it is my abortion was part of her fundamental right bind. contention that belief without empirical to privacy. First, many believers dismiss humanists justification is morally illicit, as is the as immoral on the basis of their unbelief. willingness to act on such an unjustified robably no Supreme Court decision in This handy way to win the argument before belief. Furthermore, far from being inherent- this century has been so important to it begins has a certain homespun logic to it. ly immoral, unbelief is an inherently moral attempts to secure the liberty, equality, and If one starts out by assuming a transcendent position. health of women as this 1973 decision. It lawgiver—whose existence the debate is sup- Secular humanists tend to be pluralists; transformed abortion from a clandestine and posedly intended to explore—how can any- most agree that individuals have the right sometimes dangerous ordeal into one of the one who does not believe in Him, Her, It, to believe just about anything they wish. safest medical procedures in the United or Them lead a moral life? The content of belief is a matter of personal 6 FREE INQUIRY choice that we defend vigorously, though supported beliefs that predispose them to immoral act of the highest order. It is the others may choose to embrace beliefs we unacceptable behavior—if we can speak uncritical believer, not the skeptic, whose consider unjustified and foolish. Still, even meaningfully about moral accountability for epistemological stance is immoral. doctrinaire pluralists distinguish between the the content of one's motivating beliefs. I to assent to almost any proposition, believe that we can. freedom The forgotten skeptic and the morality of assenting to a particular I would propose the following general proposition whose content all but guarantees rule for gauging accountability for beliefs. ew of the points I have made here are that the person who accepts it will behave If one acts on one's beliefs in such a way new. They were made far more elo- in ways that may compromise the freedom F as to affect others, one can be held morally quently in 1877 by William Kingdon Clif- of others. accountable for one's decision to accept the ford, a professor at University College, Lon- As the saying goes, "The right to throw motivating belief according to: don, whose name is not as well known my fist ends at the tip of your nose." Though among humanists as it ought to be. In his it is my right to subscribe to any creed, how- (I) how profoundly actions based on that elegant essay "The Ethics of Belief," Clifford ever bizarre, in the privacy of my own head, belief may influence the lives of others, wrote: that does not necessarily give me the right and (2) how accurately that belief does—or to impose the consequences of my belief does not—correspond to the way Belief . . . is desecrated when given to upon others. If I want to give certain of my things really work in the natural world unproved and unquestioned statements, beliefs concrete expression in the commun- as empirical study reveals it to us. for the solace and private pleasure of the ity, I owe it to the community to weigh believer; to add a tinsel splendour to the plain straight road of life and display a those beliefs more carefully than I might According to this rule, if we propose to bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown examine those with which I do not expect act in ways that have grave consequences— the common sorrows of our kind by a to influence others. say, if we plan to blockade an abortion clinic self-deception which allows them not only If I do expect to treat a certain idea as a because we are right-to-life advocates, or to cast down, but also to degrade us... . It is wrong in all cases to believe on insuf- "motivating belief," that is, one that will propose to deny our offspring needed med- ficient evidence; and where it is presump- influence my public behavior, by what stan- ical care because of our Christian Science tion to doubt and investigate, there it is dard shall I evaluate it? I could evaluate it beliefs—then we behave immorally unless worse than presumption to believe... . on grounds of internal consistency, or by our motivating beliefs are independently No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of asking whether it is congruent with beliefs I verifiable according to the laws of the every- questioning all that we believe. have previously accepted. If I did that, I day world in which our actions will have would be weighing my motivating beliefs by their consequences. Clifford argued forcefully that accepting any the axiomatic rules that govern private cog- belief without free and probing inquiry con- nition. The problem with religious belief stituted immoral behavior. He also observed But there is good reason to reject this the psychological truth that strong belief can standard. After all, I do not interact with he problem is that some beliefs almost compromise the believer's capacity to evalu- other people in the realm of private cogni- necessarily lead the people who accept T ate his or her convictions fairly and accu- tion. I encounter them in an apparently them into action because of the nature of rately through scientific means: objective outside world, where effect seems their content. To accept such beliefs at all is to follow cause according to physical laws almost inevitably to accept them as motiva- No man holding a strong belief on one whose mysteries are susceptible to scientific ting beliefs. side of a question, or even wishing to hold inquiry. By comparing my own observations Clearly, religious beliefs fall into this a belief on one side, can investigate it with against those of others and testing my con- category. Most familiar religious creeds posit such fairness and completeness as if he clusions experimentally, I can take advan- some kind of absolute justification for were really in doubt and unbiased; so that tage of powerful checks and balances that the existence of a belief not founded on assenting to their propositions. They may, fair inquiry unfits a man for the per- protect me against inadvertent error. for example, be ascribed to the personal formance of this necessary duty. I have no similar protections in the realm authorship of the alleged creator of the of private cognition. Indeed, one of the universe. Beliefs that claim such profound Clifford's "Ethics of Belief' is one of the defining characteristics of private cognition justification are not merely intended to be hidden gems of the epistemological litera- is that reality-checking and error-detection assented to; they are intended to be acted ture. It is unfortunate that the essay is not are hard to come by. upon. If one sincerely believes almost any better circulated in secular humanist circles. body of religious propositions on its own It forever puts to rest the idea that a believer A general rule for assessing the terms, one can scarcely avoid taking actions can stand in a morally superior position to morality of belief that affect others without hypocrisy. a skeptic simply because he or she believes, Now we can address the first part of the and clearly demonstrates why the believer f centuries of physical and intellectual double bind—the claim that secular human- who has chosen to assent to a motivating Iprogress tell us anything, it is that no ists are disqualified from moral discourse belief without compelling evidence courts methodology yields more reliable knowledge because they lack such-and-such a meta- grave moral risk. about the outside world than empirical in- physical belief. Not only can we shrug off There is one other reason why it is sur- vestigation. Without skipping too many that accusation; we can turn it around and prising that Clifford's essay is not better steps, perhaps we can move from this insight thrust it back at our opponents. Religious known. It directly inspired William James's to a concept that lets us address the second beliefs are almost always motivating beliefs. 1896 lecture, "The Will to Believe," perhaps part of debater's double bind. Therefore to accept any body of religious modern philosophy's most respectable cele- There is no hypocrisy in being a pluralist propositions without first subjecting it to bration of impulsive credence. James under- and yet criticizing others for embracing un- the most detailed scientific scrutiny is an took the "defence of our right to adopt a

Spring 1989 7 believing attitude in religious matters, in believers debate about morals, there is no (where he himself will soon be sentenced to spite of the fact that our merely logical reason for humanists to feel that their lack death), questions him on the nature of intellect may not have been coerced." As of belief puts them at any moral disad- impiety. It becomes clear that the young man the twentieth century unfolded, "The Will vantage. Nor must we feel that our commit- has no real notion of why the gods decree to Believe" would contribute significantly to ment to intellectual pluralism forces us into certain actions to be moral and others the erosion of critical thinking and the scien- universal moral relativism. We can object immoral. Socrates asks the vital question: is tific outlook. James was seized upon by the quite strongly on moral grounds to beliefs an action right because the gods say it is, or popularizers of neo-Romanticism and anti- that give rise to certain unacceptable be- do the gods concur with it because it is right? intellectualism in much the same way that haviors without being hypocrites. For instance, if the gods were to suddenly Nietzsche was lionized—and later distort- Even more important, we can justifiably decree that all left-handed people should be ed—by the ideologues of the Third Reich. challenge the morality of unquestioned—or slaughtered, would it be right to slaughter The Jamesian tradition of free belief un- inadequately questioned—belief. If the con- them? Such a question cuts to the very heart derlies one of the most delicious ironies in tent of a certain belief is such that assenting of all divinely sanctioned ethical systems. the whole debate over morality and religion. to it will almost certainly motivate you to Humanists frequently point out that reli- Conservative believers often attack human- behave in ways that affect the lives of others, gious beliefs can in fact lead one to perform ists' moral fiber by claiming that we teach then you accept moral risk if you assent to harmful, immoral actions. One need only "If it feels good, do it." I know few human- that belief without the most careful empirical think of the Catholic Inquisition, the Muslim ists of whom that is true. But I know plenty scrutiny. Secular humanists apply such scru- holy wars, and the Indian sect of Thuggee of eager partisans on the religious side of tiny every day, which justifies us in claim- to see how acts of awful violence can some- the debate who richly deserve moral censure ing—if, one hopes, only sparingly—that our how be permitted because of religious con- for practicing "If it feels good, believe it." reluctance to believe is morally superior to victions. To quote Bob Dylan, "You don't When secular humanists and religious the religious communicant's ardent faith. • count the dead when God's on your side." Still, if religion is not the basis for human morality, two questions naturally arise. First, what then is the basis for morality, and second, how can we teach moral values without the use of religious symbols? The issue of morality's origin is by no Humanism and the Roots means simple, but several nonreligious theories have been set forth. Perhaps the most exciting work being done in this area of Morality is in Cooperation Theory (see p. 41). Game theorists such as Robert Axelrod and Anatol Rapaport provide a model in which it is in a person's best interest not to lie, cheat, or Tim Madigan harm his or her competitors. They hold that such a model applies to human behavior in n Sunday, July 7, 1776, James Boswell, What particularly disturbed Boswell (so general. It can benefit the community as a Oconfidant and biographer of Samuel much so that he had bad dreams about it whole and lead to increased prosperity and Johnson, paid a visit to the famed Scottish for months afterward) was Hume's stoic harmony. Granted, religious structures may philosopher and skeptic David Hume at his courage in the face of death; apparently the make cooperative exchanges more poetic, home in Edinburgh. Hume was on his philosopher was able to confront death with and perhaps more palatable, but the basis deathbed, and Boswell wished to determine the satisfaction of a life well led, and without for the exchanges remains completely secu- whether he was continuing his denial of an fear of being held accountable for his actions lar. "Do unto others as you'd have them do afterlife so near to his own demise. As a by a Supreme Judge. What, Boswell, pon- unto you" is sound advice, with or without devout Christian (the reason he gave for dered, was the basis of Hume's morality if a sacred veneer. stopping to see Hume on a Sunday morning not the Christian faith? The second question is one with which was that it was too late for him to go to The question of the relationship between many humanists must struggle. I know of church!), Boswell was unnerved that some- religion and morality is a time-honored one. some nonreligious parents who have felt it one so obviously decent and moral was not Does religion provide the backbone for right necessary to send their children to sectarian religious. From Boswell's point of view, conduct and actions? Without a god to keep schools to receive a thorough training in morality itself originates from religion. He us in line, would all hell break loose (meta- morality, which they feel the public schools was therefore not amused by Hume's re- phorically speaking, of course)? This issue do not provide. We should not automatically marks on the subject: goes back at least to the time of Plato. He scoff at this. Organized religions are, if deals with it in his dialogue the Euthyphro, nothing else, powerful transmitters of virtue: in which the title character is a callow Christians have before them Jesus Christ as He then said flatly that the morality of every religion was bad, and, I really know-it-all bent upon persecuting his own a paradigm of human gentleness and love. thought, was not jocular when he said that father for murder—not because he's particu- Buddhists follow the model of the com- when he heard a man was religious, he larly upset by the action itself (the victim passionate Buddha, who sought to alleviate concluded that he was a rascal, though he was a slave of the father's), but because to human suffering. And Muslims are inspired had known some instances of very good commit murder is against the will of the by the life of Mohammed, whose writings men being religious. This was just an extravagant reverse of the common remark gods, and so is impious. Socrates, who meets provide guidelines for leading a virtuous as to infidels.I with Euthyphro outside the courtroom existence. While we can, and must, raise

8 FREE INQUIRY serious questions about the doctrines of these Hume was ostracized for his skepticism, said this with his usual grunting pleasan- religions, there can be no doubt that they Durkheim was severely criticized for try, with that thick breath which fatness do inculcate a sense of moral worth in their promulgating his secular views, and Socrates' had rendered habitual to him, and that smile of simplicity which his good humour adherents, and give them examples of how questions on morality were often ignored. constantly produced.4 to lead upstanding, ethical lives. But we humanists have been deeply affected not only by the stirring words of these men, Perhaps the best way for humanists to till, we can grant this point without but also by the exemplary lives they led. demonstrate the falsity of the notion that Sgoing so far as to agree that religion is We, too, have our role models, but ours are morality is based on religion is for us to for this task. The former Secretary not necessary demi-gods, seers, or divinities; they are engage in our own "grunting pleasantries." of Education William Bennett has been real human beings, fallible yet nonetheless quoted as saying "neutrality to religion turns admirable. Living up to their ideals is a Notes out to bring with it a neutrality to the values worthy undertaking for all humanists. that issue from religion."2 This is just another Boswell, in his diary entry, goes on to I. James Boswell, from Boswell in Extremes: way of saying that without religion, one can- write of Hume: 1776-1778, edited by Charles McC. Weis and Frederick A. Pottle (New York: McGraw-Hill not be moral. There are simply far too many Speaking of his singular notion that men Book Company, Inc., 1970), p. I I. counterexamples of this to take it seriously. of religion were generally bad men, he 2. William J. Bennett, Address to the Supreme But sadly, all too many people do take it said, 'one of the men of the greatest Council Meeting of the Knights of Columbus, seriously. How, then, can morality be trans- honour that I ever knew is my Lord Washington, D.C., August 7, 1985. mitted without using the dogmas of super- Marischal, who is a downright atheist. I 3. Emile Durkheim, Moral Education (New remember I once hinted something as if I York: The Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961), p. natural belief? believed in the being of a God, and he 11. Emile Durkheim, the great French soci- would not speak to me for a week.' He 4. Boswell, p. 14. • ologist and philosopher, was quite concerned with this matter. He recognized that as soci- eties become more secularized and less in- terested in notions of "the sacred," there is a danger that the moral truths espoused by religions will be dismissed as well. In his More on Belief and Morality book Moral Education, originally published in 1925 (a book, by the way, that more humanists would do well to study), he calls Tom Franczyk for a concerted effort on the part of all societies to find out what is truly important to moral growth, and what is merely con- t the 1985 FREE INQUIRY conference embody the highest morality; yet adherents vention. In the book's opening chapter, en- Aat the University of Michigan, one of to each claim the others are infidels. Do titled "Secular Morality," Durkheim writes: the panelists (his name is irrelevant) sug- Hindus or Buddhists have the answer? gested that secular humanists should aban- There is no evidence to show that any Here is a first body of eminently complex don their nonbelief. He added that it didn't particular religion is more moral than any and positive problems that compel our matter to him which particular religion we other; so why choose, let's say, a particular attention when we undertake to secularize moral education. It is not enough to cut chose—Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, what- form of Christianity? Furthermore, there is out; we must replace. We must discover ever—as long as we made a choice to believe absolutely no evidence to show that nonbe- those moral forces that men, down to the in "something." It was obvious that he lievers are any less moral than those who present time, have conceived of only under thought we were missing "something." He believe in a "God." In fact, we are under- the form of religious allegories. We must disengage them from their symbols, pre- also may have been implying what most of represented for our proportion of the popu- sent them in their rational nakedness, so the religious community emphatically pro- lation when it comes to criminality. (See my to speak, and find a way to make the claims: that morality is not possible without editorial in FI, Spring 1987.) child feel their reality without recourse to belief in some supernatural concept. (My So why all the fuss over belief and moral- any mythological intermediary. This is the definition of religion always includes a ity? Religionists have much to gain (or first order of business: we want moral education to become rational and at the supernatural concept—life after death, God, should I say retain?) by continuously per- same time to produce all the results that Karma, and so on.) I have heard this ad petrating the myth that morality is neces- should be expected of it.3 nauseum for the past few years. sarily tied to belief. They know on which Most humanists would find such thinking side their bread is buttered and how much The challenge remains: How can we faulty and unfortunate. I find it insulting! they have to lose, both financially and poli- demythologize morality without blunting its Most nonbelievers appear to take this tically, if nonbelief is not portrayed as the force? Obviously, the task is especially diffi- deliberate degradation too calmly. We are worst of all evils. Therefore they have to cult when nonreligious people are in a told to tread lightly and be more positive define immorality as a lack of faith in God; distinct minority. Perhaps one way of doing while being smeared at every turn. and by defining our morality out of existence it is through the building of secular humanist Which religion are we to choose so that they thereby end any further rational dis- "communities," as FREE INQUIRY is attempt- we may become moral? Which religion is cussion of the issue. ing to do—a network of committed secular the most moral? Naturally, Christians would Humanists and other nonbelievers should humanists, working cooperatively to demon- say theirs is; but which brand of Christian- not demure when these claims are made. strate that it is possible to lead a good, ity? There is nothing to show that Brand A We should continue to stress that the strong- upstanding, virtuous life without a reliance is any better than Brand X. Moslems and est argument against our philosophy is un- on a supernatural basis for ethics. David Jews would claim that their respective faiths founded and erroneous. •

Spring 1989 9 Barbara Wootton (1897-1988)

Last year, the humanist movement lost an On the Barricades outspoken advocate. Lady Barbara Woot- ton, a member of the Academy of Human- ism, had a distinguished career that included more than a dozen honorary degrees in Britain and the United States, a stint as Is America a Secular Republic? Thieme, Jr. She still "listens to the tapes Deputy Speaker in the House of Lords, and once in a while," said Vice President Quayle a remarkable devotion to public service. She In a remarkable display of religiosity, Presi- in the September 25 issue of the Louisville believed humanists to be "under a definite dent Bush opened his Inaugural Address Courier-Journal. obligation to let their opinions be freely with the following : As a "dispensational premillenialist," known, for the social and professional bar- Thieme emphasizes Armageddon and the riers which restrict opportunities open to Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love. Accept our Second Coming of Christ. He describes the many non-Christians are still real, and only thanks for the peace that yields this day United States as a "mobocracy" imperiled by outspoken onslaughts can they be broken and the shared faith that makes its con- by "satanic propaganda," and has been down." FREE INQUIRY mourns the passing tinuance likely. Make us strong to do Your described as "far to the right of Jerry of this very special woman. work, willing to heed and hear Your will, Falwell.' and write on our hearts these words: "Use power to help people." For we are not Mrs. Quayle's sister stated that Thieme's given power to advance our own purposes tapes were the background rhythm to daily Muslim Population Growing nor to make a great show in the world, life in their home. "Mother played them all nor a name. There is but one just use of day, every day," she said. Islam in America is shifting its emphasis power and it is to serve people. Help us remember, Lord. Amen. Vice President Quayle's press secretary from the religious and educational to the stated that Quayle himself has never been a propagation of the faith to non-Muslims, Prior to the Inaugural, Bush mailed an follower of Thieme and doesn't share his and the strategy appears to be working. open letter to 300,000 American clergy ask- hardline political views. When asked if he The number of Muslims among those ing that they join in similar devotions across agreed with Thieme's political philosophy, entering the United States has doubled in the country. He also suggested that there be Quayle replied, "I don't know what it is." the past two decades; they now constitute a nationwide ringing of bells at the time of Yet Mrs. Quayle, in describing her rela- 14 percent of immigrants. Adding to the the Inaugural. tionship with her husband, stated, "Our total is the indigenous movement formerly "Worship is basic to my own life," Bush backgrounds are very similar, we share the known as Black Muslims, along with a said, "Our family has endeavored to uphold same moral foundation and the same value steady trickling of white American converts. our faith by participation in the life of our system." She also said that she has signifi- There are now five million Muslims in the church." cant influence with her husband. "I certainly United States, but with these trends and their am an equal to any senior advisor." high birthrate, U.S. Muslims are expected Mrs. Quayle is also an active member of to surpass Jews in number and, in less than And the Quayles Follow Suit the Fellowship House prayer group, which thirty years, become the nation's second is attended by such big-name Washington- largest religious community, after Christians. Marilyn Quayle, wife of Vice President Dan ians as Joanne (Mrs. Jack) Kemp, Georgia's In February, ABC News reported that by Quayle, grew up listening to the tapes of the Senator Sam Nunn, Susan (Mrs. James) the year 2525, Muslims may constitute one controversial preacher Colonel Robert G. Baker, and Oregon's Senator Mark Hatfield. quarter of the U.S. population.

Rushdie, the Secular Humanist Àsk Miss Maniac In the March 2 edition of the New York Review, the Indian-born

ess When insulted, it is important to author Salman Rushdie wrote that in his controversial new book Pr maintain your composure and dignity. The Satanic Verses

d he "tried to give a secular, humanist vision of ite It may help to count silently to one the birth of a great world religion. For this, apparently, I should f Un million. When you get there, offer be tried.... `Battle lines are being drawn today,' one of my characters o that amount to anyone in the room ion s who will murder the person who insulted remarks. 'Secular versus religious, the light versus the dark. Better You you choose which side you are on.— On February 13, just before he went into hiding, Rushdie appeared on ABC's Nightline and had this to say:

[My book says] that there is an old, old conflict between the secular view of the world and the religious view of the world, and particularly between texts which claim to be divinely inspired and texts which are imaginatively inspired.... I distrust people who claim to know the whole truth and who seek to orchestrate the world in line with that one true truth. I think that's a very dangerous position in the world. It needs to be challenged. It needs to be challenged constantly in all sorts of ways, and that's 71 .42.Z. P/014.7 ...1 Take cartoons, 1 for example what 1 tried to do.

FREE INQUIRY California Bolsters Teaching Milledgeville Seal Still Under Suit Marvin, SOS Newsletter, Box 5, Buffalo, New York 14215. of Evolution Milledgeville, Georgia—Milledgeville City For more information about Priority One, contact James Christopher, Box 15781, In December 1988, Bill Honig, California Attorney Charles Mathis tried to strike a North Hollywood, California 91615-5781. Superintendent of Public Instruction, an- deal in a six-year-old constitutional battle nounced that the state had barred the Insti- over the city's municipal seal, which includes tute for Creation Research from granting the word "Christianity" on it. The suit was Help CSER's Investigation master's degrees in science. initiated in 1983 by Ken Saladin, a secular "No one is stopping the Institute . . . humanist, who maintained that the use of The Committee for the Scientific Examina- from granting degrees in religion or crea- the word on the seal sanctioned one religion tion of Religion, founded in 1984, has in tion," he said. "But they are holding their over others and violated the First Amend- the past successfully exposed the deception people out to have science degrees, which ment provision separating church and state. employed by such "miracle workers" as they don't. The vast bulk of what they learn Mathis proposed that the word remain W. V. Grant, Peter Popoff, and Oral is not science." on the seal on the city's stationary and docu- Roberts, and is eager to continue its investi- Dr. Henry Morris, the president and ments, but that it appear too small to read. gation into the bogus practices of these founder of the institute, said he would take The city also promised not to do anything modern-day snake-oil salesmen. Honig's decision to an appellate panel in to advertise the illegible smudge as the word Since many religious personalities have the education department. "We think this is "Christianity." developed a national presence by taking their a matter of discrimination against crea- Saladin found that compromise unac- shows on the road, CSER believes it is tionists," he said. "Our program is com- ceptable and has asked his attorney to re- important to alert local media to their tac- pletely scientific. There is no religion in it at open the case. Saladin maintains that the tics. While the group does not encourage all. It is just that our courses are given in dispute will be resolved to his satisfaction individuals to engage in public debate with the context of creation and not evolution. only if the city stops using its present seal evangelists or to investigate on their own, We assume that animals were created by entirely, or if it has "some other constitu- CSER has asked that FREE INQUIRY readers God and that they did not evolve. Everything tionally inoffensive word clearly printed in nationwide assist by contributing material. else we teach is the same as in standard place of 'Christianity' so it will be publicly Items of interest include local newspaper science courses." obvious that the word has been changed." articles, materials handed out at faith-healing In January the California Board of Edu- meetings, direct-mail pieces from evangelists, cation unanimously adopted a policy in- and tapes of their television and radio tended to strengthen the teaching of evolu- SOS Announces New Program appearances. Please be sure to note the name tion in California schools and in textbooks of the newspaper or show, and the date on Until recently, the focus of counseling and bought by the state. which the article or interview appeared. therapy in virtually all of the chemical The policy specifies that only theories Please send all materials to David Alexan- dependency centers in the United States was based on factual evidence should be taught der, CSER Network Coordinator, Box 5, based on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics in science classes, while theories based on Buffalo, New York 14215. Anonymous, which suggest that recovery religious belief "are appropriate to the simply is not possible without belief in a history-social science and English-language "Higher Power" or "God as you understand Secular Attorneys Offended arts curricula." Him." The Secular Organizations for Sobriety Adam Jacobs, Ann Sorrel, and Charles Humanist Aid Fund Established (SOS) is now offering an alternative with Novins were admitted to the New Jersey Bar Priority One, a new outpatient treatment in 1987. In 1988, they moved to express their The recent earthquake in Armenia was one program based in Los Angeles. The thirty- objection to the use of the words "in the of the worst natural disasters in recorded day program includes daily individual coun- year of our Lord" on the certificate to prac- history, and the Council for Democratic and seling sessions; group, couple, and family tice law issued by the New Jersey Supreme Secular Humanism (CODESH) would like counseling; and free aftercare for a year. Court. to do all it can to aid the victims of this SOS founder and Priority One program In a letter to Stephen W. Townsend, a terrible event. Therefore, it is establishing director James Christopher stresses that clerk in the New Jersey Supreme Court, the the Secular Humanist Aid and Relief Pro- there is an alternative to the religious teach- three note that as "an agnostic, secular gram (SHARP). ings of A.A. "Our method is positive and humanist, and atheist, respectively, we are Though the impetus for the establishment rational," he says. "Belief or nonbelief is a personally offended that the certificate in- of SHARP was the Aremenian quake, personal matter, and is separate from the dicates the date of conferral by making CODESH hopes that in the future SHARP recovery process. We provide effective reference to and exalting (through capital- funds will aid victims of other natural strategies for arresting addiction for those ization of the word `Lord') a deity in which disasters and "acts of God." All funds raised who object to the pervasive spiritual requi- we do not believe." will be expended through strictly secular sites of the traditional twelve-step approach." They propose that the date be reworded organizations assisting in such endeavors. SOS, now in this third year of existence, in a secular fashion and that attorneys al- If you wish to help in this humanitarian continues to grow by leaps and bounds; it ready holding such certificates be given the effort, please send your checks to SHARP, has received international media attention option of exchanging them for the revised Box 5, Buffalo, New York 14215. We will and now holds meetings in all fifty states, edition. Jacobs, Sorrel, and Novins also sug- see to it that the money is sent to the proper Canada, Europe, and Australia. The group gest that if the issue is not settled to their authorities in Armenia. All contributions are also publishes a quarterly newsletter. For a satisfaction, a legal remedy may become tax-deductible. subscription, please send $12 to Valerie necessary. •

Spring 1989 11 You are cordially invited to attend FREE INQUIRY's Eighth Annual Conference Living Without Religion THE GOOD LIFE VS. THE AFTERLIFE Religious Views on Life After Death and the Humanist Response Thursday, July 27 to Sunday, July 30, 1989 at the Cathedral Hill Hotel, San. Francisco, California THURSDAY, JULY 27 7:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. Humanism vs. Religion: Two Contrasting Ways of Life Paul Kurtz, Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo; Editor, Free Inquiry Gerald Larue, Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California; Chair, Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion

FRIDAY, JULY 28 Sponsored by the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion 9:00 A.M.-12:00 NOON Eastern Religious Views on the Afterlife CHAIR: Gerald Larue ISLAM: David Powers, Professor of Islamic Studies, Cornell University HINDUISM: Robert B. Tapp, Professor of Humanities, University of Minnesota BUDDHISM: Jock Hem, Zen Buddhist Priest; Clinical Psychologist

12:00 NOON-2:00 P. M. Luncheon: Religion and Politics in the 1990s Robert Alley, Professor of Humanities, University of Richmond 2:00 P.m.-5:00 P.M. Western Religious Views on the Afterlife CHAIR: R. Joseph Hoffmann, Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Hartwick College MORMONISM: Vern Bullough, Dean, Natural and Social Sciences, State University of New York College at Buffalo OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS: Randel Helms, Professor of English, Arizona University SATANISM AND CULTS: Shawn Carlson, Lawrence Berkeley Labs 5:00P.M-7:00P.M. Dinner (on your own) 7:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M. Humanism and Humor (optional) A visit to the Rose and Thistle Comedy Shop, featuring Paul Krassner, Political Satirist; Editor, the Realist

SATURDAY, JULY 29 Sponsored by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism 9:00 A.M-12:00 NOON Concurrent Sessions Session 1 Humanism and Happiness Marvin Kohl, Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York College at Fredonia Joe E. Barnhart, Professor of Philosophy, University of North Texas Lee Nisbet, Professor of Philosophy, Medaille College Session 2 Dealing With Death, Grief, and Euthanasia Verle Muhrer, Instructor in Philosophy, Penn Valley Community College Thomas Franczyk, Co-Editor, the Secular Humanist Bulletin Richard Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Union College (Saturday, July 29 continued) 12:00 NooN-2:00 P.M. Luncheon: Eupraxophy— Ethics Without Religion Tim Madigan, Executive Editor, Free Inquiry Thomas Flynn, Co-Editor, the Secular Humanist Bulletin 2:00 P.M.-3:30 P.M. Moral Education Sol Gordon, Professor Emeritus, Syracuse University Pearl Oliner, Professor of Education, Humboldt State University 3:30 P.M.-5:00 P.M. Humanism and Sexuality Bonnie Bullough, Dean of Nursing, State University of New York College at Buffalo Vern Bullough Priscilla Alexander, Director, COYOTE, National Task Force on Prostitution 5:30 P.m.-6:30 P.M. Recital James Dahlgren, Violinist, San Francisco Opera 7:30 P.M-10:30 P.M. Awards Banquet: Humanism and Critical Thinking KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Paul MacCready, President, Aerovironment, Inc. Philip Mass, Robert G. Ingersoll Memorial Committee; Licensed Clinical Social Worker Vern Bullough Bonnie Bullough Richard Taylor

SUNDAY, JULY 30 9:30 A.M.-12:00 NOON Enhancing the Humanist Message Paul Kurtz Gerard Straub, author, Salvation for Sale Molleen Matsumura, East Bay Secular Humanists Mary Beth Gehrman, Managing Editor, Free Inquiry 12:00 NooN-1:00 P.M. Lunch (on your own) 1:00 P.M-3:00 P.M. Workshops Secular Organizations for Sobriety, with James Christopher, Director Enhancing Personal Effectiveness, with Philip Mass Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, with Gerald Larue Secular Humanist Societies, with Tim Madigan, National Coordinator

❑ YES, I (we) plan to attend FREE INQUIRY's 1989 Conference. Enclosed is: ❑ Early registration fee for person(s) $75.00 each $ ❑ After May 1 registration fee for person(s) $85.00 each $ ❑ Friday luncheon for person(s) $15.95 each $ ❑ Friday stand-up comedy with Paul Krassner for person(s) $4.00 each $ ❑ Saturday luncheon for person(s) $15.95 each $ ❑ Saturday Awards Banquet for person(s) $30.00 each $ El Please check this box if you are interested in day care while at the conference. Total $ For accommodations contact the Cathedral Hill Hotel at (415) 776-8200. Mention FREE INQUIRY and receive a special discount. - Check Or Money Order (U.S. funds on U.S. bank, payable to FREE INQUIRY)

- Visa _MasterCard # Exp. Date o NO, I cannot attend FREE INQUIRY's 1989 Conference, but please accept my donation of $ to help cover the costs of future events.

Name

Address Daytime telephone number

City State Zip Return to: Jean Millholland, FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 • (716) 834-2921 Can We Achieve Immortality? The Ethics of Cloning and Other Technologies

Carol Kahn

o develop an ethics for the future, we must know director of research at Monsanto. Rather than cut down on what the future holds in store for us. Certainly vast all the calories, he reduced calories, he reduced a single essential Tincreases in life span will become possible, perhaps amino acid, tryptophan. Such a diet could never be applied within the lifetimes of many of us. But with each new to humans, since a lack of tryptophan could be deadly. In technology, questions and ethical dilemmas will arise. As the Segall's experiments, a number of the rats died, but a few bioethicist and humanist philosopher Joseph Fletcher writes, survived to great old age. The diet also dramatically delayed "New knowledge forces us uncomfortably to reappraise many reproductive aging. One female rat gave birth to a live pup things—family relations, life and death, male and female, good when she was thirty-three months old and lived to be four and evil, personal identity and integrity, parental ties, health years old, when 90 percent of her contemporaries had died and disease—nearly everything.", by the age of three; this feat is the equivalent of an eighty- Paul Segall, a gerontologist and visiting scientist at the year-old woman having a baby and then living to raise it. University of California at Berkeley, has identified seven "life No one really knows why we age; there are many competing extension sciences," areas of research that have been developed theories. The one favored by Segall is that aging is programmed mainly for other purposes but that could be brought together in the brain. Selected populations of cells die off according to form a powerful, multidisciplinary attack on the aging to a program that begins during embryonic development. process and on death itself. When the brain cells that make neurotransmitters die, that, The first life-extension science is interventive gerontology— in turn, causes other cells to die in a kind of cascade effect. slowing, stopping, or reversing the aging process. More than The results are the decrements of old age and, finally, death. fifty years ago, Clive McCay, a nutritionist at Cornell Uni- This theory has enormous implications for antiaging strate- versity, did a series of experiments that are considered a gies. If we could identify the cells that go out with age and benchmark of research in gerontology. By cutting the caloric replace them with either fetal cells or the products made by intake of laboratory rats to half of what they would normally the cells that die off, we might be able to achieve partial eat, he got them to live 50 percent longer than rats allowed rejuvenations. Several research teams are already injecting to eat all they wanted. In later studies of caloric restriction, human fetal brain cells into the brains of people with some of the animals lived more than 1,800 days, which would Parkinson's disease. Many researchers believe that fetal brain be like a person living to the age of 150. cells could be used to treat other conditions in which brain Some years ago, Segall began a series of experiments on cell destruction plays a role, such as Alzheimer's disease and laboratory rats based on stroke. And if the theory of selective cell death with age is McCay's work but modified true, then fetal cell implants might reverse aging itself. along the lines developed by The second life-extension science is , Richard Gordon, a former the use of low temperature to slow down the body processes. There is a species of frog in the northern United States that Carol Kahn is a feature actually freezes during the winter months. When the snow writer for Omni magazine falls, it crawls under the leaf cover and one third of its body and the author of two books turns to ice. Then in the spring, the snow melts, the sun warms on life extension: Living the frog and it comes to life. In 1982, a group of scientists Longer, Growing Younger found that these frogs produced the chemicals glucose or (co-author Paul Segall), and glycerol at the time they started to freeze, which acted as Beyond the Helix: DNA and cryoprotectants, a kind of biological antifreeze that protected the Quest for Longevity. their cells. Segall and his colleagues have succeeded in chilling ham-

14 FREE INQUIRY sters and dogs to very low temperatures and then reviving Segall's idea is to use this technology to create body clones them. In one highly publicized experiment he removed a dog's that could be used as spare parts. First an embryo would blood, replaced it with a blood substitute, chilled the animal be cloned from a somatic cell (any cell that is not an an to 38 degrees Fahrenheit, and kept it at that temperature for egg or sperm) and then, when the embryo is six weeks of fifteen minutes. At that point the dog was essentially dead, age, the collection of primitive cells called the telencephalon, its heart stilled, its blood in the refrigerator. Segall then the forerunner of the higher brain, would be removed and reversed the procedure, replacing the blood substitute with frozen. In this way, the clone would never be allowed to develop the animal's blood and warming it back up again. The dog the one thing that makes us human—a brain. Indeed, the revived fully and is still alive and well two years later. clone would never become a sentient being. It would then The use of chilled blood substitution could revolutionize be grown to term in a surrogate uterus of some kind, either medicine and surgery. For instance, there are indications from in a closely related species such as a chimp, in a human uterus other animal experiments that it might be possible to keep that was removed during a hysterectomy and maintained by someone at the ice point—the temperature at which water organ-preservation techniques, or in a womb made of synthetic starts to freeze—for up to eight hours. In the recent Johns materials. Hopkins operation on Siamese twins who were joined at the head, the doctors had to race against the clock, running over You cannot go into the twenty-first century the one-hour safety limit by ten minutes, with results yet to be determined. Imagine if they could have had eight hours. with the morality of the sixteenth century. Blood substitutes could be used in certain dangerous opera- The future is already happening. As ethical tions where one slip of the knife can mean that a patient bleeds to death, or in bypass surgery, where patients may humanists, what should our response be? require up to thirty pints of transfused blood. It would also mean not having to rely on transfused blood, which might Once it was delivered by Caesarian section, it would be carry undetected infectious agents. In cases of cancer, surgeons grown to appropriate size by intravenous feeding and hor- could drench an affected organ with antitumor drugs while mone injections. At this point it would be the equivalent of the rest of the body was maintained at the freezing point, a brain-dead organ donor. Since the clone would have exactly protecting it from the toxic effects of the chemotherapy. This the same genetic makeup as the cell donor, all its parts—from technique could also be used after death to preserve the body the facial features to the vital organs—would be identical to until the best possible use of its organs for transplantation the donor's. The use of cloned cells, tissues, and organs would could be determined. allow nearly every part of the body that has been damaged by disease, age, or accident to be replaced with no possibility he most developed of the life-extension sciences are organ of rejection. Even the cells of the telencephalon that had earlier T transplantation and artificial organs. For more than two been set aside and frozen could be thawed and used as brain- decades now, people whose hearts or kidneys could no longer cell transplants, the way fetal cells are now. Cloning would sustain life have been given second, and in some cases, even make total age reversal a reality, allowing your old worn-out third reprieves from the death sentence that hung over them. body to be replaced, inside and out, by your youthful self. The success of transplanted organs is mainly due to a remark- Is cloning possible? Until a few years ago, the possibility able drug, cyclosporin A, which suppresses the immune-rejec- seemed unlikely; although it had been done with frogs in 1962, tion response. The very success of the organ transplantation no one had ever succeeded in doing it in a mammal except program has led to a second problem: Where will the organs in one unrepeatable experiment. Then, in 1986, to everyone's come from? One response has been to develop artificial organs, great surprise, Steen Willadsen, a Danish researcher working which at present are poor substitutes for human ones. The in England, announced the successful cloning of three lambs. artificial heart program, which was plagued with problems He and others then went on to clone bulls and cows. In the in the first go-round, has just been given the green light to case of the farm animals, the cells used to create the clones develop a fully implantable synthetic heart. Bionic lungs, livers, were taken from embryos in the very early stages of eyes, ears, glands, blood, uteruses, and even brain-assist devices development. But if cloning is to be used for medical purposes, are all on the drawing board. it will be necessary to clone cells taken from adults, which But in Segall's view, artificial and transplanted human has not yet been successfully accomplished even in frogs. organs are only a stopgap until the fifth life-extension science, However, I have interviewed many of the leading cloners, cloning, is available. Cloning is the use of asexual reproduc- including Willadsen, who is now with a high-tech agricultural tion to produce a genetic duplicate of the individual from company in Calgary, Canada, and they all agreed that the which it is derived. The clone begins with a cell taken from techniques now exist for cloning human embryos and that some part of the body other than the sperm or eggs. The cloning from adult cells is a distinct possibility in the future. nucleus of the cell, which contains the chromosomes, is then The sixth life-extension science is resuscitation—bringing removed and placed into an egg cell that has been emptied people back from the dead. I spoke with the world leader of its own nucleus. The egg now contains only the genetic in resuscitation, Peter Safar, director of the Resuscitation information from the individual who donated the body cell Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Using tech- and when it develops it will be a clone of that individual. niques that Safar helped developed, two people have been fully

Spring 1989 15 revived after twenty minutes of clinical death, which is defined had been completely severed, researchers in Ottawa and Boston as a prolonged state of pulselessness. He believes that the "five- were able to get 8 percent of the spinal fibers to grow back minute limit," which clinicians have long considered the out- across the severed area. While the animals still had no function side margin for resuscitation, is no longer accurate. By the in their lower bodies, the investigators were able to transmit year 2000, he predicts, revival after twenty minutes will be electrical signals across the severed spines into the brain. This routine. This will be done by hooking a person up to a heart- kind of nerve regeneration, says Jack de la Torre, the Canadian lung machine to control the circulation, and then delivering researcher who carried out the work, may one day allow resuscitation drugs like the ones now being tested in worldwide paralyzed people to walk again; Alzheimer patients to regain clinical trials coordinated by Safar. The addition of lowered their memories; and people with brain damage caused by aging, temperatures should make it possible to extend the period of disease, or the removal of cerebral tumors to have their mental revival after death to an hour or more or to keep a person and physical functions restored. on ice until resuscitation can be carried out. The ultimate application of the life-extension sciences is Closely tied to resuscitation is the seventh life-extension cryonics, the freezing of people at death until it becomes possible science, regeneration. Whereas resuscitation is aimed at bring- to revive them in the future. This science incorporates all the ing the dead back to life, regeneration is directed at creating others. It combines suspended animation, resuscitation, cloned new life at the cellular level. The first medical use of regenera- body parts, the surgical techniques of organ transplantation tion has already begun with the use of growth factors. These and artificial organs, the antiaging drugs of interventive are hormonelike substances in the human body that stimulate gerontology, and, in cases where one elects to keep only one's or guide the development of new cells. Blood-growth factors brain and replace it with an entirely new body, the brain- have been used to generate red and white blood cells in patients spine reconnection of regeneration technology. With reversible with AIDS, anemia, and cancer. Skin-growth factors grow cryonics, human beings would achieve near immortality. skin in the laboratory and have halved the time it takes wounds Cryonics is the most futuristic application of all the life- to heal. So far about thirty growth factors have been discovered extension sciences and the one that will take the longest to and almost all of them are being explored for their healing develop, though progress is being made. The techniques for potential. Even the brain and spinal cord, long believed to freezing people and protecting their bodies against ice damage be incapable of growth and repair, are being made to regenerate. are constantly improving. At the same time, researchers have In one extraordinary series of experiments on cats whose spines been able to bring back animals from lower and lower tempera- tures. In his latest experiments, Segall has brought frozen hamsters to minus 20 degrees centigrade (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) and kept them at that temperature overnight. Free Inquiry Although he has not been able to revive them, he did get a quarterly some electrical activity in the heart, indicating that a number of the heart cells were still intact. And then there is the experi- devoted to the ideals of ment in nature that is successfully repeated every winter when and freedom the north-country frogs freeze and revive again in the spring. If we could learn the secrets of the frogs, the burial ground We invite you to subscribe of the twenty-first century might consist of cryocapsules for ❑ 1 year $22.50 storing frozen bodies, accompanied by liquid nitrogen tanks. ❑ 2 years $39.00 ❑ his, then, may be the future that awaits us. Don Yar- 3 years $54.00 T borough, a former candidate for governor of Texas who Subscription includes the Secular Humanist Bulletin has given a lot of money to life-extension research, has a saying: ❑ New ❑ Check or money "You cannot go into the twenty-first century with the morality ❑ Renew order enclosed of the sixteenth-century." And I believe that to be the case. As a journalist, I feel that my first responsibility is to bring ❑ Visa ❑ MasterCard the advances of medical technology to people's attention and Acct. # Exp. Date let them make up their own minds. The future is already Name happening. So, as ethical humanists, what should our response (print clearly) be? Street The first question one might ask is, Is life extension desir- able? Among the things that people have said when asked City State Zip about this are: "Life is long enough," "Life would get boring," 0utside U.S. add $6.00 for surface mail, $12.00 for airmail. "Death is a part of life," "It goes against nature," "Will God (U.S. funds on U.S. bank). get mad?" Many people would disagree with these assessments. FREE INQUIRY, Box 5 • Buffalo, New York 14215-0005 Joseph Fletcher writes, "[I]f any act or policy is the wisest Tele: 716-834-2921 as measured by human need and well-being, then it's positively Call TOLL-FREE 1-800-458-1366 outside New York State. good, positively the right thing to do."2 It is well within the humanist tradition to relieve human suffering. Nothing in the

16 FREE INQUIRY entire world creates or has created more suffering over the differentiated into actual brain cells. In this way the clone centuries than disease and old age. My mother died of cancer develops into a brainless body and is nothing more than a at the age of fifty, and my father had a debilitating stroke collection of living cells, tissues, and organs. It has no that left him almost quadriplegic with 80 percent use of his consciousness to guide its actions or provide an identity. It left arm. To promote activities that would allow us to prevent cannot feel pain, think, experience, have an emotion, or sense or alleviate this kind of suffering and to live truly functional its environment. On an evolutionary scale, it is lower than lives for as long as is humanly possible seems to me most a fish. And, significantly, body clones would do away with ethical and humane. the fears expressed by the German doctors and others that If you can agree that life extension is a desirable and ethical mothers might sell their fetuses or anencephalic babies for goal, then the next question is, what about the means by which spare parts. Since the purpose of a body clone is to provide it will be carried out? Are these ethical? Humanists maintain rejection-free parts, it can only do this for the person from that the restraints on human happiness have to come from which it was derived. The clone would not have this value man, not from God. In other words, the means employed for any other individual. should not harm others or violate our common sense of We must also consider what we would be giving up by humanity. not going forward with such research. A few years ago my So where does that leave us with respect to using brain- twenty-six-year-old nephew, a wonderful young newlywed, absent clones for spare-parts replacement? Even if the goal died after a harrowing battle with leukemia. A cloned bone- is a worthy one, should an individual be allowed to pursue marrow transplant would have saved his life. During a scien- it if the means required grossly offend our sensibilities? What tific meeting recently, I was talking to two researchers about if the means involve removing the higher brain of a fetus so that it never develops into a thinking, feeling individual? Or gestating this brainless baby in the womb of a chimpanzee We must consider what we would be giving and then dismembering it in order to harvest its parts for up by not going ahead with life-extension transplantation? research. Is it more humane to use the These are not questions for which there are easy answers, but there are precedents. In the United States and in many technology when it becomes available, or to other countries, abortion on demand has been legalized be- allow an individual to suffer and die instead? cause it is generally believed that the woman's right to choose not to have a child takes precedence over the fetus's right the possibility of body clones. One was appalled by the idea to be born. Again, it is the promotion of human happiness and said it should be stopped at all costs. The other said, and well-being that is at stake. The fetus is regarded, at least "I had a kidney transplant. If I could have had the choice in the early and middle stages of gestational life, as something of a cloned kidney, I would have taken it." Today, in order less than a fully functional human being, and unless one believes to keep a transplanted organ from being rejected, patients must that the fetus has an immortal soul that is being destroyed, take drugs that interfere with immune function and in some no other conclusion is logical. cases even cause an AIDS-like syndrome in which the body Human fetal cells are now being used in Mexico and Sweden is unable to ward off opportunistic infections. to treat Parkinson's disease. And, though the practice has been Cloning would also solve another increasingly vexing prob- stopped in the United States, anencephalic babies that lack lem of transplantation—the supply of available organs. Right a higher brain continue to be used in West Germany as organ now the majority of people in need of a transplant die before donors; the courts have ruled that the anencephalic fetus has a suitable organ becomes available. The suffering of those with never been alive despite the presence of a heartbeat, and organ disease is immense and terrible to behold. Anyone who therefore pregnancy involving a brain-absent fetus can be has ever seen someone they love waste away from cancer or terminated at any stage. In a report in the New England Journal who has experienced the loss of function of some part of their of Medicine, however, the medical team that performed the body knows how just how inhuman that is. The question we West German operations registered their objections to "relaxing have to ask is, which is more inhuman—creating a brain-absent the protection of fetuses or newborns with anomalies less clone for the purpose of harvesting spare parts, or purposely devastating than anencephaly and also to offering any financial refraining from using the technology when it becomes available, gains for parents who might allow their anencephalic infants allowing the individual to suffer and die instead? to be born as organ donors."' Another potentially explosive issue raised by radical ad- One may argue that the difference between harvesting a vances in life extension is: Who would benefit from it? Would body clone and using the tissues of an aborted fetus or the it be only for the wealthy? Would the gap between the haves organs of an anencephalic baby is that in the latter instances and have-nots become an abyss in which those who have wealth the fetus was not conceived for the sole purpose of using and power would become close to immortal, while those who its spare parts. But the body clone is exactly the same as are poor would lead lives that were not only wretched but the anencephalic infant or the early fetus in that no sentient short? Right now it is a fact of life that the rich enjoy much being is being harmed in the process. As I mentioned earlier, better health care and lead longer lives. But we have seen that the cells destined to become the higher brain of the clone medical breakthroughs eventually are made available to are removed very early in fetal life, before they have virtually all strata of society. Antibiotics are now in use every-

Spring 1989 17 where and smallpox has been wiped off the face of the earth. destiny in the twenty-first century is not only to extend our Life expectancy has risen all over the world, even in the poorest own lives, but to extend life itself beyond the confines of the societies. And it is a given that once a technology becomes earth. mass-produced, its price drops precipitously. Indeed, there are indications that cloning would not be all that expensive. Willadsen is trying to get the cost of cloning a cow down Notes (Buffalo, N.Y.: to $3,000—far less than most medical procedures, and one- I. Joseph Fletcher, The Ethics of Genetic Control third the price of many new cars. And with mass production, Prometheus Books, 1988), p. 17. costs could dip even further. Of course, there is the expense 2. Ibid., p. 31. 3. Wolfgang Holzgrove, et al. "Kidney Transplantation from Anen- 17, April cephalic Donors," New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 36, no. • As the bioethicist and humanist philosopher 23, 1987. Joseph Fletcher writes, "New knowledge forces us uncomfortably to reappraise many things—family relations, life and death, male and female, good and evil, personal identity and integrity, parental ties, health and disease—nearly everything."

of storing the clone in liquid nitrogen and having transplant operations performed, but this would still be far lower than today's chemotherapy treatments and antirejection drugs. In the long run, cloning would be a cheap way to save lives. Even the cost of cryonics, which is paid for today with insurance policies that run about a dollar a day for someone twenty-five years old, should be much lower as the machines that are required to put a body into suspension are produced on assembly lines. As with everything else, choices will have to be made and people will have to decide whether they will forego certain luxuries today in order to have longer lives tomorrow. Another major problem is what we will do with all the people that may result from a longevity revolution such as I have described. Of course, birth control would be essential, but we are already approaching zero population growth in many parts of the industrialized world. In fact, in some coun- tries, such as Romania, the government is worried about underpopulation. Also, Segall's experiments in interventive gerontology show that the reproductive life of the animal is extended. If this holds true for humans, a woman might choose to hold off having a child until she is eighty years old. Moreover, many areas of the world are currently uninhabited. Canada is one of the largest land masses in the world and has a population of just twenty-two million. In the future we may learn to make this and other areas, including the deserts, the mountaintops, and the ice caps suitable for habitation by large numbers of people. And of course, we have our rockets aimed at the stars. But how are we going to get there? We are going to get there through cloning, cryonics, and suspended animation. We are going to need all these things if we are going to have life extension, and we will need life extension if we are going to travel vast distances into space. Life extension will make possible space migration and space migration in turn will solve the overpopulation problem brought about by life extension. Maybe you think this is science fiction, but I like to think it will happen. Maybe our human

18 FREE INQUIRY Many Are Cold But Few Are Frozen: A Humanist Looks at Cryonics

Steven B. Harris Some people want to achieve immortality through their works it. Yet here again, moral and practical differences arise. Is or their descendants; I want to achieve immortality through there any real possibility of success in cryonics? Or is it not dying. just another comforting dream of the sort that humanists —Woody Allen have already bravely forsaken? And even if it might work, should it be practiced by "good" humanists anyway? What n contrast to the novelty book of a few years past that is the role and/or "value" of death in the philosophy of promised 101 things that could be done with a dead humanism? cat, it is doubtful that there are 101 things that can be The following is intended as an introduction to cryonics done with a dead humanist. Notwithstanding this, there is for the humanist, as the field appears to be something always one more choice in this difficult matter than most genuinely new and interesting in the way of applied human people think, and that last novel option is the subject of this philosophy. More than that, however, a discussion of a article. philosophy that separates the themes of immortality and This article does not address sea burial, cremation, ana- theism promises to offer some insight into the difficult ques- tomical donation, or nontheistic funeral services. Instead, the tion of what it means to be a humanist. subject is cryonics, the practice of freezing human bodies in the hope of one day (in the far future) being able to revive these persons and restore them to health and youth. Strange Cryonics and Materialism and unworkable as this idea might at first appear, cryonics is nevertheless practiced today by several groups of (otherwise) Origins. The word cryonics, though now in most dictionaries, quite rational people in the United States. is a very specific term referring to the freezing of people, Cryonics is both a practice and a philosophy; both aspects and it was coined only in 1965. The first thing to know about of it are potentially of interest to humanists. The philosophy the word is that it is not to be confused with the more staid of cryonics, as it turns out, is in some ways merely an exten- (and much more respectable) scientific discipline of cryogenics, sion of familiar humanistic premises. Both cryonics and which is simply the study of cold temperatures. humanism are based on physical materialism. And, like The history of cryonics, as the etymology implies, is rather humanism, cryonics looks toward mankind rather than a deity short. Although the basic idea of suspended animation in for salvation. fiction is at least several centuries old (remember Rip Van At the same time, there are differences between the two Winkle), the idea of a human being preserved into the far philosophies that make for interesting contrasts. Humanists, future specifically by freezing was first introduced during the for instance, tend to hold a very social view of the role and 1930s in a science fiction story by Neal R. Jones. It was not value of the individual (more on this later). In contrast, those until 1964 that a Michigan physics teacher named Robert who practice cryonics ("cryonicists") are strong individualists. W. Ettinger published a book called The Prospect of In addition, while both humanists and cryonicists place con- Immortality (Doubleday), in which he seriously suggested that siderable faith in human nature, cryonicists possess a faith freezing people for the future might be a sensible thing to in human technical progress that the average person (including do in real life. the average humanist) might consider to be far-fetched. Specifically, Ettinger argued that cryogenics and medical On the practical side, the practice of cryonics may hold technology were advanced enough already to do the "front a certain allure for the individual nontheist or humanist who end" (freezing) part of the cryonics preservation procedure, wants to believe it might be possible to cheat death but can't and that the ability to do this relatively simple procedure quite make himself believe in mysticism in order to go about was all that was required to make cryonics practical now. We could start immediately, said Ettinger, and let the really Steven B. Harris, M.D., is a medical researcher in the field difficult part (thawing and revival) be taken care of by more of experimental gerontology. He has published several articles knowledgeable people later. Much later. in that field. Some materialist philosophy. The idea of cryonics takes considerable getting used to, but Ettinger's outlook on nature

Spring 1989 19 was in many ways similar to that of the modern secular of vitalism, in which life is some combination of ordinary humanist. In fact, the most difficult premise of cryonics is matter plus some irreducible metaphysical "spark." Instead, philosophical materialism, a belief that most humanists al- mechanists see living organisms as incredibly complex ready take more or less for granted. Simply stated, Ettinger machines. believed that human beings are made of physical materials Mechanists like to point out that this view of life has and nothing else. In other words, a human being was to be experimental support. Like machines, certain living organisms seen as a collection of atoms, with no extra metaphysical, can be "stopped" by putting them into full suspended anima- supernatural, or "ghostly" ingredients. tion (by freezing or dehydration). Later, the organism can This is an idea whose ramifications deserve attention, and be revived at the scientist's leisure. Many different cells and before we move on to discuss Ettinger's specific arguments tissues can be frozen in liquid nitrogen at hundreds of degrees for the practice of cryonics, it will be well to pause for a below zero, and even stored in liquid helium at nearly absolute closer look at the philosophy of materialism as it applies to zero. In the frozen state near absolute zero, there is no biology and the question of human identity. Later, we will metabolism. The machine has stopped; life has stopped. examine the practical applications of those views. Recently, it has been demonstrated that certain tissues can A pattern of atoms. A human being, in the materialist even be freeze-dried without damage and stored at room stance taken by Ettinger, is essentially a pattern. In this view, temperature on a shelf, inert. although a human being is certainly the collection of atoms And yet the machine can be made to run and live again. that make up the body, the essence of the person is to be Freeze-dried tissues can be rehydrated like a backpacker's found in the information recorded by the arrangement of the dinner, after which they return to life. And a number of healthy atoms. Thus, a person is not to be confused with the materials babies have been born in recent years who developed from composing his or her body, any more than (for instance) Moby embryos that at one time had been frozen to the point of Dick is to be confused with the paper and ink that make having no metabolism at all. up any particular volume of the work. Materialists and death. The presumption of materialism, The difference between material and information can be applied to biology, has further interesting consequences. One illustrated by extending the book analogy: Just as the essential of these philosophic consequences is that if life is viewed as identity of Moby Dick does not change if one tears pages simply the running of a complex machine, then death needs out of a particular volume of the work and replaces them redefinition. Mechanists do not believe in the existence of one by one with photocopies, so the essential identity of a some spark, vital force, or soul, the departure of which consti- human does not change when the body picks up and discards tutes death. Nor does the absence of life (metabolism) con- atoms in the day-to-day process of metabolism. Our materials stitute death, if the word death is to retain its familiar (atoms) change every day, but we still remain us. We would connotation of permanence. For example, a frozen or dehy- even remain us if every one of our atoms was replaced, as drated cell with no metabolism is clearly not dead, in the long as the replacement was done carefully. We are the in- usual, permanent sense, if it can be brought to life on demand. formation, not the materials. We are information beings. How, then, can a materialist define death? We are our brains. Once the initial premise about the Some materialists have proposed a solution to this semantic connection between identity and information has been granted, problem that uses one of the concepts already discussed above. it seems obvious that some of the information in a human If life is seen in terms of information, as discussed earlier, body is likely to be more important for identity than the then death may be usefully defined as the permanent loss rest of it. A person who has lost a limb, for instance, or of that information. In a parallel way, the death of a person has a transplanted heart, is still the same person. It is the (destruction of his personal identity) corresponds with loss information in the brain that is crucial. The DNA in most of the information in his brain that specifies who he is. Phys- of our cells contains the information to make identical twins ically, then, this view implies that "materialist death" comes of us, perhaps, but it is the brain that contains the information to an individual with irretrievable destruction of whatever that makes each of us unique. brain structures specify memory, intelligence, and personality. In the materialist view, the "essential identity" of indi- The nitty-gritty about timing. Now we come to an even viduals—that which makes them who they are—mostly in- more difficult question: If the death of a person happens when volves the interplay of mental factors such as memories, degree the essential structural identity information in his brain is of intelligence, and basic personality and belief systems. Mental destroyed, then at what time during the dying process does identity factors are in turn defined by the physical structure this loss take place? of the brain—that is, by how the atoms of the brain are The answer is unknown, but there are intriguing and even arranged.' Thus, to the materialist, we are our brains, and horrifying possibilities. It is, for instance, entirely possible that would continue to be (essentially) ourselves even if all parts the "materialist death" of an individual does not happen until of our bodies but our brains could be replaced with many hours after the heartbeat and breathing stop in what transplanted parts from someone else. doctors call clinical death. The reason for this possibility is What is life? The "mechanistic" view of life demanded by that brain structures, down to the structure of individual brain materialism has other implications sometimes not considered cells, are known to stay reasonably intact for at least that by materialists. One of these is that there is no "magic" about long after clinical death. Thus, the critical structural life itself. Mechanists do not believe in the old philosophy information that determines personal identity may well con-

20 FREE INQUIRY tinue to be preserved for a relatively long time. repair capacity of the organism, or (perhaps) the repair capacity Neurons (electrically active brain cells) are sometimes said of the resuscitation technology. Ettinger argued that it was to "die" within a handful of minutes of being without oxygen. foolish to suppose that ability to resuscitate dead cells or dead This isn't true. Strictly speaking, what happens is that a few people would never progress further than the present state minutes without oxygen and nutrients selectively damages the of the art. On the contrary, he surmised that many of the circulatory system of the brain so that neurons are doomed "fresh corpses" autopsied today are (by the standards of the to disintegrate and be destroyed many hours later as a conse- future) only very sick. quence of loss of circulation. Thus, after a few minutes without This was strong stuff, but for Ettinger the question was oxygen, the brain as a whole passes a point after which it not moot of exactly when "forever irreversible" death occurred. cannot be revived by present techniques—yet the individual For Ettinger argued that a person might be frozen, as a neurons are still fully capable of metabolism long after the desperate measure, in that uncertain time interval between traditional four to six minutes. when the doctors of the present give up and when the doctors There is more: Even when individual neurons stop their of the future would give up if confronted with the identical metabolism, it is difficult to say that they are dead. The problem. The freezing process itself, said Ettinger, when car- problem is that it is generally impossible to tell exactly when ried out properly, might not do so much extra damage that any cell dies, and neurons are no exception. In fact, the very it would not be repairable. And if identity resides in the physical idea that cell death is a sudden event, rather than a process, arrangement of the atoms of the brain, Ettinger noted, then is a vitalist one in disguise. It brings up the image of a small that arrangement, and consequently the person's identity, is cellular ghost leaving each cell when it goes permanently probably preserved by freezing. defunct. The promise. That was the scenario Ettinger offered in Without the kind of supernatural event noted above, it The Prospect of Immortality. Once repaired and revived, a isn't clear how a term like "cell death" is to be defined, except frozen person would have diseases cured and youth restored (again) in terms of information. If a cell is a machine, then by the same cellular repair technology used in the revival.2 a term like "cell death" is equivalent in a sense to, say, "automo- One would wake in a world of plenty. It would, after all, bile death." But death must carry the idea of permanence, need to be a world of plenty to be able to afford luxuries and an automobile cannot be said to be gone beyond any like reviving frozen people. If one woke up at all, then it recall or restoration until it is totally melted down and would be to a world of high-tech magic. What was there destroyed—or, in other words, until its information is gone. to lose? The gamble seemed sound. So, presumably, with a cell. Or a brain composed of cells. The practical takers. On January 12, 1967, someone decided Or a human being. The cryonicist's argument. In the early 1960s, as noted, Dr. pushed the materialist philosophy to its logical conclusion. Specifically, he argued that what we now Help Further the Cause term "dead" neurons might one day be repairable and reviv- of Humanism. able given the proper science just as a badly damaged auto- Please remember FREE INQUIRY in your will. mobile that can't be fixed in an average home garage might Won't you consider making a provision in your will still be repairable if taken to a master mechanic. Thus, Ettinger for FREE INQUIRY and the Council for Democratic and noted, a "dead" person with reasonably intact neurons (per- Secular Humanism? This will ensure vital support sonal identity information still present) might only be as "dead" for the defense and development of humanism. as the technology of society was ignorant. Inability to Although humanists do not believe in immortal- resuscitate, warned Ettinger, should never be held up as con- ity, they know that the good work they do will sur- clusive proof that resuscitation was not theoretically possible. vive them. By leaving a percentage of your estate to FREE INQUIRY (CODESH, INC.), you will be furthering There was, of course, precedent for Ettinger's warning. the ideals of humanism. Before electrical cardioversion (electrical shock to the heart) We would be happy to work with you and your was invented, medical science considered a human being dead attorney in the development of a will or estate plan when his or her heart stopped. With later advances in tech- that meets your wishes. nology, however, things changed. People in medical states Besides a will, there are many other possibilities, previously classed as dead suddenly became dead no longer, such as living trusts and charitable gift annuities and this was because new technology had changed the defini- from which you receive an annual income from the transfer of property now. Or you might make a con- tions, not the condition of the patient. In fact, in certain tingent bequest, by which FREE INQUIRY (CODESH, circumstances a person whose heart had just stopped eventu- INC.) will receive a gift only if your primary bene- ally came to be considered only "very sick." ficiaries do not survive you. Ettinger was saying that it made no sense to define personal For more information, contact Paul Kurtz, Editor death in terms of cell death, since it was impossible to tell of FREE INQUIRY. just when intact cells had died. Cells, he argued, are machines. P.O. Box 5 • Central Park Station They either ran or not, but permanent death was certainly Buffalo, New York 16215. 716-834-2921 not indicated by failure to run. In Ettinger's view, whether All inquiries will be held in the strictest confidence. cells could be made to run again depended solely upon the

Spring 1989 21 to take the gamble. A psychology professor named James an extra life insurance policy taken out by the cryonaut, with H. Bedford died of cancer in his Glendale, California, home, the cryonics organization listed as beneficiary. No longer is and, in accordance with his prior arrangement, was frozen there danger of money drying up when relatives have passed in liquid nitrogen at 321 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Life through their grieving period—for arrangements are no longer magazine devoted a layout to the procedure, but the fatal made in this fashion. Apollo 1 fire some days later shut down that particular edition of the magazine before it had a chance at wide circulation. The result was that cryonics received its major publicity debut Cryonics and Humanism not from Bedford, but from the unaccountably persistent rumor that cartoonist Walt Disney had been secretly frozen Is cryonics a religion? What is the secular humanist to make after his death in late 1966.3 of all this? Having one's body frozen in the circumstances The history of the first ten years of practical cryonics is described above is an act of considerable faith, indeed perhaps a somewhat rocky tale of beginner's mistakes, incompetence, faith of a religious magnitude. An interesting observation is and financial problems. As many as fifty people were frozen that the idea of cryonics does seem to occupy the same space during in those years. However, keeping them in that state, in the mind as does religion (or for that matter, secular which required constant tending and infusions of difficult- humanism), so that people who occupy themselves with several to-handle liquid nitrogen, proved more difficult. Some of them of these philosophies at a time are rare. thawed. A similar fate befell many "suspendees" supported There is as much argument in the cryonics movement as by payments from relatives. After a time the relatives almost to whether cryonics should be considered a "religion" as there invariably lost interest, suffered financial problems, or died. is in the humanist movement over the same question. Cryonics When the money ran out, entropy took over. presents a kind of resurrection myth, and certainly the resur- The modern cryonics movement. Today, the census of in- rection myth in various forms has been a mainstay of religion tact bodies frozen at liquid nitrogen temperatures in the United for a very long time. We know that Neanderthal man buried States stands at eight. One of these is the first cryonaut, James his dead with food and tools. We know that many ancient Bedford, who, after more than two decades, still reposes religions had resurrected gods—Osiris, Tammuz, Dionysus, peacefully unchanged in liquid nitrogen in a vacuum-insulated Adonis, Quetzalcoatl, and so forth—and that the resurrection steel cylinder in the cryonics laboratory of Alcor Life Ex- myth was present in biblical Palestine even before the death tension Foundation in Riverside, California. An additional of Jesus (Matt. 14:1-12, 16:13-14). Further, we observe that few intrepid souls have chosen and followed through with very often when the cryonicslike theme of technological the cheaper alternative of having their brains or heads frozen resurrection is present in science fiction stories or movies after death—the thought being that presumably any tech- (Frankenstein, The Day the Earth Stood Still, E. T.: The Extra- nology able to repair every cell in a body should also be Terrestrial, Starman), it is often accompanied by heavily able to grow a new body to house the brain, from the blueprint religious or messianic themes. of the DNA. And it is true that cryonics indeed offers a seemingly reli- Cryonics organizations, of which there are three in the gious menu: The chance of salvation by both works and faith; country, are growing slowly.4 Several hundred people (most the prospect of resurrection after death; the hope of functional of them in excellent health) have contracted to undergo at immortality in a coming millennium. There are parallels clinical death the rather complicated procedure of freezing. between cryonics and Roman Catholicism, in which the bodies In today's cryonics organizations, arrangements to be frozen of saints are preserved and venerated. And in a modern, at death must be made well in advance by the person who technological way, cryonics mirrors the religious rituals of is to be frozen. Cryonics organizations no longer accept "last ancient Egypt, in which the body was fanatically preserved minute cases," and as a matter of policy make it a practice and prepared for a long trip through darkness before being not to solicit among the dying. reunited with the breath of life. The logistics of the actual freezing process are difficult. On the other side of of the argument, however, it may Teams of technicians stand by around the clock, in constant be noted that one necessary and sufficient element of any preparedness in case of the legal demise of a member of the religion is the promulgation of a unique code of morality, cryonics organization. Such teams begin the process of cooling or ethically correct conduct. A specific philosophy of living the body as soon as possible after cardiac arrest has occurred of this kind is lacking in cryonics, which in general demands and death has been pronounced by a physician. Then, after of its patrons no more allegiance to a particular ethical code transportation to a special laboratory and surgical suite, the than does, for instance, a modern hospital intensive care unit. body is hooked to a heart-lung machine that maintains Faith in humanity. If belief in cryonics is a matter of faith, oxygenation to still-metabolizing tissues, while the blood is it is useful to inquire in what ways this faith differs from drained and chemicals circulated to minimize freezing damage. that of the humanist. Both humanists and cryonicists place Eventually, every "cryonaut" is cooled to the temperature little or no faith in a deity, and relatively more faith in mankind. of liquid nitrogen over several weeks time, and stored in a It can be fairly said, however, that humanists are in general liquid-nitrogen-filled, vacuum-insulated flask. A fund is then more skeptical about the nature of mankind. How is this activated that pays for what cemeteries under similar circum- so? stances call "perpetual care." This money usually comes from To begin with, the philosophy of cryonics places nearly

22 FREE INQUIRY unlimited faith in the ultimate technological achievement that the potential rewards of cryonics are worth having, the potential of human beings. Mankind, according to this think- question of whether to invest in that belief is one of playing ing, will eventually be able to do anything not prohibited the odds. Cryonicists are fond of pointing out that however by the ground rules of the universe in which we find ourselves. poor the odds of waking up in the future with cryonics, they Since these physical laws do not appear at present to prohibit are infinitely poorer if one is instead cremated. Nevertheless, the development of technologies to enable people to be phys- this sort of thinking is merely an updated version of Pascal's ically rejuvenated at will, cryonicists suspect that not only wager, which most humanists have already rejected. will this technology eventually come to pass, but that the Pascal, of course, pointed out that the best odds for eternal time frame for development will be in hundreds rather than happiness lay in being theistically religious, since if the reli- thousands of years. gious view was correct there was everything to gain, while Humanists, too, believe (as William Faulkner put it) that at the same time, if it was wrong there was little to lose. mankind will not only endure but also prevail. Yet it is not Humanists have long argued that, even when one had decided clear whether this humanistic vision of triumph will include to be religious, there was no way of figuring out which of the ultimate mastery of all the masterable aspects of the uni- many mutually exclusive religions was the correct one. In verse. Most humanists, at the very least, have probably not addition, humanists have believed that holding an incorrect thought out how this mastery will affect the age-old problem religious view does causes a great deal of loss during life. of mortality. One of the problems is that mankind seems These losses include loss of some of the freedom to choose genetically and culturally conditioned to accept the reality one's own sense of meaning; loss of time, wealth, and energy of his present life span, and old habits die hard. donated to a worthless religious cause; loss of the freedom Faith in human organizations. The cryonicists' faith in to do a number of harmless and enjoyable things without mankind shows up in another place as well. Along with a guilt; and so forth. belief in the potential of technology, cryonicists have a touch- If cryonics doesn't work, there are similar losses to be ing faith in the potential of their organizations. Indeed, some considered. First, there is money: several hundred dollars a cryonics organizations now are run like small parishes or large year in membership fees while one is alive, plus the cost of families, where most of the members know each other and maintaining an extra $35,000 to $150,000 life-insurance policy. routinely donate time to the common good. Frozen members There is also the social loss of the cryonics care fund money, are treated with particular reverence, since each animate which would otherwise be available as estate to one's descen- member fully expects to wind up in the frozen condition himself dants, or even favorite charities (money that buys liquid nitro- by and by. gen to keep a worthless old corpse frozen could instead be The humanist or outsider is likely to view such arrange- going to Ethiopia or CODESH). ments with skepticism, making the Parkinsonian observation Second, there is also the always important problem of what that small, efficient, personal organizations become large, inef- the neighbors will think. Here there is a real possibility of ficient, impersonal organizations eventually. All organizations, loss of esteem from nearly everyone: Religious folk are likely even NASA, eventually fall prey to bureaucrats, it seems. The to view cryonics as a sort of mortuarial Tower of Babel ("He skeptic would argue further that the trust funds of the unpro- who would save his life shall lose it," says Jesus darkly); and testing frozen are likely to make tempting targets. If such there might even be loss of esteem from socially conscious wealth becomes large enough, it seems likely that the society freethinkers—again because that money could have gone to of the future will find some way to obtain it—even if the Ethiopia or CODESH. tax laws have to be rewritten. Finally (as though the above were not sufficient), some Faith in the future. And what about the society of the potential cryonicists may be tortured by macabre thoughts future? Cryonicists assume, because they have to, that such about the "discomfort" of having to spend a considerable a society will be rich enough to afford historically interesting number of centuries frozen into a naked statue of oneself luxuries like newly thawed people. A further assumption is in a giant thermos bottle. Cremation may seem more physically that the transition of the present culture to such an affluent comforting (if one has never seen a cremation, that is), and future society will be smooth, without any significant social many people (atheists and not) entertain the completely irra- or economic upheavals. A few cryonicists worry about where tional idea of themselves in their coffins, slumbering peacefully one could get liquid nitrogen in the event of a nuclear war, on, physically unchanged through the centuries. Even if one but these are the lunatic fringe. Clearly, one of the first things does not entertain such illusions personally, one's family may a society in trouble will shed is the bodies of its dearly departed. still derive some comfort from them. Why else would coffins And what about other troubles? Long before the time when have padding? frozen people can be revived, humanity will have found it On the flip side, that are potential gains from involvement necessary to severely control its birth rate. Space migration in cryonics that are also independent of whether the technique will not entirely solve this problem, as some simple exponen- works or not. Chief among these is that cryonics provides tial calculations will show. Is it likely, one wonders, that a a certain amount of comfort for the religious nonbeliever. society that no longer entirely welcomes new babies will want Some of the sting of death can be removed if there remains to revive people who have already had comparatively full lives a chance, however small, that death is not permanent. Of and now are safely dead? course, the cynic will comment that freezing a corpse is much Practical concerns, pros and cons. Once it has been decided like putting leftover food in the refrigerator because one cannot

Spring 1989 23 tolerate the waste implied in throwing it away immediately. in mankind, the ideas and values of cryonics seem to contrast Even if the food is never rewarmed, it is easier to discard with those of humanism in a number of ways. In particular, if done in two separate steps. And so it is, perhaps, with the ideas of cryonics seem to highlight some of the difficult a dead loved-one. questions about the infinite extension of life that humanists A last objection: The ethics of very long life. The question and the rest of mankind will face in the distant future. of whether cryonics represents a good gamble on extending If there is a possibility that cryonics will work, might it one's life is separate from the question of whether or not not be viewed as ethically equivalent to a medical procedure the average humanist would want to participate in it. In what (that is, the world's longest surgical operation)? In this world may or may not be sour grapes, many humanists have seri- of suffering and starvation, is it appropriate for a humanist ously questioned whether greatly extended life spans would to spend his or her money to be frozen after death? For that be a good thing for humanity if they were a reality. Isaac matter, in this world of suffering and starvation, is it appro- Asimov, a well known humanist author and thinker, has priate for a humanist to spend money for a heart transplant? argued that it is ultimately a good thing that powerful and A color television? A lipstick? inflexible people eventually die and get out of the way of When radical extensions of the human life span become the young. Asimov has also stated that he would not want possible, will we want them? Should we have them? If an to live more than a normal life span even if that were possible. inexpensive pill were to become available that stopped aging Humanism is in many ways a socialistic belief. Many in its tracks, for instance, what would be the reaction of the humanists find their sense of meaning in service to the com- average theist? Would it be: "I feel that God's work for me munity, and this continues even in death. Humanists, noting here on earth is not yet done"? Would the average humanist's that cemeteries in Maryland cover more acreage than public reaction be equivalent? Is the present humanistic response parks, will have themselves cremated in order to give the living to death merely a matter of making a virtue of necessity? a bit more room. Humanists request donations to the National The practice of cryonics, with its possibility for a scientific Cancer Institute in lieu of flowers at funerals. Humanists are escape from death, offers the opportunity for humanists to organ donors for transplantation, and even body donors for face ultimate questions of the value of death right now. And medical schools. Thus, many a humanist is likely to view as the practice becomes more widely known, the debate is the act of getting one's corpse expensively frozen as the ultimate surely likely to grow. narcissism—a selfishness beyond social redemption.

Conclusion Notes 1. It is certainly possible that identity and personality might be an A few premises. The philosophy of materialism has, as we electrical information pattern in the brain, rather than something as have seen, practical consequences for those who view their mechanical as the way the atoms of the brain are arranged—but the evidence is against it. Evidence for purely physical storage of identity in the brain own lives as the ultimate value. In particular, materialism comes from cases of both humans and laboratory animals who have survived views living organisms as molecular machines, and death as complete stoppage of measurable brain electrical activity due to cold or a continuous process in which the machine slowly comes apart drugs, and have subsequently recovered with no loss of long-term memory or personality. Further evidence is that many people have received heavy over the course of many hours or even days. Cryonicists are currents of electricity through their brains strong enough to completely a particular breed of materialist who believe that there is a override the brain's delicate internal electrical activity, and yet have good possibility that the long process of death may one day recovered with personality and memory (except recent memory) intact. Thus, although nothing is certain in this area, it seems that only the be reversed at far later stages than is currently possible. expression of personality is electrical. To use a modern analogy: If the Cryonicists wish this future repair and revival technology for brain is like a computer, then the continuously running computer program themselves, and have therefore sought a means to deliver we call the mind is apparently capable of being "booted up" after a nearly complete stoppage of brain activity. But the true identity of the person themselves "alive" into the hands of the physicians of the lies in the computer hardware (the physical brain) that newly generates far future, with a minimum of damage. the mind whenever the physiologic conditions necessary for consciousness The beliefs of cryonicists are not unscientific, but rather are achieved. 2. For more information on the theoretical capabilities and limitations nonscientific (that is, unprovable at present), somewhat like of future technologies, see K. Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation (New the idea that mankind will one day travel to the stars. Cryonics York: Doubleday, 1986). is a physical and political philosophy coupled with an educated 3. The case of what happened to Disney, interestingly, remains unsolved. Disney's family maintains that he was cremated, and this is almost certainly guess about the characteristics of the future. What makes the case. However, a recent Disney biography, which unfortunately is unre- cryonics unique as an idea is that it involves perhaps the only liable regarding other factual details about cryonics, maintains that Disney aspect of the very far future that has direct relevance to the is frozen. The source of the persistent rumor is probably Disney's one- time speculation about cryonics, coupled with the curious fact the Cryonics lives of those living today. If revival of frozen people is ever Society of California happened to hold a news conference to announce destined to become reality in the future, then the implication its formation on the day Disney died, and the same reporters covered is that any medical treatment that will ever be developed may both. And, of course, Disney's profession as an animator has generated a series of awful puns about "reanimation" that no one has been able in theory be available to the patient of today. to resist. Questions raised. It is difficult to know whether to class 4. The three U.S. cryonics organizations, in order of decreasing size cryonics as a religion, although its practice does involve a and available resources, are: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Riverside, California, (714) 736-1703 in California, or 1-800-367-2228 outside the state; particular philosophy and faith. Although cryonics shares with American Cryonics Society, San Francisco, California, (415) 397-3386; and humanism a physical philosophy as well as a certain faith Immortalist Society, 0ak Park, Michigan, (313) 547-2316. •

24 FREE INQUIRY Humanist Ethics: Eating the Forbidden Fruit

Paul Kurtz

he institutions of the United States have been under First Amendment separation doctrine for excluding religion sustained attack by religious conservatives who main- from public life. Many religionists attack the schools, the Ttain that we are in a serious state of moral decline. textbooks, the media, the legal profession, and the universities. They attribute this to the growth of secular humanism, which They promise to remake America and turn it back to its they believe has corrupted the young and undermined the "religious foundations," but the so-called golden age of moral- very fabric of society. The underlying cause of our moral ity is an illusion. In the frontier society of America's past, degradation, they insist, is that we have departed from biblical violence and bawdiness were rampant, few people were edu- morality: Only by returning to "traditional values" can we cated, women were denied equality, racism was de rigueur, be saved from sin and immorality. They blame humanists and there was widespread unemployment and economic in- for the violence, crime, drugs, pornography, and sexual security. We have come a long way in some areas of moral freedom that they claim are signs of the decline of this nation. development. I surely don't condone crime, violence, or the irresponsible The question that is often raised is this: Can one be a trafficking of drugs or pornography; yet this, they maintain, good citizen, raise loving children, contribute to society, find is humanism. life meaningful, and be aware of one's moral duties, yet not There is something tragicomic about such indictments, for believe in a deity or follow conventional religious observances? it should be abundantly clear by now that professed belief According to a recent Gallup poll, some ninety million Amer- in the Bible is no guarantee of moral virtue. The double icans, forty-one percent of the population, do not belong to standard is all too apparent. Jim and Tammy Bakker and or participate in a religious organization, church, synagogue, Jimmy Swaggart, for example, railed against sinners even as or mosque. Millions of Americans are nominal members of their own indiscretions remained hidden. Some preach a gospel a church, or consider themselves to be secularists, humanists, of love while condemning enemies—foreign and domestic— agnostics, skeptics, or atheists. Yet most cherish high ethical and insisting upon our being armed to the teeth. Others arouse ideals and values. They demonstrate by their deeds that there fear of an impending Armageddon that will destroy the world are alternative paths to morality and that the lack of tradi- and pave the way for the rapture of true believers. Unscrupu- tional religious faith does not mean that a person is immoral lous faith healers work unsuspecting crowds, promising or misguided. It is surely not true that the only saints are miraculous healings. within the churches and the only sinners without. There has been a revival of neo-fundamentalist religious orthodoxy worldwide. Committed believers are all too willing to slaughter one another in the name of God: Muslims and The trees of knowledge and life Christians in Lebanon, Shiites and Sunni in Iraq and Iran, Jews and Muslims in Israel, Catholics and Protestants in here are at least two approaches to morality in our society. Northern Ireland, and Sikhs and Hindus in India. Para- T The first, religious morality, attempts to deduce moral doxically, religious sects often attribute contradictory moral rules from God's commandments as found in the Bible, the commandments to the will of God. For example, orthodox Book of Mormon, the Koran, or the sayings of Mary Baker Jews and Christians extol monogamy; Muslims, quoting the Eddy or the Reverend Moon. Here the chief duty is obedience Koran, find polygamy morally exemplary. to commandments that are usually taken as absolutes. Religious Many conservative theists hold that morality requires reli- piety precedes moral conscience. gious foundations and that one cannot be a responsible person In the Old Testament, Jehovah forbids Adam and Eve to unless one accepts theistic religion as a guide to life. Richard eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Neuhaus, in his book The Naked Public Square, blames the They disobey him and are expelled from the Garden of Eden. Jehovah expresses his displeasure and his fear that they might Paul Kunz is professor of philosophy at the State University next be tempted to eat the forbidden fruit of another tree of New York at Buffalo and the editor of FREE INQUIRY. in the garden, the Tree of Life. The above article is based on his recently published book, There is a second historic tradition, however, whose pri- Forbidden Fruit: The Ethics of Humanism (Prometheus). mary imperative is to base ethical choices precisely on eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and

Spring 1989 25 Evil and of the Tree of Life. This tradition begins with the friends, relatives, and co-workers, and we should be depend- philosophers of Greece and Rome—Socrates, Aristotle, able, reliable, and responsible. Hypatia, Epicurus, and Epictetus—and the Chinese sage Con- Third are the decencies of benevolence, which involve fucius. It was expressed during the Renaissance by Erasmus, manifesting good will and noble intentions toward other human Spinoza, and others, and many philosophers, such as Immanuel beings and having a positive concern for them. It means the Kant and John Stuart Mill, seek to develop ethics based on lack of malice (nonmalfeasance), avoiding doing harm to other rational foundations. Even the founders of the American persons or their property: We should not kill or rob, inflict republic—James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine— physical violence or injury, or be cruel, abusive, or vengeful. were deists and humanists, showing confidence in the power In the sexual domain it means that we should not force our of reason to ameliorate the human condition. Robert Ingersoll, sexual passions on others and should seek mutual consent John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, A. H. Maslow, Margaret between adults. It means that we have an obligation to be Sanger, Carl Sagan, Sidney Hook, Isaac Asimov, and others beneficent; that is, kind, sympathetic, compassionate. We express humanist values. should lend a helping hand to those in distress and try to This deep cultural stream of civilization runs side by side decrease their pain and suffering and contribute positively to with Judaic-Christian-Muslim tradition. It cannot be dismissed, their welfare. Jesus perhaps best exemplifies the principles of as its critics are wont to do, or labeled as "immoral." The benevolence. ethics of humanism is an authentic approach to moral principles Fourth are the principles of fairness. We should show grati- and ethical values, and, far from corrupting men and women, tude and appreciation for those who are deserving of it. A it has contributed immeasurably to human culture. It is a great civilized community will hold people accountable for their disservice to our democratic society that secular humanism deeds, insisting that those who wrong others do not go com- has been unfairly attacked as lacking ethics. On the contrary, pletely unpunished and perhaps must make reparations to the if it is anything, humanism is the expression of an authentic aggrieved; thus, this also involves the principle of justice and ethical philosophy—one that is especially relevant to the present equality in society. Tolerance is also a basic moral decency: world. We should allow other individuals the right to their beliefs, values, and styles of life, even though they may differ from our own. We may not agree with them, but each individual The common moral decencies is entitled to his convictions as long as he does not harm others or prevent them from exercising their rights. We should try he question is constantly asked: How can one be moral to cooperate with others, seeking to negotiate differences peace- T and not believe in God? What are the foundations on fully without resorting to hatred or violence. which the ethics of humanism rest? Let me outline some of These common moral decencies express prima facie general the main features of the ethics of humanism. principles and rules. Though individuals or nations may devi- First, there is a set of what I call the "common moral decen- ate from practicing them, they nonetheless provide general cies," which are shared by both theists and nontheists alike parameters by which to guide our conduct. They are not and are the bedrock of moral conduct. Indeed, they are trans- absolute and may conflict; we may have to establish priorities cultural in their range and have their roots in common human between them. They need not be divinely ordained to have needs. They grow out of the evolutionary struggle for survival moral force, but are tested by their consequences in practice. and may even have some sociobiological basis, though they Morally developed human beings accept these principles and may be lacking in some individuals or societies since their attempt to live by them because they understand that some emergence depends upon certain preconditions of moral and personal moral sacrifices may be necessary to avoid conflict social development. in living and working together. Practical moral wisdom thus Nevertheless, the common moral decencies are so basic to recognizes the obligatory nature of responsible conduct. the survival of any human community that meaningful co- In the Old Testament Abraham's faith is tested when God existence cannot occur if they are consistently flouted. They commands him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, whom he dearly are handed down through the generations and are recognized loves. Abraham is fully prepared to obey, but at the last moment throughout the world by friends and lovers, colleagues and God stays his hand. Is it wrong for a father to kill his son? co-workers, strangers and aliens alike as basic rules of social A developed moral conscience understands that it is. But is intercourse. They are the foundation of moral education and it wrong simply because Jehovah declares it to be wrong? No. should be taught in the schools. They express the elementary I submit that there is an autonomous moral conscience that virtues of courtesy, politeness, and empathy so essential for develops in human experience, grows out of our nature as living together; indeed, they are the very basis of civilized life social beings, and comprehends that murder is wrong, whether itself. or not God declares it to be wrong. We should be highly First are the decencies that involve personal integrity, that suspicious of the moral development of one who believes that is telling the truth, not lying or being deceitful; being sincere, murder is wrong only because God says so. Indeed, I believe candid, frank, and free of hypocrisy; keeping one's promises, that we attributed this moral decree to God simply because honoring pledges, living up to agreements; being honest, we apprehended it to be wrong. avoiding fraud or skulduggery. Today a great debate rages over whether moral education Second is trustworthiness. We should be loyal to our lovers, should be taught in the schools; many are violently opposed

26 FREE INQUIRY to it. But we do have a treasure of moral wisdom that we dividual nor helpful to society at large. should seek to impart to the young and that all too often Fifth, and high on the scale of values, is creativity. This is not actively taught in the home. We need to cultivate moral is closely related to autonomy and self-respect, for the indepen- intelligence, a capacity for rational thinking about our values. dent person has some confidence in his own powers and is This is where the debate intensifies because some of the critics willing to express his unique talents. The uncreative person of humanism are opposed to any reflective questioning of is usually a conformist, unwilling to break new ground, timid values. and fearful of new departures. A creative person is willing to be innovative and has a zest for life that involves adventure Ethical excellences and discovery.

he common moral decencies refer to how we relate to The lack of traditional religious faith does T others. But there are a number of values that we should strive toward in our personal lives, and I submit that we also not mean that a person is immoral or mis- need to impart to the young an appreciation for what I call guided. It is surely not true that the only the ethical excellences. I believe that there are standards of saints are within the churches and the only ethical development, exquisite qualities of high merit and achievement. Indeed, in some individuals nobility shines sinners without. through; there are, according to the Greek philosopher Aristo- tle, certain virtues or excellences that morally developed per- Sixth, we need to develop high motivation, a willingness sons exemplify. These states of character are based upon the to enter into life and undertake new plans and projects. A golden mean and provide some balance in life. I think that motivated person finds life interesting and exciting. One prob- these classical excellences or virtues need to be updated for lem for many people is that they find life and their jobs boring. the present age. What are they? Unfortunately, they are merely masking their lack of intensity First, the excellence of autonomy, or what Ralph Waldo and of commitment to high aspirations and values. Emerson called self-reliance. By that I mean a person's ability Seventh, we should adopt an affirmative and positive atti- to take control of his or her own life, to accept responsibility tude toward life. We need some measure of optimism that for his own feelings, his marriage or career, how he lives and what we do will matter. Although we may suffer failures and learns, the values and goods he cherishes. Such a person is defeats, we must believe that we shall overcome and succeed self-directed and self-governing. His autonomy is an affirma- despite adversity. tion of his freedom. Unfortunately, some people find freedom Eighth, an affirmative person is capable of some joie de a burden and so they are willing to forfeit their right to self- vivre, or joyful living, an appreciation for the full range of determination to others, to parents, spouses, or even totali- human pleasures—from the so-called bodily pleasures such as tarian despots or authoritarian gurus. A free person recognizes food and sex to the most ennobling and creative of aesthetic, that he has only one life to live and that how he will live spiritual, intellectual, and moral pleasures. it is ultimately his choice. This does not deny that we live Ninth, if we wish to live well then of course we should with others and share values and ideals, but basic to the ethics be rationally concerned about our health as a precondition of democracy is an appreciation for the autonomy of individual of everything else. To maintain good health we should avoid choice. smoking and drugs, drink only in moderation, seek to reduce Second, intelligence and reason are high on the scale of stress in our lives, and strive to get proper nutrition, adequate values. To achieve the good life we need to develop our cognitive exercise, and sufficient rest. skills; not merely technical expertise or skilled virtuosity, but All these excellences clearly point to a summa bonum. The good judgment about how to make wiser choices. Unfortu- intrinsic value humanists seek to achieve is eudaemonia: nately, many critics of humanism demean human intelligence happiness or well-being. I prefer the word exuberance or and believe that we cannot solve our problems. They are willing excelsior to describe such a state of living, because I believe to abdicate their rational autonomy to others. Reason may it is an active, not a passive, process. I believe that the end not succeed in solving all problems—sometimes we must choose or goal of life is to live fully and creatively, sharing with others the lesser of many evils—but it is the most reliable method the many opportunities for joyful experience. The meaning we have for making moral choices. of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, Third is the need for self-discipline in regard to one's passions mysterious realm; on the contrary, it can be found by eating and desires. We must satisfy our desires, passions, and needs the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the in moderation, under the guidance of rational choice, here and now as fully and creatively as we can. recognizing the harmful consequences that imprudent choices Yet the humanist is condemned for focusing on happiness can have upon ourselves and others. as a goal. For some salvational theologies this life has no Fourth, some self-respect is vital to psychological balance. meaning—it is only a preparation for the next. But this is Self-hatred can destroy the personality. We need to develop an escapist theory for those who are unable to find significance some appreciation for who we are as individuals and a realistic in their personal lives and seek to be released in the next. sense of our own identities, for a lack of self-esteem can make Even if immortality exists, that is no reason to denigrate life one feel truly worthless, which is neither healthy for the in- in the here and now. The important point that is often forgot-

Spring 1989 27 ten is that whether we find life meaningful depends in large religious morality—was developed in nomadic agricultural part on what we give to it. Life presents us with opportunities societies. It is difficult to apply these ancient moral codes to and possibilities, and whether or not we tap these depends the highly technical post-industrial society in which we now on our capacity for autonomy and creative affirmation. live. How, for example, shall we deal with the problems of There are those who maintain that the ethics of humanism, medical ethics engendered by new technologies that can keep since it focuses on joyful, creative living, is corrupting and people alive far beyond the time when there is some significant demeaning and may lead to libertarian licentiousness and quality of life? How shall we deal with organ transplants, given the limited supply? How will society be able to support the growing number of nonworking elderly? These issues pose new We should adopt an affirmative attitude. We moral dilemmas with which a classical biblical religion, for need some measure of optimism that what example, is unable to cope. These situations simply did not we do will matter. Although we may suffer exist for previous generations; this is the age of space travel, failures and defeats, we must believe that we the computer-information revolution, biogenetic engineering. Dramatic new scientific and technological breakthroughs shall overcome despite adversity. provide enormous opportunities for human betterment, but they also raise moral dilemmas concerning possible dangers hedonism in which "anything goes." For them, morality is and abuses. repression, the body is despised, sexual expression for reasons We cannot cope by retreating to the absolutes of the past; other than procreation is considered sinful, and the world is fresh thinking in the future is essential. Critical intelligence a tragic vale of tears. They believe that they are incapable is the most reliable tool we have—it is not perfect, but nothing of solving their own problems or obtaining happiness on earth is when dealing with moral dilemmas. by their own efforts, and create the myth of solace to help This position is often attacked by those who do not under- them escape from the trials and tribulations of mortal injustice. stand the nature of moral deliberation. They condemn it as They are laden with guilt and a sense of sin and try to assuage "situation ethics"—but the point of situational reasoning is this by preferring comfort to truth. that we often encounter new contexts in human experience This point of view is extremely pessimistic (and, I might unlike anything that has been faced in the past, and we need add, contrary to the spirit of American optimism), for it to bring to bear creative inquiry to deal with them. If there demeans and denigrates our intelligence and our capacity for is any excellence that society should develop it is the need high achievement. In its excessive form it is profoundly anti- for pooled ethical wisdom and social intelligence. Instead of human, even pathological. It masks a deep fear of one's own resorting to shrill denunciations, we should be willing to engage capacity to live autonomously, and it expresses a lack of self- in cooperative rational dialogue and develop, where needed, respect and even shows self-hatred. new values and principles appropriate to the emerging world. This is also the primary quality of mind we should seek to The need for creative ethical thinking impart to our children: to think not only about facts, but about moral principles and values as well. hus far I have focused on two areas of ethics: (1) the There are many moral philosophers today who are engaged common moral decencies, and (2) the ethics of personal in creative ethical thinking, and they have come up with new excellence. The ethics of humanism is anything but self-centered moral guidelines. In the field of medical ethics, for instance, or egoistic; it involves a deep appreciation for the needs of the principle of "informed consent" is a basic general moral other human beings as well as a recognition that no person principle that is applicable to health care; that is, patients have is an island unto himself and that among our highest joys rights and their consent is required concerning the nature and are those we share with others. Indeed, the common moral extent of their treatment. decencies point to the need to develop the excellences of integrity, truthfulness, beneficence, and fairness—and these excellences directly concern our relationships with others. The Privacy ethics of humanism prizes strength of character. I believe that most members of our society can accept the principles and his brings me to another point, which is particularly values I have enumerated and that we do share more common T relevant to those who cherish an open pluralistic and ground than is usually appreciated. But we live in a period democratic society. It regards the importance of the principle of rapid technological and social change in which we are con- of privacy in ethics. That is, a free society should grant adult stantly confronted by new ambiguities and new problems. The individuals some autonomy and responsibility for their own quest for absolute certainty is impossible to satisfy. We cannot lives, especially in regard to those areas that concern intimate simply draw upon the moral wisdom of past generations; we beliefs and values. Society should not unduly interfere with must be prepared for some revision of our traditional moral the free exercise of these rights. outlook. We need to adapt to the new challenges that confront I will not here develop the full implications of the privacy us and develop new principles and values appropriate to the principle—euthanasia, the right to confidentiality, abortion, twenty-first century and beyond. The age-old morality contains responsible sexual freedom, and so on. These issues are at many tested principles, but much of it—particularly our the center of intensive national debates in our society, as

28 FREE INQUIRY revealed during the recent mudslinging presidential campaigns; in currency rates, and trade and commerce are problems of in the battle over Judge Bork's nomination to the Supreme the worldwide economic system. Multinational corporations Court; in the mushrooming of the anti-abortion movement have discovered that the entire world is their market. The called Operation Rescue; in skirmishes regarding censorship, depletion of natural resources and the despoilation of the creation vs. evolution, and school prayer; and in other hot environment are problems that need to be addressed on a global political issues of the past and coming decades. I believe we scale: The hunting of whales or the damage to the ozone layer should defend the right to privacy as a fundamental human is a problem that transcends the self-interest of any particular and civil right. nation and is a concern to the entire world community. What this means is that we need to develop a new global ethic in which each of us fully recognizes our responsibility to every Responsibilities to the world community other member of the human species. The classical religions, in the best sense, have recognized the brotherhood of human here is also an urgent need today to expand the horizons beings. Our ethical concern today and in the future must be T of our ethical concerns from our parochial national truly planetary. Civilization is international in scope and societies to the world community. Each of us as an individual philosophy and the arts and sciences cannot be limited by has obligations and responsibilities to ourselves, to our im- narrow political or ideological barriers. We need to develop mediate family and friends, to our co-workers and colleagues, a new ethical awareness that transcends the divisiveness and to the community in which we live, and to our nation as a intolerance of the arbitrary barriers of the past. Intercommun- whole—but I would also add that we have a responsibility ication, travel, the free exchange of ideas, and the intermingling to the broader community of humankind. Heretofore, the moral of peoples will no doubt accelerate in the future. We want systems of the past have been rather chauvinistic, focused on a democratic world in which individual human freedoms and preserving our own race, ethnic group, religion, or nation over rights are everywhere respected. But given intense nationalistic others. We need to break out of that narrow focus, for it opposition, it will be no easy task to extend the ethics of is abundantly clear that we now living in an interdependent humanism to a planetary scale. The ethical imperatives implicit world, and that what happens in one part often reverberates in this task should, however, be apparent to all who are in every other part. concerned with preserving and enhancing the human species National governments can no longer cope with economic on this planet, not only for our time but for future problems in haughty isolation—unemployment, fluctuations generations. • EUPRAXOPHY: Living Without Religion Paul Kurtz

Paul Kurtz has introduced a new word Following Kurtz's most recent to describe humanism. Derived from EUPRANOPHI books, The Transcendental Temptation and Forbidden Fruit, Eupraxophy completes a the Greek roots eu (good), praxis (prac- LIVING WITHOUT RELIGION tice), and sophia (philosophical and trilogy of humanist works that re- scientific wisdom), eupraxophy means sponds to theistic critics of modern literally "good conduct and wisdom in secular humanism. living." Paul Kurtz is professor of philoso- Eupraxophy draws upon the disci- phy at the State University of New plines of the sciences, philosophy, and York at Buffalo, founding Chairman of ethics, yet it is more than these. Not the Committee for the Scientific Inves- simply an intellectual position, eupraxo- tigation of Claims of the Paranormal phy expresses convictions about the (CSICOP), and co-president of the nature of the universe and how to live PAUL KURTZ International Humanist and Ethical well, thus combining both a cosmic out- Union (IHEU). look and a life stance. Kurtz maintains 159 pages that the eupraxopher can lead a meaning- Call toll free ISBN 0-87975-508-3 Cloth $15.95 ful life and help create a just society, (800) 421-0351 and offers concrete recommendations Add $2.25 for postage and handling. N.Y. State In N.Y. State call residents add applicable sales tax. for the development of the humanism (716) 837-2475 of the future. Prometheus Books 700 East Amherst St., Buffalo, N.Y. 14215

Spring 1989 29 Scientific Knowledge, Moral Knowledge: Is There Any Need for Faith?

Bernard Davis

rie argument commonly advanced against atheists, church despite the lack of adequate evidence for their truth; humanists, scientists, and secularists is that, whatever thus faith was "an act of the intellect assenting to divine truth 0 we believe, we still have to accept somethings on at the command of the will moved by the grace of God." faith. Whether it is the results of science or the validity of The notion of taking some things on faith, however, has been the scientific method, the basic goodness of human beings extended to include accepting the firm belief in the truth of or the worthiness of humanity, the principles of rational any statement on authority rather than on the basis of suf- thought or the effectiveness of critical inquiry, we have to ficient evidence. Taking anything as an indubitable postulate accept some things as true despite the absence of any adequate is an act of faith in this sense, and it is in this sense, I maintain, proof. Thus, the religious argue, we are intellectually no better that faith is unnecessary. off than they are. That in seeking knowledge we don't need to begin by This is an important challenge. If we allow that our beliefs accepting one or more basic postulates may seem a strange must rest at least partially on extra-rational commitment, then notion. If it does, it is because of an account of knowledge the distinction between science and religion is only a matter that has come down to us from the ancient Greeks, an account of degree. The best we can argue in reply is that, if we must that sees knowledge as deduced from obviously true postu- believe in something, beliefs acceptable to modern science are lates, the truth of which guarantees the truth of everything better than pre-scientific explanations and early Iron Age that is deduced from them. In this view, indeed, once you superstitions. have accepted the postulates, everything else can be proved While this is an acceptable response, I believe we can do to you, and you have to accept the truth of the postulates better. We can reject the contention that our knowledge if you want to derive anything at all. requires taking anything on faith. We can have knowledge— The ancients developed this account to explain the knowl- all the knowledge science provides and all the knowledge we edge provided by logic, mathematics, and geometry. Accept need in the area of morals—without accepting anything on Euclid's five postulates and you can prove that the angles faith, without committing ourselves to any assumptions or of a triangle equal two right angles. But this idea of starting postulates. The method I recommend for acquiring knowledge with indubitable postulates and then deriving knowledge of is sufficient, is well known and widely used, and is more the world from them is, despite its long history, a false view. versatile than faith, since it will work in any world, not just It can't be done. It never could be done. Yet the Christian in a world that has particular features. To add to it any beliefs church adopted this view of knowledge from the ancient Greek taken on faith can only reduce its effectiveness. philosophers and has been pushing it for 1,500 years. In con- Faith is primarily a religious notion. Originally it simply vincing us we need knowledge derived from postulates guaran- involved a firm and unreserved belief in the creeds of the teed to be true, the religious have sold us a bill of goods. church despite the lack of Knowledge of this sort has never existed. adequate evidence for their And to follow this account and accept some postulates truth; thus faith was "an act on faith is a hazardous way to seek knowledge, for it carries of the intellect assenting to with it the need for postulates that cannot be questioned, and this in turn leads to limitations on what we can learn. Bernard Davis is associate To accept any belief on faith is to render ourselves incapable professor of research educa- of learning from experiences that contradict that belief. Some tion at St. Mary's University information must be rejected rather than processed and thus in Hapax, Nova Scotia. He is lost as a source of further knowledge. Faith makes teaches research methods intellectual cripples. and philosophy of educa- Faith has led to intellectual blindspots so glaring that any tion. rational human being should want to reject it, provided another method of attaining knowledge is available. On the basis of

30 FREE INQUIRY faith people accepted that the sun orbits the earth and its consequences by deduction, to compare them with results persecuted those who dared to point out that this wasn't true. of experiment by induction, and to discard the hypothesis, and try another, as soon as the first has been refuted; as On the basis of faith people still believe that the world was it presumably will be. How long it will be before we light created in exactly 168 hours in 4005 B.C.E. On faith many upon the hypothesis which shall resist all tests we cannot people have believed the world was about to end within tell; but we hope we shall do so, at last.3 one generation of the death of Christ, in the year 1000 C.E., in 1842, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1942, 1975, 1988, and various While the indubitable postulate method of the ancient other times. Greeks and the hypothetical deductive method both use End-of-the-world theories based on religious evidence deduction from general principles, their purposes in doing have been so often refuted by subsequent events that they so are exactly opposite. The purpose of deduction in the have become a standing joke. But the effect of basing indubitable postulate method is to extend the truth of the knowledge on faith is nothing to joke about. It causes postulates to their consequences. In the hypothetical intellectual tragedies. Noah Webster's dictionary, for deductive method the purpose of deduction is to extend the example, was a great accomplishment. It was the last testability of their consequences to the hypotheses. comprehensive dictionary created by a single person and was highly esteemed for the clarity of its definitions. But Just as in science we needn't seek new many of Webster's etymologies had to be discarded in later editions. Why? Because Webster, having been converted to experiments to prove the earth is not flat, fundamentalist Calvinism in 1808, insisted on basing them so in morals the suggestion that we turn back on the story of the Tower of Babel instead of on the results the clock and return to a past our parents of available philological science. Faith is dangerous because it provides knowledge only and grandparents have already rejected is not at the expense of intellectual blindspots. And this is true sensible. even if our faith is in the results of science. Nor can we accept that knowledge depends for its truth At no point in the deducing and testing process is the on derivation from true postulates and just refuse to accept hypothesis accepted on faith as something that has to be any postulates. While this position is logically consistent-- believed. We accept hypotheses that have been tested and not the postulates being derived from nothing have no guarantee proved false, but we know that the hypotheses we accept now for their truth—it leads only to a useless skepticism in which may prove false in the face of some later test. For as long all belief is refused, or to an equally useless irrationalism as a hypothesis is accepted, acceptance is always tentative. in which all beliefs are seen as equally unfounded. To arrive All scientific knowledge is of this sort. As science advances, at one of these conclusions is to mistake for a proof of hypothesis after hypothesis is discarded and replaced. Once the impossibility of knowledge what is in fact a proof of Europeans got to Australia, "All swans are white" was dis- the fatal inadequacy of the basic principle of the indubitable carded. Our present belief that all penguins are flightless only postulate method— that to be known true is to be derived requires the discovery or creation of a penguin capable of flight from postulates known to be true. to share the fate of "All swans are white." Even one of Euclid's There is another way to attain knowledge; it is the basis postulates has been rejected as a hypothesis about actual space; of science as we know it, and it does not involve the dangers since the acceptance of Einstein's theory of relativity we have attendant upon accepting postulates on faith. This method believed that space is non-Euclidian. was advocated as early as 1638 by Galileo.2 "The scientific method" is currently the most common name for it, but oday, advance in the various branches of science comes the term most clearly descriptive of its manner of operation T so quickly that we expect pieces of the science we learned is the hypothetical deductive method. a few years ago to be challenged and discarded a few years Central to this method is the construction of a hypothesis hence. The tentative nature of such knowledge is constantly from which deductions can be made that explain the phe- being brought to our attention, and we do not find this strange nomena being considered. If it explains the phenomena, this or threatening. If it turns out that some dinosaurs were warm hypothesis is tentatively accepted and predictions derived blooded or that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans from it are tested. If the predictions are correct, and if no than to orangutans or gorillas, to cite two recent examples, better hypothesis is available, the hypothesis continues to we don't throw up our hands in despair. be tentatively accepted. But if a better hypothesis is We have become accustomed to this sort of knowledge. constructed, or if the hypothesis leads to false predictions, We expect that at least some of it will be replaced each year this tentative acceptance is withdrawn and the hypothesis or decade, and yet we have no trouble using it. Quite the is rejected. Charles Sanders Peirce, recognizing that the contrary; the technology we use every day, everything that method is a purely skeptical one that seeks truth not by makes our existence different from the existence of those who proving hypotheses true, but by eliminating those that are lived a century or two ago, depends on knowledge of this false, described the procedure as follows: sort. This knowledge has absolutely no need of faith— not faith in its results, not faith in its method. There is nothing That which is to be done with the hypothesis is to trace out that need be accepted on faith, and yet the method provides

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Kai soll, Frank Smith; The Historicity of Jesus, John Priest, D. R. Oppen- Nielsen; Prophets of the Procrustean Collective, Antony Flew; The Madrid heimer, G. A. Wells. $5.00 Conference, Stephen Fenichell; Natural Aristocracy, Lee Nisbet. $5.00 Summer 1983, Vol. 3, no. 3 — Special Issue: Religion in American Politics Winter 1980/81, Vol. 1, no. 1 — Secular Humanist Declaration; Democratic Symposium. Is America a Judeo-Christian Republic? Paul Kurtz; The First Humanism, Sidney Hook; Humanism: Secular or Religious? Paul Beattie; Amendment and Religious Liberty, Lowell Weicker, Sam Ervin, Leo Pfeffer; Free Thought, Gordon Stein; The Fundamentalist Right, William Ryan; Secular Roots of the American Political System, Henry Steele Commager, The Moral Majority, Sol Gordon; The Creation/ Evolution Controversy, Daniel Boorstin, Robert Rutland, Richard Morris, Michael Novak; The H. James Birx; Moral Education, Robert Hall; Morality Without Religion, Bible in Politics, Gerald Larue, Robert Alley, James Robinson; Bibliography Marvin Kohl, Joseph Fletcher; Freedom Is Frightening, Roy Fairfield; The for Biblical Study. $5.00 Road to Freedom, Mihajlo Mihajlov. $5.00 Secular Humanist Bulletin Back Issues of the Secular Humanist Bulletin, published quarterly and free with a subscription to FREE INQUIRY, are also available. Each additional copy is $1.50, plus $.50 for postage and handling. Discounts are available on bulk orders. Free I> iry • Box 5 • Buffalo, New York 14215-0005. 716-834-2921 all the knowledge we have in science. would work so as to make correct predictions. Therefore, That faith in the results of science is unnecessary seems regardless of what the world is like, either the hypothetical obvious: If flying penguins are found, there goes our belief deductive method will work or no method at all will work. that penguins are flightless; if something can be shown to We have then a method that does not require taking anything be traveling faster than the speed of light, there goes our at all on faith, a method that will work if any method at belief in the ultimate nature of the speed of light; and the all will work, a method that is sufficient for all scientific same goes for the closeness of our relationship to chimpanzees, knowledge. But what of morals? Don't we still need some the relationship between low-cholesterol diets and heart grounding for morals and mustn't this be taken on faith? No. disease, and for any other scientific belief. The results of The hypothetical deductive method will work for morals as science are always tentative, always subject to further testing. well as for science; all we need do is apply it. A lively exhortation to apply this method became a popular In both science and morals, knowledge is slogan a few years ago: "Try it, you'll like it." To apply the hypothetical deductive method in the moral areas of life we possible without taking any postulates on need to tentatively adopt those social instill Lions, customs, faith—knowledge that is free of the blindness or modes of behavior that we believe on the basis of the best that necessarily accompanies faith. information we can gather to be the most promising alterna- tives for solving the social problems we face, and then test But if the results of science are always testable and always these in use, retaining those that are preferred by people who tentative, don't we have faith in the scientific method? How have tried both the new institution or custom and the alterna- can we accept the hypothetical deductive method as our source tive, and rejecting those that are not preferred. Actually, we of knowledge without taking it on faith? The answer to this can count on the subjects of the experiment to do the retaining apparently serious problem is really quite simple. It is perfectly and rejecting, for what else is preference but to keep one thing reasonable to take the thesis that the hypothetical deductive and reject an alternative? As John Dewey put it: method itself works as a tentative hypothesis. As a hypothesis it explains the success of science in explaining the world and The test of the existence of a valuation and the nature of the latter is actual behavior.... Is the existing field of activities it is tested each time the method is applied. Considered as accepted, where "acceptance" consists in effort to maintain a hypothesis to be tested, the method is such that, should it against adverse conditions? Or is it rejected, where it fail, it would lead to its own rejection. "rejection" consists of effort to get rid of it... ? Nor need we accept logic, mathematics, or geometry on faith. Insofar as a system of logic or mathematics is pure logic What people prefer is simply what they choose. So, while or pure mathematics, the "truth" of its axioms and the theorems we must ensure that the subjects of moral experiments are derivable from them says nothing as to what the world is like. capable of making an informed choice, that they have suffi- Each such system is co-equal with several other systems of cient exposure to both patterns of behavior, that they have axioms and theorems that can be constructed using the same no significant false beliefs as to the nature or effects of either vocabulary. Once such a system is applied to some real features custom, that they have not been denied relevant information, in the world, however, then either the axioms must be taken and so on, we do not have to define prefers. Nor need we as hypotheses subject to test and refutation, or the statement define good, should, ought, happiness, or any of the other that this system does truly apply to these features of the world bugaboos of analytic philosophers. We can get right on with must itself count as a testable and refutable hypothesis. In the work of improving society and leave the defining of words either case, no truth about the actual world is derivable solely to the lexicographers. from the axioms taken as axioms of pure logic or mathematics. Nor need we fear committing G. E. Moore's "naturalistic That such systems are refutable as statements about the world fallacy." For, while in the hypothetical deductive method we has already been shown in the case of geometry. Space does have a method for making rational choices in the moral areas not follow all of Euclid's postulates. of life, we have not defined "good" or derived any moral The hypothetical deductive method does not require that or ethical statements from statements of fact. That moral anything, even belief in the method itself, be accepted on faith, terms and statements are emotive, persuasive, or prescriptive and thus it avoids the intellectual blindspots that accompany and cannot be derived from descriptive or empirical accepting things on faith. Unlike methods based on faith, the statements affects how we use and interpret moral terms and method is not pre-set to get particular answers. Faith may statements. It does not affect our ability to make choices work if the world is such that it happens to contain just those in moral areas. Avoiding the naturalistic fallacy is a matter particular things or principles you have faith in. The of words, not of things; a constraint on logical argumentation, hypothetical deductive method will work regardless of what not on practical decision-making. the world contains. Hence it is more versatile than any method There are no philosophical or lexicographical problems requiring faith. we need to solve, nor need we become skeptics in ethical The hypothetical deductive method will work in any world matters. All we need do to apply the hypothetical deductive that is not totally chaotic, a totally chaotic world being one method in morals is to try each change in social policy that in which, all regularities being absent, no correct predictions appears promising, see if it works, keep it if it does and can be made. If the world were totally chaotic no method discard it if it doesn't.

34 FREE INQUIRY We all use the hypothetical deductive method in our private and grandparents have already rejected is not a sensible lives for many important practical decisions. Nations also suggestion for a social experiment. Perhaps that is why it use the method. In the United States a number of moral is primarily those who refuse to test their beliefs against reality experiments have been tried and we know the outcomes of who repeatedly suggest it. some of the major ones. One such experiment was the New John Dewey, in The Quest for Certainty, suggested the Deal—Social Security, unemployment insurance, workmen's proper method and spirit for the designing of moral experi- compensation. These seem to have been preferred by most ments: people to life without them, and they are still with us. Interestingly enough, these improvements were piloted before What is needed is intelligent examination of the consequences the New Deal by the rich; personal insurance before this that are actually effected by inherited institutions and cus- time was an option invented for and used by the well-to- toms, in order that there may be intelligent consideration of the ways in which they are to be intentionally modified do. in behalf of different consequences.6 Another experiment is the marital and quasimarital cus- toms we have today. These were pioneered in New York I would also argue that pilot projects on a modest scale are City and Los Angeles in the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, and preferable when totally new proposals are being tested. In now are almost ubiquitous, at least among the educated and every case I mentioned above there was a preceding pilot the urban. This phenomenon hasn't a name yet so I will project of some sort. give it one. I call it "seriogamy." It's not polygamy—it doesn't If morals are dealt with by the hypothetical deductive include harems, either male or female. And it's not method, society moves in the direction of greater satisfaction monogamy—people are not limited to one spouse for life. for its members, as experiments that prove preferable are The custom allows as many husbands or wives as one can retained and extended, and experiments that do not are re- attract, one at a time. I would not suggest that this is a jected and forgotten. perfect arrangement—many of us are all too familiar with The hypothetical deductive method has the same advantage its pains, frustrations, and insecurities. However, the in morals as it does in science. We are not restricted by any alternative it replaced—forced monogamy—was worse. The postulates that cannot be questioned. There are no moral world was filled with married couples who thoroughly disliked dogmas to which we must adhere regardless of contrary evi- each other but could not get out of marriage.5 dence. We need not decide, for example, as utopian anarchists The results are also well known of the experiment in chang- do, that humans are inherently good. We can consider ing lifestyles brought about by technological advances. hypotheses and refutations of hypotheses as to what sort Advances in transportation in the past century have totally of animals humans are as science provides them, and changed the way we live. Exploitation of the myriad possible nonetheless go right on improving human society. uses of small electric motors has created a revolution in house- The hypothetical deductive method is not moral relativism. hold management. There is no sign that this revolution is It does not say any society's practice is as good as any other's. in danger of being rejected. An even more recent advance This is not to say relativism is always wrong. In some cases, is such a notable boon that, if there could be such a thing given a real choice, people may split in their preferences as a moral absolute, I would nominate the principle that 50/50 or 40/60 or 30/70. But in many cases almost all will permanent press is better than ironing. On the other hand, go for one choice and the 0 to 5 percent that doesn't will some "advances" have been rejected—does your attic contain simply be seeking variety or some personal distinction from a Vegomatic? the mass—like those who spin, weave, and wear homespun More seriously, several experiments have been tried for clothing, choose celibacy in a sexually open society, or refuse a period of time and then rejected as worse than the situation to purchase any insurance regardless of the moderateness that preceded them. The most famous in recent American of the price or the enormity of the risk. history is the "great" experiment—Prohibition. Proposed The moral message of the hypothetical deductive method from lofty motives of social improvement, imposed by the is not relativistic but utopian, not laissez-faire (let every society decision of the majority of the nation, it was tried, its effects do its own thing) but experimental (try new systems, see were seen, and it was rejected as decisively as it had been if they work, attempt to improve social arrangements). When chosen. And there have been a myriad of other experiments, moral experiments succeed we all benefit. from the popularity of routine tonsillectomies to the rise and The enemies of the application of the hypothetical deduc- fall of phony sidings to cover frame buildings, from tive method in morals are the self-interest of entrenched power "insulbrick" to asbestos shingle to vinyl. groups, established moral systems based on faith and In all of these cases, the test of the experimental custom prejudice (which is just faith itself identified by a less honorific is that, given the choice, the vast majority of people don't name). return to the older system. That we need further experimen- tation seems obvious. That experimentation need not include The difficulties that stand in the way ... are supplied by systems that have already been tried and rejected also seems traditions, customs, and institutions which persist without obvious. Just as in science we needn't seek new experiments being subjected to a systematic empirical investigation... . to prove that the earth is not flat, so in morals the suggestion Hence it is worth while to note that the same obstacles once that we turn back the clock and return to a past our parents existed in the subject matters now ruled by scientific methods.

Spring 1989 35 Take, as an outstanding example, the difficulties experienced thousands of children. Smallpox is extinct as a disease; the in getting a hearing for the Copernican astronomy a few live virus exists only in laboratories. Yet after decades of centuries ago. Traditional and customary beliefs which were effort, we have hardly a decent beginning toward solving sanctioned and maintained by powerful institutions regarded the new scientific ideas as a menace. Nevertheless, the methods the problems presented by cancer, psychosis, and aging. which yielded propositions verifiable in terms of actual Religion, on the other hand, will solve every problem observations and experimental evidence maintained them- immediately. I glanced at my mother's television for about selves, widened their range, and gained continually in two minutes one Sunday morning a few years ago. That influence.? was long enough to hear Jerry Falwell say that God can cure cancer as easily as the common cold, and that if you Since Dewey wrote this in 1939, the hypothetical deductive aren't cured by prayer it is because God doesn't want to method has already greatly increased its scope in moral deci- cure you. Religious medicine may be less than totally effective, sion-making. The social sciences, which were made up of but its answers come easily and quickly. a handful of struggling researchers in 1939, are now a major If we are to seek knowledge by the hypothetical deductive component of our universities and a significant force in our method, on the other hand, we must have the patience to society. Business corporations and government agencies now suspend judgment on important issues and the intellectual make many of their decisions after extensive formal research, honesty to admit that there are many things we just don't feasibility studies, and perhaps pilot projects. We worry today know. Many find this too arduous and seek solace in the that changes in social policy may be based on research that instant certainty provided by adopting beliefs on faith. How- is faulty or inadequate. This is a much more subtle worry ever, though the hypothetical deductive method requires hard than people had in the 1910s, 1920s, or 1930s, when changes work, patience, and intellectual honesty, the successes of in social policies were more often based on no research at science in the last two centuries provide good evidence that all. these are better tools in the search for knowledge than dog- In our private lives most of us recognize the hypothetical matic adherence to cherished fantasies. deductive method as the rational way to make major As atheists, secular humanists, or other varieties of nulli- decisions. We do, or at least we know we should, investigate fidian we have given up the beliefs in gods and goddesses, new projects carefully and then try them at least briefly before heaven and hell, miracles and sins, rituals and that making a major commitment. We vacation in cities before the religious take on faith. This gives us a significant intel- deciding to move to them, do some work in career areas lectual advantage. One massive set of blindspots has been before committing years to specialized training, rent our skis eliminated. I propose that we not give up this advantage the first time we go skiing. We are willing, even eager, to but rather extend it. To discard beliefs based on faith, at try new things, for if we don't try new things we will never least discard them as based on faith, and to use the improve our situation, but we realize that some of the things hypothetical deductive method exclusively will free us from we try will not finally be preferred. However, whether the the blindspots necessarily attendant on the use of faith in experimental activity is retained or rejected, we increase our the gathering of knowledge and allow us to learn from any store of moral knowledge with each experiment. information that experimentation may bring to light, either In both science and morals knowledge is possible without in science or in morals. taking any postulates on faith, knowledge that is free of the Despite the arguments of the religious, we are not all cursed blindness that necessarily accompanies faith. This is an over- to irrationality. We have no need to choose some bit of dog- whelming advantage over methods based on faith. However, matic turf to cherish and defend against all corners. Rather, the hypothetical deductive method has two significant dis- we are free—free to learn all there is to learn, to know all advantages. One disadvantage is that it requires work. We there is to know, to use what we know, and yet forever go can't just pontificate or convince through rhetoric. We have on learning. to work hard at devising hypotheses and work hard at testing them. After all this work, our favorite hypothesis may turn out to be a false lead; it may fail the test and be rejected. References Another disadvantage is that the hypothetical deductive method does not provide a quick fix. If you are willing to 1. Paul Edwards, ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1967), vol. 3, p. 165. accept their answers, the religious will answer all your ques- 2. Galileo Galilei, Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, Leyden, tions immediately. The hypothetical deductive method pro- 1638, p. 208; in the translation by Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio vides answers to our questions in fits and starts and often (New York: MacMillan Co., 1914), p. 172. Cf. also p. 197; p. 160 in the Crew and de Salvio translation. more slowly than we desire. Since it is exploratory, it doesn't 3. Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. 7, Arthur Burks, ed. even respond reliably to heavy funding and huge research (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), p. 138. projects. An area in which this is clearly apparent—a good 4. John Dewey, Theory of Valuation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), p. 54. area to use as an example since we are vitally interested in 5. If you want to explore the human tragedies our change of customs its results—is medicine. has ameliorated, read Judge Lindsay's Companionate Marriage, published The science of medicine has made great strides. Unlike in 1923 before divorce laws were liberalized. 6. John Dewey, Quest for Certainty (New York: Minton, Balch and two-hundred years ago, legs are no longer amputated when Company, 1929), p. 273. they are broken—we can set them. Diptheria no longer kills 7. John Dewey, Theory of Valuation, p. 61f. •

36 FREE INQUIRY The Inseparability of Logic and Ethics

John Corcoran

ogic and ethics are too often regarded as separate, or incompatible with previously accepted beliefs. Objectivity if not somehow in opposition to each other. But involves what has been called love of truth, devotion to truth, Lmany great logicians, including Aristotle, Ockham, loyalty to truth. It is recognized as a characteristically human Bolzano, De Morgan, and Russell, were capable of incisive trait that serves to unify the human race. It is at the same contributions to ethics and of heroic actions grounded in time an ethical virtue that requires cultivation. The primary ethical insight. Likewise many exemplary moralists, including goal of logic is the cultivation of objectivity. Logic aims at Socrates, Plato, Kant, Mill, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, concepts, principles, and methods that are useful in making showed by their teachings and actions a deep commitment up one's mind in accord with the facts. to objectivity, the ethical value that motivates logic and is If humans were omniscient or infallible there would be served by logic. This article explores the role of logic in ethics no logic because there would be no need for it. If they were and the role of ethics in logic. indifferent to truth or lacked concern for it, again there would It is important to investigate the hypothesis that the ethics be no logic because there would be no desire for it and no of the future must accord logic a more central and explicit motivation to develop it. The human condition is replete with role. Connections between ethics and irrational subjectivities unfulfilled and perhaps unfulfillable aspirations. Here we must be severed; human dignity and mutual respect can be juxtapose human ignorance and fallibility with the aspiration based to a greater extent on the universal desire for objective to knowledge. knowledge. Logic might be said to begin with observations about this Likewise it is important to investigate the hypothesis that gap between accomplishment and aspiration. Belief is not the logic of the future must accord ethics a more central and necessarily knowledge. The feeling of certainty is not a cri- explicit role. Logical principles are important because they terion of truth. Persuasion is not necessarily proof. Indeed, serve ethical goals. Logic is peculiarly and essentially a human one of the perennial problems in logic is the perfection of pursuit; the alleged disconnections between logic and human criteria of proof, the development of objective tests to dctcr- involvement must be refuted. mine of a given persuasive argumentation whether it is a The caricature of logic as a meaningless game of symbol genuine proof, whether it establishes the truth of its conclusion. manipulation and the caricature of ethics as a rationalization But alongside the negative observation that humans are neither of blind emotion must both be exposed. Logic and ethics omniscient nor infallible are the positive observations that are in fact inseparable and each is served by explicit recognition the desire to know the truth can be fulfilled to a greater extent of its involvement with the other. than it has been thus far, that it is possible to approach the ideal ever closer, and that objectivity can be cultivated. Objectivity The three facts that begin logic—that humans are neither omniscient nor infallible, that humans seek knowledge, and ristotle observed that all humans by nature desire to that improvement is possible—are three facts that serve to A know. Our attention is thereby drawn to objectivity, to bring humans together. It is possible to cooperate in the goal, the intention to make up one's mind in accord with the facts, at once noble and practical, to overcome ignorance and falli- whatever they may be, bility as much as possible. Objectivity automatically involves whether they fulfill or frus- cooperation and avoidance of deception, whether deception trate hopes, whether they of others or by others, or even deception of and by oneself. intensify or allay fears, It is said that the most destructive lies are those we tell to whether they are compatible ourselves. John Corcoran is professor Objectivity, which involves the intention and the capacity of philosophy at the State to make up one's mind in accordance with the facts, is an University of New York at important virtue. But taken alone it might appear to be cold, Buffalo. He has published in alienating, and to some extent even dehumanizing—it might several areas of logic. even appear to conflict with and exclude other virtues. But these appearances are based on several errors.

Spring 1989 37 It is obvious of course that being objective requires being he is ready to have those beliefs objectively examined. dispassionate. But being dispassionate does not exclude being passionate. Some of the most moving stories of the triumph Cultivating objectivity of objectivity involve people who were passionate in their dedication to truth and who were moved to heroic personal lthough the desire for objectivity seems to be universal sacrifices in order to develop and test their ideas. Being dis- A and natural, the process of becoming objective requires interested is not the same as being uninterested. Being an skills and attitudes that many people at first do not find natural impartial observer is not the same as being an indifferent or easy to acquire. Perhaps the first such skill is that of making observer. Being dispassionate and impartial requires care, a hypothesis, of setting forth a proposition for investigation. concentration, and energy; passionate dedication to truth can There is little difficulty when the proposition is not already supply that energy. believed to be true and not already believed to be false. In Moreover, being dispassionate does not exclude being com- such a case, there is rarely any resistance to the project of passionate. Indeed, in order for compassion to be effectual submitting the proposition to examination and testing. and beneficial it must be accompanied by objectivity. For Logicians use the word hypothesis to refer to a proposition example, the practice of medicine is often motivated by com- that is neither known to be true nor known to be false by passion for human suffering, but without objectivity, attempts the relevant community of investigators. They also extend to alleviate suffering can be expected to be self-defeating. In this usage so that the word refers to a proposition that is many cases, compassion and objectivity enhance each other. taken, for purposes of reasoning, as if it were neither known Compassion not only does not exclude, but actually requires to be true nor known to be false. The point of making a objectivity, and this is not an isolated case. All virtues are hypothesis is to test it objectively, to review the evidence pro compatible with objectivity, and most, if not all, virtues require and con, to critically evaluate the relevant argumentations, it in order to be effectual and beneficial. Without objectivity to determine whether errors have been made, to see how it the other virtues are either impossible or self-defeating or at will stand up to objective investigation. The initial process least severely restricted in effectiveness. In fact, in many cases of hypothesis-making has been referred to as bracketing, as lapses in objectivity tend to turn the other virtues into parodies, suspension of belief and disbelief and as methodological mockeries, or perversions of themselves. Attempts at kindness doubt. without objectivity often end up as insulting paternalism. When people have been deceiving themselves about the "Justice" without objectivity is arbitrariness. "Courage" cogency of their evidentiary processes they are naturally afraid without objectivity is rashness. "Integrity" and "moral to have their own beliefs submitted to investigation. But even steadfastness" without objectivity tend to become willful sincere people who have not had experience in this process stubbornness and even fanaticism. Worthy causes have been tend to regard it as dangerous. When bracketing a proposition embarrassed by lapses in objectivity by their ardent supporters. or setting forth a hypothesis, one sets aside all preconceptions A worthy cause can have as much damage done to it by about it, however well established these preconceptions may an overzealous supporter as by a detractor. With unobjec- have appeared. tive friends, a cause does not need enemies. In an open community every attempt to prove or disprove Objectivity is a rather distinctive virtue. We tend to value a proposition is at the same time a bracketing of the proposi- people for their objectivity and to be disappointed and even tion. Every attempt to settle a hypothesis is automatically annoyed with people when they suffer avoidable lapses in an invitation that it be critically examined. In fact, in order objectivity. When there are important decisions to be made to follow a proof it is necessary to doubt the conclusion and or jobs to be done, we try to surround ourselves with people to see that the proof removes the doubt. This is part of what noted for their objectivity—regardless of whether we enjoy is meant when we say that knowledge comes from doubt. their company for other reasons. But what is even more The disinclination to have a belief considered as a hypothesis distinctive is that objectivity gives rise both to pride and to is often a sign of dogmatism, closed-mindedness, and self- humility. Objectivity gives a person a sense of self-worth and deception. But sometimes it is simply a reflection of ignorance dignity. People take just pride in their objectivity. At the same of logical methodology. If a proposition is true, its adherents time, objectivity makes people especially alert to their own have nothing to lose by having it critically investigated. On fallibility and thereby inspires them with a sense of humility, the contrary, they have much to gain. On the other hand, caution, and modesty. if a proposition is false, the sooner it is recognized as such, To get a measure of how objectivity tends to unify humans the better. Shielding a proposition from critical examination and to transcend accidental differences such as age, sex, race, serves no useful purpose. nationality, religion, and class, just consider international Sometimes we are afraid to go to the doctor when we cooperation in mathematics, science, technology, and, perhaps suspect that we have incipient symptoms of illness. Sometimes most important, human rights. When people focus on making it takes courage to face up to the truth. But the clearer a up their minds in accord with the facts in order to accomplish person becomes about the ultimate desirability of knowing a common objective, accidental differences recede into the the truth in a given case, the less courage is needed to put background. What matters is not who a person is or even the issue to the test. what he believes, but rather how he arrives at those beliefs To a community of objective thinkers, any attempt to shield and what attitude he has toward them—in particular, whether a proposition from the testing process reflects badly on those

38 FREE INQUIRY who believe it to be true. Shielding a proposition from testing establishes that it is true; such a proof produces objective is seen as shoddy, undignified, and ultimately absurd. A knowledge of the truth of its conclusion. The same thing holds, proposition not worth testing is not worth being taken with the obvious changes, for proof that a proposition is false. seriously. The hypothetico-deductive method is often preliminary to Another thing that facilitates willingness to submit beliefs proof and sometimes it actually results in proof. The simplest to the test is knowledge of logical principles. For example, form of this method of investigation consists in setting forth a person who cannot recall evidence for a given belief may a hypothesis and seeing which propositions can be deduced become gripped with fear when that belief is raised as a from it and also which propositions it can be deduced from. hypothesis. It is a feeling similar to that encountered when The object, of course, is to determine what else would be true one cannot locate money to pay for a meal already consumed. if the hypothesis were true and what else, being true, would But it is clear that the analogy does not carry over once a explain the truth of the hypothesis—in other words, to find person is aware of the principles of evidence. The fundamental out what would be explained by the hypothesis being true principle of evidence can be stated roughly as follows: and what would serve to explain the hypothesis being true. In short, two questions are asked: The absence of positive evidence by itself is never conclusive negative evidence and the absence of negative evidence by What are the logical consequences of the hypothesis? itself is never conclusive positive evidence. What is the hypothesis a logical consequence of?

At first it may seem that this principle conflicts with the People who are not accustomed to using this method are principle of excluded middle: often amazed at the clarity it produces and at how many things come to light once it is used. Every proposition is either true or false. Quite apart from the fact that the hypothetico-deductive method sometimes leads to proof, it is useful in cultivating But it becomes clear that there is no conflict as soon as it objectivity because it leads to a better understanding of the is realized that there are distinctions both between true and hypothesis in that it produces knowledge of what to expect proved to be true and between false and proved to be false. were the hypothesis true and of what would result in the The principles of nonomniscience, which embody these dis- hypothesis. If the statement of the hypothesis is ambiguous, tinctions, are in part, as follows: this process often brings the ambiguity to light and provides suggestions for revisions. If the hypothesis is vague, this Not every proposition is either proved to be true or proved process can locate the vagueness and provide suggestions for to be false. Not every true proposition is proved to be true. sharpening it. Not every false proposition is proved to be false. How can this method lead to proof or disproof? There are several possibilities, only two of which will be considered Ignorance of the fundamental principle of evidence has here. been exploited by unscrupulous persons and groups. An First, let us imagine that from the hypothesis we have unscrupulous person may make a baseless charge and, when deduced a proposition that was already known to be false challenged to present evidence, try to turn the situation around or that was subsequently determined to be false, say by experi- by asking for evidence to the contrary in order to give the ment. In this case we have a disproof of the hypothesis, a impression that the absence of evidence to the contrary is proof that the hypothesis is false. This is so in view of the actually evidence in favor of the charge. In recent years pur- following principle: veyors of unsafe consumer products have delayed having their products rejected by using tactics that exploit consumer Every proposition that implies a false proposition is itself ignorance regarding the fundamental principle of evidence. false. The tobacco industry has tried to get people to believe that cigarettes are safe by reiterating that scientists have been unable This is the familiar principle of false consequence, which is to prove conclusively that smoking causes various illnesses. the basis for much productive thinking. It is the principle The dispassionate search for truth tends to bring out the most often used in exonerating innocent defendants and, more best in people. The study of logic, not as a system of external generally, in rejecting false hypotheses. rules, but as an intensely personal attempt to be objective There are of course many other ways in which knowledge about objectivity, contributes to this search. On the other of this principle leads to the cultivation of objectivity. For hand, attempts to defend preconceived beliefs by whatever example, by focusing on the principle of false consequence means necessary, even deception and coercion, tend to bring we are reminded of the fact that a proposition is false if even out the worst in people. one of its consequences is false, and that a person making an assertion is as responsible for each of the consequences The Hypothetico-Deductive Method of the assertion as for the assertion itself. This should move an objective person to be a bit more cautious and to do some n logic the word proof and its cognates are used in the deductions before making an assertion. I strict sense. A proof that a proposition is true actually Second, let us imagine that we have deduced the hypothesis Spring 1989 39 from a proposition that was already known to be true or is not proved even were the alleged evidence correct. To that was subsequently determined to be true. In this case we summarize, there are two things to check: whether the alleged have a proof of the hypothesis in view of the following evidence is accurate, and whether the chain of reasoning makes principle: it clear that the alleged evidence, if true, would warrant acceptance of the conclusion. Every proposition implied by a true proposition is itself true. Fallacious reasoning from warranted premises is no better than cogent reasoning based on unwarranted premises. In many This is the familiar principle of true implicant, also known cases of shoddy argumentation people waste their energy as the principle of truth and consequence. This principle is squabbling over the premises when a cursory examination of also the basis for much productive thinking. It forms the the reasoning would bring down the argumentation like a house basis for the reasoning employed in the axiomatic develop- of cards. ment of the various branches of mathematics, and it is There are two arts involved in proof. There is the art of involved in understanding mathematical proof, which is a producing or discovering proof (a heuristic art), and the art kind of ideal standard against which to measure argumen- of recognizing proofs (a critical art). This critical art brings tations that fall short of mathematical proof. us back to the problem of perfecting criteria for proof. In order for an argumentation to be a proof of a given conclusion Proof for a given audience, it is necessary that the argumentation persuade the audience of the truth of the conclusion. But n order to discuss the concept of proof, it is useful to have persuasion is not sufficient, and criteria are needed to prevent I a typical example in mind. Consider the Euclidean proof deception and error. of the Pythagorean Theorem. Its premise-set consists of axioms Whether a person is creating a proof or critically evaluating and definitions for plane geometry, which presumably are an argumentation offered as a proof, the underlying guiding known to be true by the audience. Its conclusion is the principle is the golden rule of proof Pythagorean Theorem. Its chain of reasoning extends over several pages and includes over forty intermediate theorems, Argue unto others as you would have them argue unto you. and its final passages involve a clever recipe for dividing the square on the hypotenuse into two pieces, each adjacent to When you have produced an argumentation and you are a leg of the triangle and each equal to the square on the adjacent wondering whether it is a proof, ask yourself whether you would find it acceptable were a respected adversary to offer leg. it to you. Likewise, when an argumentation is offered to you In order for this proof to be conclusive for a given audience as a proof and you are wondering whether you should accept it is necessary for the premises to be known to be true by it, ask yourself whether you would offer it to a respected that audience. There is no way to base knowledge on premises adversary and whether you could stand behind it. not known to be true. When the audience does not have knowl- edge of the premises, the argumentation is said to beg the Conclusion question or to commit the fallacy of unwarranted assumption. But the conclusiveness of the proof also requires that the chain n the above discussion we have reviewed only a few facets of reasoning make clear that the evidence is sufficient, that I of the interrelatedness and interdependence of logic and the premise-set actually implies the conclusion. When this is ethics. We have seen that ethical practice involves logic insofar lacking, the argumentation is said to be a non sequitur or as the other virtues require objectivity in order to be effectual to commit the fallacy of inadequate reasoning. and beneficial, and in some cases even for their very existence The main idea here is the familiar fact that every proof or realization. There was, unfortunately, no room in such a has three parts: a conclusion, a premise-set, and a chain of short discussion to explore the role of logic in ethical theory. reasoning. Normally the chain of reasoning is by far the longest The importance of consistency and of criteria of consistency part. In a proof the chain of reasoning shows that the con- in ethical theory was not mentioned, nor was the role of logic clusion is implied by the premise-set. The chain of reasoning in the analysis of ethical concepts and propositions. by itself does not show that the conclusion is true but only One of the most important points is one that is often over- that it is implied by the premise-set. In order for the con- looked and that may have not been treated before to the extent clusion to be recognized as true by means of the chain of that it has been treated here. I have in mind the fact that reasoning, the person doing the recognizing must have already logic can be seen as an ongoing, imperfect, incomplete, and verified that the premises in fact are true. essentially incompletable attempt to cultivate objectivity, to Analogous considerations apply in argumentation that falls discover principles and methods that contribute to the short of mathematical proof. It is necessary to establish the understanding and practice of objectivity, which is an ethical premises—in other words, to make sure that what is alleged virtue standing alongside kindness, justice, honesty, compas- to be evidence is accurate as it stands without regard for what sion, and the rest, and which is characteristically human in it is supposed to be evidence for. In addition, and this is an the sense that an omniscient or infallible entity would have entirely different issue, it is necessary to establish that what no use for objectivity and no use for logic. Logic is a humane is alleged to be evidence for the conclusion is sufficient to and humanistic science; it is one of the humanities in the imply the conclusion. If this is not so then the conclusion renaissance sense. •

40 FREE INQUIRY A Theory of Cooperation

Leon Felkins

elievers in traditional religions, particularly the funda- bank, I'm probably doing it because I'm hoping—perhaps mentalists, have many criticisms of those of us who subconsciously—that he will do the same for me if I should B try to lead a more rational life. Most of these criticisms find myself in the same situation. do not deserve serious discussion. One particular criticism, Yet, there are examples of what appear to be truly altruistic however, deserves closer investigation. That is the claim that behavior. An example often mentioned is of the bee that sacri- without religion, there is no basis for ethics, morals, and, fices itself, apparently for the welfare of the hive, when it particularly, altruism. stings an intruder. Under certain conditions, as discussed later A small but very significant portion of the large and com- in this paper, humans and other higher-order animals may plex issue of nonreligious morals and ethics is the issue of also exhibit altruistic behavior. cooperation. According to a scientific model, under certain "The Prisoner's Dilemma," a model discovered around 1950 conditions individuals may act in a cooperative way even by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher, seems to closely repre- though the immediate gain would be greater were they un- sent many real situations. In fact, the model is considered cooperative. good enough to be used in experiments on the effectiveness An underlying concept here is that the actions of humans of certain strategies in a competitive environment. and other animals have rational explanations. Scientists build models to represent the phenomena they see in the real world. If the model is successful in predicting the outcome of a variety The Prisoner's Dilemma of situations it is said that the model "explains" the system it represents. For example, the current mathematical model 1. General model of the two-player game. The Prisoner's of the interaction of the celestial bodies of the universe appears Dilemma model as presented by the computer scientist to be very accurate. We are able to precisely predict eclipses Douglas Hofstadter is as follows. of the moon and sun hundreds of years in advance. Two prisoners, let's call them Art and Craft, are being Social scientists have not been so successful, however. held for trial for a crime they committed together. They are Attempts have been made to model human behavior, based being held in separate cells with no means of communication. on the assumption that humans are rational and subject to The prosecutor offers each of them a deal. He also discloses the same laws of the universe as other material objects. A to each that the same deal was made to the other. The deal relatively easy model to formulate for humans and other living he offers is this: things is that each living thing is egoistic. Humans and other higher-level animals seem to exhibit this behavior most of a. If you will confess that the two of you committed the the time. Egoism is easy to understand and can probably crime and the other guy denies it, we will let you go free account for most higher-order animal activity. and send him up for five years. However, humans and other living things also exhibit what b. If you both deny the crime, we have enough circum- appears to be altruistic behavior. Quite often this altruistic stantial evidence to put both of you away for two years. behavior is superficial and when we examine underlying causes c. If both of you confess to the crime, then you'll both of actions we find that the get four-year sentences. actions were in fact egoistic. When I help my neighbor to Put yourself in Art's position. If Craft stays mum and you get his car out of the snow sing, you get zero years. If he stays mum and you stay mum, you will get two years. On the other hand if Craft sings and Leon Felkins is a computer you sing, you will get four years. If he sings and you don't consultant currently work- sing, you will get five years. In both cases, it is to your ing on a doctorate in engi- advantage to sing. Of course, Craft will come to the same neering science. He operates conclusion. So you both end up singing, which nets a total the Secular Humanist Com- of eight years. The paradox is, if you had both denied the puter Bulletin Board. crime, a total of only four years would be spent behind bars. A payoff matrix is usually presented in the following form:

Spring 1989 41 ACTION PAYOFF other computer programs. The computer programs are quite ART CRAFT ART CRAFT easy to write for such a simple game; they merely state a Cooperate Cooperate -2 (R) -2 (R) strategy to be followed for each condition they might en- Cooperate Defect -5 (S) 0 (T) counter in the game. Each of the computer programs was Defect Cooperate 0 (T) -5 (S) allowed to compete with all the other programs for a tourna- Defect Defect -4 (P) -4 (P) ment of two hundred moves. For each encounter in the game, R=Reward for mutual cooperation the two competitors accumulated points in accordance with S=Sucker's payoff the usual payoff matrix: three points for mutual cooperation, T=Temptation to defect one point for mutual defection, and, when one player defected P=Punishment for mutual defection and the other cooperated, the defecting player received five points while the cooperating player received none. The general form of the Prisoner's Dilemma model is that the preference ranking of the four payoffs be, from best to Note that the biblical advice "Do unto others worst, T, R, P, S and that R be better than the average of T and S. In the literature, these values are "normalized" as you would have them do unto you" does by adding five points to each, so that T=5, R=3, P= l, and not seem to be a useful strategy. Better advice S=O. is to "Do unto others as they have done In summary, the Prisoner's Dilemma model postulates a condition where it appears to be to the individual's immediate unto you—but don't be the first to be nasty." advantage to not cooperate, whereas the sum-total reward is greater if both cooperate. The shortest, most basic program submitted won the tour- The model can be applied to many real-life situations, from nament. It was called "Tit for Tat." Its strategy was beautiful genetics to business transactions to international politics. Some in its simplicity. It always started with a cooperative move of these other examples—more realistic than the Prisoner's and thereafter simply did what the other player did on the Dilemma—will be given later in this article. previous move. Some of the players knew of the effective- ness of the Tit for Tat strategy from similar competitions 2. Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma with multiple participants. but every time they tried to improve upon the basic strategy, If the game is played only once there is no incentive for either the new program performed worse than Tit for Tat. player to do anything but defect, as discussed above. In fact, Some very complicated and devious programs were sub- if the game is to be played a known number of rounds, there mitted. Generally, they would try to lull the players into feeling is no better choice than to defect. (Why? Because you both secure and then they would defect. Surprisingly, there was know you will defect on the last move. That puts you in one property that clearly separated the high-scoring players the same situation for the next-to-last move—and so on for from the low-scoring players and that was the property of all.) But if the game is to be played an indefinite number being "nice," which was defined as never being the first to of times, under certain conditions, cooperation will evolve defect. Nice players generally did best. as the best policy. Experiments with real subjects have shown An interesting characteristic of the Tit for Tat strategy is that cooperative behavior can exist, under certain conditions, that its score against each of its competitors is never better when the number of trials is not indefinite. than the other player's. Without exception its score was slightly Another addition to the game that makes it more realistic lower than or, at best, equal to its competitor's. Yet it won is to assume that each player interacts with a multitude of the tournament. How? Because while other players were killing other players. Additionally, it is assumed that each player each other, Tit for Tat elicited cooperative behavior from remembers the past history of the interactions with each of each of its competitors. Remember that the total score for the other players and that past history is the only information cooperation always exceeds the total score for defections. So he has. Tit for Tat lost all of the battles but won the war. Axelrod conducted further tournaments. Each person in- vited to participate was given complete details and results Computer simulation of strategies of all the previous tournaments. This had a great impact on the evolution of the strategies submitted to the game. One Axelrod 's competitive model. Robert Axelrod, professor of strategy, called "Downing" (from the player's name) would political science at the University of Michigan, devised an have won over Tit for Tat in the first tournament with just ingenious scheme for finding effective strategies in a Prisoner's a small change in the program. Downing's strategy was com- Dilemma environment. He set up a tournament in which the plex. It attempted to analyze each of its competitors. If the entrants would be computer programs. In the first round he competitor seemed strong, Downing always cooperated; if the invited some of the most respected game theorists to partici- competitor seemed to to be naive or forgetful of previous pate. Subsequent rounds were opened up to anyone by an encounters, Downing quickly took advantage by defecting invitation in a computer magazine. repeatedly. Downing failed because it had a pessimistic view The entries in this game were computer programs that of its competitors. It always started the game by defecting would be sequenced to compete repeatedly with each of the a couple of times to check its opponents out. If it had started

42 FREE INQUIRY off cooperating, it would have won. church services. Of course, it would have been devastating It would have won in the first tournament. The program to the enemy for our side to take advantage of those times was revised, as described above, for the second tournament, when their guard was down, or vice versa—but neither side but still lost! Why? Because the game of Prisoner's Dilemma did, except when forced to by higher command. is not like chess, where the rules are defined and are always the same—the rules for Prisoner's Dilemma are determined 2. Biological Systems. There is some evidence that co- by the environment. Revised Downing would have won in operation evolves in nature, such as when a plant and an the first tournament but lost amid the more sophisticated animal are mutually dependent. But how does such coopera- competitors of the second tournament. In fact, Tit for Tat tion get started? The theory of cooperation says that a single won again! No general strategy that will always win can be individual cannot successfully invade an uncooperative neigh- formulated when the players and the strategies are constantly borhood. Therefore, a single mutant could not survive. How- changing—but Tit for Tat seems to be one of the best. ever, if a cluster of individuals somehow arose, they could Axelrod noticed that the process he was following—of successfully invade. So it is likely that altruistic kinship is letting participants revise their entries based on full knowledge evolutionally useful. of previous tournaments—was beginning to act a little like There are many examples of what appears to be genuine the theory of evolution. So he ran another experiment in altruism among kin in animals. According to Axelrod, evolu- which he let the better strategies "evolve" by allowing them tionary theory has recently been extended to include what to reproduce themselves. One particularly interesting result is called genetical kinship theory. Basically, it appears that was obvious: Strategies that did well early on by exploiting the gene, according to Axelrod, "looks beyond its mortal weaker strategies failed when all the weaker strategies had bearer to the potentially immortal set of its replicas existing become extinct. The "nice" strategies again won out. in other related individuals."' So the genes take the big picture: Altruism is used to benefit the reproduction of the kinship group at the possible expense of the individual. Requirements for the emergence of cooperation 3. Business Relationships. There are several examples of 1. The fundamental requirement for cooperation to evolve strategies of cooperation or defection among businesses that is the relationship of the payoffs stated above. Cooperation do not try to wipe each other out but realize that mutual must have a total reward for both players greater than the cooperation probably helps both. One thing noted in various sum of the defector and the sucker. (However, other payoff studies, however, is that the highest return on cooperation matrices are of interest. For example, the game of "Chicken" can be formulated by a matrix in which S is greater than WILLY 'N ETHEL P and R is not necessarily greater than the average of T and S. See reference 7.) YOU 170N-r- S'EAUZE 2. In general, the number of future interactions must be IT'UN71L YOÙ 2E IN indefinite. -M E St T1~ATl0 IJ . . 3. Each player must know and remember what the reward was that each interaction resulted in. (One of the problems of nuclear disarmament is verification.) 4. There must be some others willing to cooperate. This emphasizes the importance of the family, partnerships, and so on.

Examples t 1. Trench warfare during World War I. A detailed study of the evolution of cooperation in the trench warfare of World BUT 11-1ERE ARE FEW T1-41N&S IN LIFE War I has been made by the sociologist Tony Ashworth. With TUAT RE.autRE MORE Gb01 EQATION a little thought it is easy to see that trench warfare meets FROM ZNE 6ENEc AL RAE31.1C, 7NAN z

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the criteria for the Prisoner's Dilemma. You can try to wipe Ir each other out or you can try to cooperate. The rewards seem ion

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ia frustration of the higher officers—the guys in opposing ec trenches elected to cooperate with one another. For instance, h sp

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area. Noisy, but it did little harm. Also, each side respected r

the other's need for certain activities such as meal time and Rep

Spring 1989 43 is for the small group. So businesses will try to limit the number 4. Be forgiving but not too forgiving. Generally, forgiveness of competitors. seems to be a useful part of a winning strategy. One caution, However, businesses also will go into the defect mode when however: The tournaments showed that some strategies were they know the other business will not be around long. A able to successfully exploit other strategies that were too easy- business going under will have a hard time collecting accounts going. The main value of forgiveness is that it helps players receivable. to get out of an unending series of mutual recriminations. It was noted above that strategies that exploit the weak 5. Don't be too clever or obscure. The problem with being generally succeed for only a brief period, since as the weak very clever and building a strategy based on some sort of die out, the opportunities for the success of these strategies sophisticated analysis of your opponent's profile is that he fades. We have noticed this phenomena in some unscrupulous is also adjusting his strategy to your responses. So you get advertisers—the promoters of "$19.95 specials" on television into a complex reverberating process in which the other fellow seem to go bankrupt after awhile. is adapting to you, you are adapting to him, he further adapts to you, and so on. 4. Politics. Early American history reveals that the Complex actions generally encourage the other player's de- Washington politicians were often an unscrupulous, unreliable, fection. Another factor in Tit for Tat's success is that it has and treacherous lot. They have since learned to cooperate great clarity: It is very easily understood by the other player. and to reciprocate. Today's Congress is a classic representation You know exactly where you stand with a Tit for Tat player. of the cooperation theory. Rather than gain at the others' 6. In a totally hostile environment, try to find a few co- expense, they are very careful to make sure everyone gets operative people. Studies show that a cluster of cooperative his share of the pie. Further, any member of Congress that players can successfully invade a population of defecting is not likely to get reelected will have some difficulty getting players. Going it alone, however, is impossible. Interestingly, cooperation. a cooperating group cannot be successfully invaded by "not nice" strategies. 7. Finally, a couple of quotes from Hofstadter that are Conclusions particularly appropriate for secular humanists:

Studies have shown that the Prisoner's Dilemma model is Clearly four-line computer programs do not think, and yet representative of many real-world situations and that it can it is in a world of just such "organisms" that cooperation be used to develop strategies for surviving in the real world. has been shown to evolve ... entities can be on the scale As suggested by Axelrod, some advice can be inferred from of bacteria, small animals, large animals or nations. There the results of these studies. is no need for reflective rationality. For people who think that moral behavior toward others can emerge only when 1. Don't be envious of the other person's situation. Life there is some horrendous and totally external threat (of fire itself, like the Prisoner's Dilemma game, is not zero-sum. It and brimstone, say) or some soothing promise of heavenly appears that there is a reward for cooperation in most situ- reward (such as eternal salvation) the results of this research ations. must give rise for thought.2 Always try to maximize your own position rather than to beat the other fellow. The Tit for Tat strategy wins by Notes maximizing the return for both the player and his current competitor. In fact, every one of Tit for Tat's competitors I. Robert Axelrod. The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, did better in its interaction with Tit for Tat than Tit for Tat 1984), p. 89. 2. Dogulas R. Hofstadter, "Metamagical Themas: Computer Tourna- did. Yet Tit for Tat won. ments of the Prisoner's Dilemma Suggest How Cooperation Evolves," 2. Don't be the first to defect. It pays to be nice as long Scientific American 248 (1983), no. 5, p. 26. as the other person is cooperating and the game is indefinite. However, if the person is not likely to be around any longer, References it pays to defect. (You might want to consider possible inter- actions from the departed's friends or relatives, however!) Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, 1984. 3. Reciprocate both cooperation and defection. The Tit Hofstadter, Douglas R. "Metamagical Themas: Computer Tournaments for Tat strategy seems to be the best general strategy for all of the Prisoner's Dilemma Suggest How Cooperation Evolves," Scientific situations. As long as the other person is cooperating, you American 248 (1983), no. 5:16-26. should cooperate. If he defects, you should defect. But don't Hofstadter, Douglas R. "The Calculus of Cooperation is Tested Through a Lottery." Scientific American 248 (1983), no. 6:14-28. hold grudges or give excessive punishment. In fact, Tit for Ashworth, Tony. Trench Warfare, 1914-1918: The Live and Let Live Tat's secret is that it only remembers and acts on the last System. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1980. Reinhard Selten and Rolf Stoecker, "End Behavior in Sequences of interaction. Permanent retaliation, in particular, was not a Finite Prisoner's Dilemma Supergames." Journal of Economic Behavior useful strategy. and Organization, vol. 7 (1986), no. 1:47-70. Note that the biblical advice "Do unto others as you would Samuelson, L. "A Note on Uncertainty and Cooperation in a Finitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma." International Journal of Game Theory, have them do unto you" does not seem to be a useful strategy. vol. 16 (1987), issue 3:187-195. Better advice is to "Do unto others as they have done unto Lipman, Barton L. "Cooperation Among Egoists in Prisoners' Dilemma you—but don't be the first to be nasty." and Chicken Games." Public Choice, vol. 51 (1986), no. 3:315-331. •

44 FREE INQUIRY Holiday Seminar What is Secular Humanism? Thursday, August 17 to Sunday, August 20, 1989 AT THE State University of New York at Buffalo, Amherst Campus This special seminar will deal with the ways in which a nonreligious person can face the problems of life in an affirmative, humanistic manner. Topics will include Secular Humanism and Human Sexuality, Secular Humanism in its Historical Perspective, Secular Humanism and Atheism, and Secular Humanism and Self-Determination. A suggested reading list will be announced. All registrants will receive a certificate of achievement after completing the seminar. Seminar leaders include: Paul Kurtz, Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo; Editor, Free Inquiry Bonnie Bullough, Dean of Nursing, State University of New York College at Buffalo Vern Bullough, Dean of Natural and Social Sciences, State University of New York College at Buffalo Tom Flynn, Co-Editor, Secular Humanist Bulletin Tom Franczyk, Co-Editor, Secular Humanist Bulletin Tim Madigan, Executive Editor, Free Inquiry Jean Millholland, Executive Director, Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism Lee Nisbet, Professor of Philosophy, Medaille College

THURSDAY, AUGUST 17 SATURDAY, AUGUST 19 2:00 P.M.-5:00 P.M. Seminar Session 9:00 A.M-12 NOON Seminar Session 6:00 P.M-8:00 P.M. Opening Banquet 12:00 NOON-2:00 P.M. Lunch (on your own) 8:00 P.M-10:00 P.M. Informal Get-Together 2:00 P.m.-6:00 P.M. Cruise on Lake Erie (optional) FRIDAY, AUGUST 18 9:00 A.m.-I2 NOON Seminar Session SUNDAY, AUGUST 20 12 NOON-2:00 P.M. Luncheon 9:00 A. M.-12 NOON Seminar Session 12:00 NOON-2:00 P.M. Lunch (on your own) 6:00 P.M.-10:00 P.M. Entertainment at the George Bernard Shaw Festival or Artpark Theater (optional) 2:00 P.M.-6:00 P.M. Workshops

❑ YES, I (we) plan to attend FREE INQUIRY's Holiday Seminar ❑ Registration for _ person(s), $150 each includes texts and other reading assignments and passes for tennis and swimming ❑ Thursday Banquet for person(s), $27.50 each ❑ Friday Luncheon for person(s), $8.95 each ❑ Shaw Festival or Artpark for person(s), $30.00 each (optional) ❑ Cruise on Lake Erie for person(s), $25.00 each (optional) For accommodations contact the Red Roof Inn at (716) 689-7474, or the Marriott Hotel at (716) 689-6900. Both are adjacent to the University of Buffalo Amherst Campus. Mention FREE INQUIRY and receive a special discount. Persons over sixty years of age receive a 10% discount on hotel accommodations. Enrollment is limited to 30 registrants, so please register early. Check or Money Order (U.S. funds on U.S. bank, payable to FREE INQUIRY)

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City State Zip Return to: Jean Millholland, FREE INQUIRY, Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 • (716) 834-2921 faded except for a brief revival during the second century among the frenzied followers of Montanus of Phyrigia and his two Glossolalia prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla. Mon- tanism was an adventist movement centered on the imminent return of Jesus; when the Lord failed to appear, the sect soon Martin Gardner evaporated. In the fourth century Saint Augustine taught that glossolalia was given mong Protestants and Catholics in the they shall lay hands on the sick, and they only to the early church, then withdrawn. AUnited States a long-standing rift has shall recover." This became the official view of the Catholic been widening between those who promote Fundamentalists believe that Jesus was church and of the Protestant Reformers. "tongues speaking" as a miraculous gift of referring prophetically to the "gifts" of the There is no evidence that Luther or Calvin God and those who are appalled by the Holy Spirit given to the disciples on the even tried to speak in tongues, although the practice. The controversy grew increasingly Jewish feast day of Pentecost, as described practice surfaced here and there in the bitter in the wake of the Jim and Tammy in the second book of Acts. There was first seventeenth century, mainly in France Bakker scandal. The Bakkers belonged to a "rushing mighty wind." When "cloven among the Protestant Camisards and the the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal de- tongues like as of fire" descended on them, convulsionnaires of the Catholic Jansenists, nomination convinced that speaking in "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and in England among the Ranters. tongues is essential for a full Christian life. and began to speak with other tongues...." In the eighteenth century, glossolalia was After Bakker's downfall, his television em- "Other tongues" does not here mean what revived by the Methodists, and was soon pire was temporarily taken over by Jerry St. Paul later called the Unknown Tongue. flourishing within such fringe sects as the Falwell, an independent Baptist fundamen- It clearly refers to the disciples preaching in Quakers, Shakers, Irvingites, and Mormons. talist who once likened tongues speaking to languages they did not know. "Behold," said After 1900 a variety of churches sprang up the belly rumblings of someone who had their listeners, "are not all these which speak, in the United States among the rural poor eaten too much pizza. (No wonder so many Galileans? And how hear we every man in and unlettered, on fire with tongues and faith Pentecostals call him Jerry Foulwell.) our own tongue?" Psychologists call this healing. They grew into the denominations Exactly what is tongues speaking? It is a xenoglossy or xenoglossolalia. Some Biblical now called Pentecostal. Today there are stream of unintelligible sounds spoken in a scholars take the passage to mean that the about thirty-five of them, the largest of state of religious exaltation. Psychologists disciples preached in their native language, which is the Assemblies of God. The Pente- call it glossolalia, and it has a long and but listeners heard it in their native costal denominations are the fastest growing varied history. Early Hebrew prophets tongues—a miraculous phenomenon known branch of Christianity, not only here but known as the Nebiim (1 Samuel 10:5) were as heteroglossy or heteroglossolalia. throughout the world, especially in Africa, given to wild dancing and glossolalia. In The Unknown Tongue, a supernatural Korea, and Latin America. ancient Greece and Rome, oracles, sooth- language understood only by God and the In the 1960s an astonishing thing hap- sayers, and devotees of the mystery religions angels, is first mentioned in Paul's 1 Corin- pened. Glossolalia suddenly invaded the often gurgled gibberish while in ecstatic thians, a letter written to the faithful in Catholic, Episcopal, and mainline Protestant trances. The Maulawiya, or Whirling Derv- Corinth. In Chapter Twelve he lists different denominations. These charismatics are dig- ishes of Islamic Sufism, accompany their gifts of the Holy Spirit, including healing, nified, quiet glossolalists, mostly middle-class ecstatic dancing with glossolalia. The more speaking in "divers kinds of tongues," and whites with strongly conservative political extreme Rifá iya, or Howling Dervishes, not the ability to interpret what was said. In opinions; they are often called neo-Pente- only howl in tongues but also lash them- Chapter Fourteen he exhorts the Corinthians costal to distinguish them from the "class- selves with whips, cut themselves with not to overdo glossolalia. "For he that ical" Pentecostals. Doctrinally they remain knives, walk on fire, eat glass, and play with speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh loyal to their churches, varying widely in serpents, convinced that Allah will protect not unto men, but unto God: for no man beliefs that range from hardshell fundamen- them. Anthropologists have encountered understandeth him." Although glossolalia talism to liberalism. They are loosely or- glossolalia in the religious rites of many does the speaker good, Paul goes on to say, ganized, with their own periodicals and primitive tribes. it does no good to others. It is like talking with centers in such unlikely academic spots Christian glossolalia arose among the to empty air. as Notre Dame and the University of faithful soon after the death of Jesus. In Here is how Edgar Goodspeed translates Michigan. Mark 16:17-18, a risen Christ tells his disci- a famous passage in Paul's letter: "Thank Accurate statistics are hard to come by, ples: "And these signs shall follow them that God, I speak in ecstasy more than any of but it has been estimated that in the United believe: In my name shall they cast out you. But in public worship I would rather States there are about five million charis- devils; they shall speak with new tongues; say five words with my understanding so as matics (a term that includes both neo- and they shall take up serpents; and if they drink to instruct others also than ten thousand classical Pentecostals), of which half a any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; words in an ecstasy."' To quote a better million may be Catholic. Worldwide, the known verse, 1 Corinthians 13:1 (this from number of charismatics could be near two Martin Gardner is the author of The Magic the King James Bible): "Though I speak with hundred million. Many Catholic leaders are Numbers of Dr. Matrix; Science: Good, Bad the tongues of men and of angels, and have disturbed by this seeping of glossolalia into and Bogus; The New Age: Notes of a Fringe- not charity, I am become as sounding brass, their church. In the past, the Vatican has Watcher (Prometheus); and many other or a tinkling cymbal." regarded tongues speaking as an uncouth books. Although widely practiced by first- manifestation of demon possession. In view century Christians, glossolalia gradually of charismatic growth among Catholics in

46 FREE INQUIRY Spain, France, and Latin America (curious- will feel the Holy Spirit coming up in your converted, when she responded to an altar ly, the movement has had no success in spirit. Now all you have to do is let the call. "Slowly, slowly, slowly ... I disap- prayer language come out ... you may peared and the Lord filled me with his Holy Ireland), the Vatican has muted its opposi- think that you are making up words. But tion. What the pope thinks about it is any- you are not. You are allowing the Holy Spirit. For hours I lay on the floor and body's guess. Spirit to form the words.2 spoke in an unknown language. I wasn't All Pentecostals are fundamentalists who aware of anyone else. I was walking with believe the Bible is inerrant, but the word Unlike most other charismatics, Oral Jesus."3 fundamentalist is increasingly being applied urges every tongues speaker to ask God Jimmy Swaggart, as he recalls in his only to those who, like Falwell, think the immediately for an interpretation. In Pente- autobiography, To Cross a River, was eight gift of glossolalia was withdrawn after apo- costal churches this gift of interpretation is years old when he responded to an altar call stolic times. "Evangelical" is another blanket usually possessed by someone other than the by a visiting Houston evangelist named adjective. It refers to any Christian who speaker. During a church service someone Thelma Wiggins. He recalls it this way: places great stress on the born-again experi- may stand up, jabber unintelligibly for Kneeling at the altar, praying as usual, 1 ence. Although charismatics admit that several minutes, then sit down. Someone became aware of what seemed to be a tongues speaking is not essential for sal- with the gift of interpretation will then rise brilliant shaft of light descending from vation—only conversion is—they believe that to explain the prayer. heaven and focusing on me. Moments later to lead the richest possible Christian life a I was speaking in tongues. believer should earnestly seek a second bap- hat does the Unknown Tongue For days afterwards, I spoke very little sound like? Many Pentecostals, espe- English. In fact, one day mamma sent me tism by the Holy Spirit. It is this baptism W to the post office to get a three cent stamp. that confers—though not necessarily right cially older members of the classical I placed a nickel down on the counter but away—the ability to glossolate. churches, believe they are speaking a natural instead of telling the clerk I wanted a Four of today's best-known televangel- language, unknown to them but spoken stamp 1 began speaking in tongues. ists—Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, Jimmy somewhere on earth. Linguists agree that "Son, I can't understand the language you're speaking," the tense little man be- Swaggart, and Pat Robertson—are zealous this is not the case. Glossolalia has no dis- hind the counter said. Pentecostals who speak in tongues, as do cernible grammatical structure. The tongues I had been praying about half the day their wives and most of their children. You have nothing in common except a vague in tongues and didn't think anything about seldom hear them glossolate on the tube overall resemblance to the sounds and it, but it sure frightened the postal clerk.' because they recognized long ago that it cadences of a natural language. It may sound frightens the uninitiated, but in private they something like "Alarathon ahialee tharnee Pat Robertson writes about his initiation practice it frequently. Brother Roberts and ekbathaton," or "Kla-atu barada nikto." To in Shout It From the Housetops: "I felt his wife Evelyn pray in tongues every day, outsiders the syllables seem bizarre, comic, waves of love flow over me as I began to as do many of the students at Oral Roberts and a bit scary, but to the speaker the give praise to Jesus. . . . It was in this University. experience is joyful and invigorating. It is moment that I became aware my speech was In his three-volume work The Holy Spirit also, as sociologists point out, a ritual that garbled. 1 was speaking in another language. in the Now, Oral argues that glossolalia is a binds the faithful in a kind of secret society, Something deep within me had been given a prayer language readily available to every a fellowship of illuminati from which the voice, and the Holy Spirit had supplied the born-again believer: uninitiated are excluded. words. . . . It sounded like some kind of In her autobiography, I Gotta Be Me, African dialect."5 As you continue thanking and praising Tammy Bakker recalls her first experience Later in the book Pat tells how his wife the Lord in your natural language, you in glossolalia. She was a young girl, newly Dede first glossolated. One night Pat retired

47 Spring 1989 early. About midnight he was awakened by tional atmosphere," a supporting group, and ever; it's just like drumming."10 Indeed, the sound of Dede praying: a strong belief in the religious importance Samarin suggests, it is closer to improvisa- of tongues speaking. tional jazz than to language. [She was] kneeling at the foot of our bed, "The glossolalists are able to develop a Samarin, who now attends an Anglican speaking in the most beautiful language 1 deeply trusting and submissive relationship church, rejects the view that tongues speak- had ever heard. It sounded like French— but I knew it was tongues.... I slipped to the authority figure who introduces them ing has a supernatural origin, but he is not out from under the covers and knelt on to the practice," Kildahl stated. "Without opposed to it if it is regarded as a "linguistic floor beside her.... Softly I joined her, this complete turning oneself over to the symbol of the sacred"—a form of prayer praying in tongues as the Spirit gave ut- leader, there can be no beginning to speak that can be a joyful, faith-strengthening terance.... Finally the tongues ceased, and we knelt in silence, drinking in the in tongues."8 This role of the "shepherd," as experience for those who practice it. Unlike indescribable beauty of that holy moment.6 the leader (always a man) is called in some some other investigators, he does not believe neo-Pentecostal circles, has been criticized it requires an altered state of consciousness. When Pat Boone, the best known Pente- for its authoritarianism and occasional Although some glossolalists may undergo costal in show business, was baptized by the damage to the unstable "sheep" in his fold. trancelike states, most do not. It is, Samarin Spirit, he sang in tongues. In his life story, Psychologists find that glossolalists are is convinced, a learned behavior that can be A New Song, he says it started with a single less inhibited in displaying their emotions mastered by anyone willing to drop his or tone, then suddenly "a beautiful than most people. The autobiographies of her inhibitions and give it a try. It may be melody came out, and words began to float Roberts, the Bakkers, Swaggart, and crude at first, but it quickly improves with in on the melody! ... How can I describe Robertson drip with episodes of weeping. practice. such a thing? It was an uplifting, inspiring, Tammy sobs on almost every page of her Tongues speakers who lose their Pente- joyful experience—the most profound of my book, and her husband, someone recently costal faith invariably retain the ability to life. I had a deep sense of knowing that I said, cries if the breakfast toast burns. Swag- glossolate. Some have said they enjoy gloss- was singing a new song to God."' gart constantly works up crocodile tears olating during orgasms. Sid Caesar and Although tongues speaking has now while he sings, waves the Good Book, begs other comics are experts in rattling off gib- moved out of primitive farm communities for money, or asks forgiveness for his sins.9 berish that sounds exactly like German, into affluent and sedate churches, you can Tongues speakers are also inclined to hear Japanese, or some other foreign tongue. I still find Pentecostal congregations in small God speak directly to them and to see myself, while researching this article, began towns, or in the mean streets of big city visions. Oral has described several visions to practice tongues speaking and now can slums where scenes of bedlam occur—be- of Jesus and angels, and in 1986 revealed babble it fluently. "Drawk cabda erfi esnes lievers gyrating wildly to steady clapping, that Satan had invaded his bedroom and nonton." And I can assure Brother Falwell dancing in the Spirit, howling in tongues, tried to strangle him. When Robertson it's been months since I ate a pizza. perspiring, sometimes collapsing on the floor bought his first television station his devout when they are "slain by the Lord." No mother had a vision of large bank notes wonder they were once called "holy rollers." floating down from heaven into her son's Notes In the Appalachian mountains and in other hands. Tammy's visions are marvelous. In 1. From Edgar J. Goodspeed's translation regions of poverty and ignorance, Pente- one of them Jesus wore a helmet and bran- of the New Testament in The Complete Bible: costal groups still practice the more obscure dished a sword. An American Translation (Chicago: University gifts of surviving snake bites and poison. Noncharismatic Christians vary in their of Chicago Press, 1939). 2. 0ral Roberts, The Holy Spirit in the Now Rituals involving snakes and poison are attitudes toward glossolalia. Liberal Protes- (Tulsa: 0ral Roberts University, 1981), vol. 2, p. an embarrassment to enlightened charis- tants seldom talk about it; most have never 57. matics, but Oral Roberts has a clever way even heard it. Popular non-Pentecostal 3. Tammy Bakker, / Gotta Be Me (Green of rejecting them. The word serpent, he preachers such as Norman Vincent Peale and Forest, Ark.: New Leaf Press, 1978), p. 32. Robert Schuller also avoid comment on 4. Jimmy Swaggart, To Cross a River (Baton explains, refers to human enemies from Rouge, La.: Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 1984), whom God provides protection. As for poi- glossolalia for fear of being divisive. The pp. 33-34. son, the Bible simply means that believers Baptist Billy Graham, in a section on 5. Pat Robertson, Shout It from the House- won't die if they drink poison accidently. tongues in The Holy Spirit, perches on a tops (South Plainsfield, N.J.: Bridge Publishing, Several southern states have laws against fence. He has never spoken in tongues, but 1972), pp. 63-64. 6. Ibid., p. 95. handling rattlers and gulping diluted strych- he allows that he knows no biblical authority 7. Pat Boone, A New Song (Carol Stream, nine, but the laws are often violated and for thinking the gift was withdrawn. Maybe Ill.: Creation House, 1970), p. 127. every year or so some poor soul dies as a it's still God-inspired. Maybe not. Like Paul, 8. Quoted in Edward B. Fiske, "Study of result. he warns against its misuse, pointing out Speaking in Tongues Issued: Participants Not Different Emotionally, it Finds," the Psychologists who have studied the per- how easily it can be counterfeited. New York Times, May 2, 1971, p. 88. sonalities of tongues speakers have found William Samarin, professor of linguistics 9. Jimmy's most spectacular fit of sobbing no more evidence of mental illness than in in the anthropology department at the Uni- on television occurred early in 1988 after he had the general population; on the contrary, versity of Toronto, grew up in a tongues- been caught consorting with a hooker. It never charismatics seem happier and better ad- speaking Russian sect in Los Angeles called occurs to Jimmy that his besetting sin is not sexual but the sin of willful ignorance. When justed than most. Psychologist John Kildahl, the Molokan Spiritualism Jumpers. His 1972 Paul advised Timothy to study, he didn't mean in a 1971 study sponsored by the National book Tongues of Men and Angels reports study the Bible, because the Bible did not then Institute of Mental Health, cited five ele- that 53 percent of the glossolalists he studied exist and the gospels had not even been written; ments characteristic of charismatics prior to said it was easier to speak the Unknown everything Jimmy knows about science, history, their first experience with tongues: a "mag- Tongue than to speak in ordinary language. and religious doctrines other than his own can be written on the back of a postage stamp. netic" relationship with a group leader, a You don't have to think just let the words 10. William Samarin, Tongues of Men and sense of personal distress, an "intense emo- flow. One minister said he could "go on for- Angels (New York: Macmillan, 1972). •

48 FREE INQUIRY Bultmann taught at the University of Mar- burg in Germany until his retirement in 1951. His 1921 book Geschichte der synoptischen The Study of the Gospels Tradition (History of the Synoptic Tradi- tion) has remained authoritative:

as Literary Fiction There was need of a cult-legend for the Kyrios [Lord] of the Christian cult. Since the pattern of the Christ-myth had to be illustrated, it needed to be combined with traditions about the history of Jesus... . Randel Helms Thus the Gospels are cult-legends. Mark has created this type. The myth of Christ gives his book ... a unity which is not n 1979, Frank Kermode published a pheral, fighting a rear-guard battle. biographical, but simply based on the study of the narratives in Mark, The The split between the serious and funda- myth.5 Genesis of Secrecy. In 1981, Robert Alter mentalist scholars can be illustrated with published a landmark work, The Art of regard to the question of miracles in the That the outline of the gospel story is Biblical Narrative. In 1982, Northrop Frye New Testament. The "serious" position has mythological and the content of the Gospel published The Great Code: The Bible and been well put by Ernst Käsemann: stories legendary, at least to some extent, is Literature. In 1986, Frank McConnell edited now the majority view among serious biblical The Bible and the Narrative Tradition, and scholars. Since myth and legend are literary 0ver few subjects has there been such a in 1987, Alter and Kermode published bitter battle among the New Testament categories, the Gospels are works of litera- another major work, The Literary Guide to scholars of the last two centuries as over ture, available to the approaches of literary the Bible, in which they declare that the miracle stories of the Gospels.... We critics: such will be the legacy of scholars "Literary criticism, long thought to be peri- may say that today the battle is over, not like Bultmann in the next century. Let me perhaps as yet in the arena of church life, hasten to point out that for Bultmann to pheral or even irrelevant to biblical study, but certainly in the field of theological has emerged since the mid-1970s as a new science. It has ended in the defeat of the call the Gospel stories mythological is not major focus of academic biblical scholar- concept of miracle which has been tradi- to reject their spiritual or theological value ship."' All these writers are professors of tional in the church.... The great major- but rather to establish the terms within ity of the Gospel miracle stories must be which their real value can be grasped. And literature—Frye at Toronto, McConnel and regarded as legends.2 Alter in California, and Kermode at what must be stressed is that the theological Cambridge. On the other side we may put a book parameters within which Bultmann finds the Much of the future of biblical studies that pretends to seriousness but is in fact New Testament supremely valuable are lies in the secular world, particularly the fundamentalist: Gospel Perspectives: The humanistic at their core. As Bultmann wrote, secular universities; such a future is the Miracles of Jesus, edited by David Wenham "The real purpose of myth is not to present consequence of the recognition that the Bible and Craig Blomberg and published under an objective picture of the world as it is, but is a human book—or collection of books— the auspices of the Department of Biblical to express man's understanding of himself produced by imaginative human writers, a Studies at the University of Sheffield in in the world in which he lives. Myth should literary text that can be read with the same England. The pretense of the book's intellec- be interpreted not cosmologically, but skills we bring to any other text. Serious tual seriousness begins to become clear in anthropologically, or better still, existential- reading of the Bible is becoming a human- its preface, which asserts that "serious ly."6 Bultmann s enemies in the funda- istic activity. historical and literary scholarship allows us mentalist camp have been quick to note his Of course, unscholarly readers will con- to approach the gospels with the belief that humanistic sympathies and to attack him tinue to study the Bible for devotional pur- they present an essentially historical account for this aspect of his thinking. To quote poses, and professional theologians for of the words and deeds of Jesus."3 But this from a bitter critic of Bultmann, Simon J. scholarly insight. But there is a major split is, of course, precisely what serious historical Kistemaker, professor of New Testament at among theologians that involves two radi- and literary scholarship of the New Testa- Reformed Theological Seminary and author cally separate traditions of theological study ment does not do; the preface is intellectually of The Gospels in Current Study: of the Bible. The first is rational, humanistic, dishonest. Indeed, as James Barr puts it in and the child of the Enlightenment, the other his book Fundamentalism, fundamentalist Bultmann puts man at the center of Scrip- is at war with the Enlightenment; I call these biblical study is in the literal sense of the ture; he rejects the teaching that the center word, "unprincipled," its real goal, dogmatic of Scripture is God, who reveals himself two traditions "serious" and "fundamenta- as Christ. He does not want to accept that list." The serious tradition is the one that argument, being disguised as objective in- God supernaturally enters history, that his has been fruitful, opening the way for such vestigation.4 Son was born supernaturally, that he died critics as Frye, Kermode, and Alter, the The scholarly line of descent in which and was raised from the dead, that he forerunners of the next century of biblical Käsemann stands, "serious" biblical study, ascended to heaven forty days after his goes back, in the twentieth century, to such resurrection, and that on the last day he study. The fundamentalist tradition will shall return as Judge of the living and the continue, but will become increasingly peri- scholars as Martin Dibelius and Rudolf dead.? Bultmann, whose schools of thought have Rande! Helms is professor of English at come to be called Form Criticism and Though Kistemaker's tone is dismissive, Arizona State University at Tempe. This Redaction Criticism. The powerful insights his perception is accurate; Bultmann did not article is based on his new book, Gospel and general acceptance of such approaches accept the first-century mythological con- Fictions, published by Prometheus Books. have made possible what will be the next structions Kistemaker lists, and Kistemaker's century's approach: literary criticism. Rudolf unease stems from his recognition that Bult-

Spring 1989 49 mann's views have triumphed among serious of literature. As Frank McConnell puts it in sciousness, now that such schools of thought theologians. But let me point out what the introduction to his book, The Bible and or approaches to the Bible as Form Criticism Kistemaker does not make explicit: that the the Narrative Tradition, "Literary criticism and Redaction Criticism have done their list of propositions he says Bultmann does and scriptural exegesis ... are not so much work, "the interpretation of the texts as they not accept constitutes a virtual paraphrase to be wedded as to be reunited after a— actually exist has been revalidated."" As of the Apostles' Creed. For Kistemaker, bib- surely rather long—trial separation."" Alter wrote earlier, "prose fiction is the best lical study is not a matter of disinterested McConnell's book, published in 1986, is general rubric for describing biblical narra- scholarly investigation, but must instead be a fine indicator of much of the coming tive. Or, to be more precise, and borrow a the servant of dogma; unless a scholar shores generation of work on the New Testament. key term from Herbert Schneidau's . . . up the creed, he is suspect. Kistemaker's He points out that the study of the New study, Sacred Discontent, we can speak of unprincipled fundamentalism is a subtext of Testament narratives as fictions does not the Bible as historicized prose fiction."" The his entire book. mean loss of interest in their theological con- older methods of biblical criticism saw the The other major figure in twentieth- tent; rather it will mean a more sophisticated texts as "more or less distorted historical century New Testament study is Martin way to understand Martin Buber's insight records" and attempted to get "behind" the Dibelius, who applied Form Critical insights about the Bible's own narratology: "Scrip- texts to the now-lost history that produced to the Gospels and Acts and showed them ture does not state its doctrine as doctrine, them—to the mental activities and life- to be the largely fictional products of polit- but by telling a story, and without exceeding settings of early Christian communities ical concerns in the early church. His term the limits set by the nature of a story."12 (Form Criticism) and the Evangelists them- for political concern was Sitz im Leben, the McConnell's book contains essays by Harold selves (Redaction Criticism). This work "life-setting" in the early church that called Bloom, Frank Kermode, Herbert Schneidau having been done, we are now free to look forth fictional stories about Jesus and the and James M. Robinson, among others, all at the texts as texts; we can do literary Apostles. Dibelius's major book, From Tra- of which deal in one way or another with criticism. And as Alter and Kermode point ditonal to Gospel, and his definitive essay, what is coming to be called, in the current out, the most fruitful methods of literary "The Speeches in Acts and Ancient Histori- jargon of literary criticism, narratology, the criticism in the twentieth century—formal- ography," establish, for example, that Luke theory of literary narrative. This way of ism, structuralism and post-structuralism— was much more like a Hellenistic novelist reading sees any narrative as a kind of fic- all have in common "a skeptical attitude to than naive readers have realized.8 And other tion, be it historical narrative, autobiogra- the referential qualities of texts and an in- critics have followed in Debelius's path. phy, biography, novel, or Gospel. Each nar- tense concern for their internal relation- Ernst Hänchen argues that in Acts, Luke rative sets up or assumes its own realm, ships"; or, as one might say of the Gospels, was a literary craftsman, composing speeches world, or system, seemingly analogous to they are not so much about Jesus as about and narratives, rather than a "historian" in the "real" world, but containing its own their own attitudes concerning Jesus. the modern sense of the word.9 The present modes of coherence, and actions and out- To speak this way of the Gospels is to consensus among serious scholars of Acts is comes meaningful in that world. For exam- use the language of two interrelating that literary criticism is the appropriate ple, James M. Robinson's essay in this book, methods or interests of literary criticism, approach to this book." "The Gospels as Narrative," brilliantly com- narratology and intertextuality. These are Form Criticism established the idea that bines Redaction Criticism with Derrida's already becoming central to the study of the Gospel stories about Jesus are creations of conception of différance; having accepted New Testament narratives; both assume the the early church—that individual pericopes Bultmann's demythologizing of the Gospels, fictionality or fictiveness of those narratives. about Jesus could be works of what a Robinson begins the process, following Der- I have described the first. The second, inter- literary critic would call imaginative fiction. rida, of deconstructing them. Robinson textuality, proceeds upon the insight, in Form Criticism set for itself the task of speculates on how the fictional narratives in Robert Scholes's words, that "texts are re- identifying and analyzing preliterate oral the Synoptic Gospels were written. Arguing workings of other texts." Northrop Frye forms (units of folklore) that had been in- that the stories about Jesus saying and doing has recently published a powerful work using corporated into Gospel written literature. things are both anti-Gnostic propaganda and this insight. The New Testament's intertex- Redaction Criticism followed after the the effort of second- and third-generation tual relationship with the Old Testament Second World War, when the Evangelists Greek-speaking Christians to deconstruct the prompts Frye to ask, "How do we know began to be appreciated as authors in their teachings of an outdated Palestinian Chris- that the Gospel story is true? Because it con- own right; Redaction critics examined how tianity, Robinson gives us an early example firms the prophecies of the Old Testament. each Evangelist creatively dealt with the kind of narratological literary criticism of the New But how do we know that the Old Testament of traditional materials uncovered by Form Testament. prophecies are true? Because they are con- Criticism, and assumed that Gospel writers New Testament study will continue, in firmed by the Gospel story. Evidence, so were fiction writers. These two forms of bib- the next century, to deepen its understanding called, is bounced back and forth between lical scholarship, triumphing and coming to of the truth of Buber's insight about the the testaments like a tennis ball; no other fruition in the first three-quarters of our nature of biblical narrative as fictive, evidence is given to us. The two testaments century, have now freed the New Testament "literary." As Alter and Kermode put it, form a double mirror, each reflecting the narratives into the world of secular human- Scripture "now bids fair to become part of other but neither the world outside."18 Frye istic studies. Now that the role of the Gospel the literary canon.... Indeed, it seems we uses an intertextual insight to confirm nar- critic has ceased having to be that of pro- have reached a turning-point in the history ratological theory of the sort Alter and tector and enforcer of the creed, now that of criticism, for the Bible, under a new Schneidau have proposed: the Gospels set the Gospels can be recognized for what they aspect, has reoccupied the literary culture."13 up their own world of fictive meanings. are—fictional narratives about Jesus—they Their point is that now that what used to be I shall conclude with an example of inter- may be seen as the legitimate objects of the called Higher Criticism has triumphed and textual fictionality in Gospel narrative— interest of secular and humanistic students entered the Western world's educated con- Luke's story of the resurrecting of the son

50 FREE INQUIRY of the widow of Nain. As Luke narrates even though archaeological study has shown (7:11-16): that the village of Nain in Galilee never had a wall or a gate; Nain's fictional gate is there FROM THE And it came to pass afterwards that Jesus for literary reasons-it is Sarepta's gate went to a town called Nain, accompanied transferred. In both stories the prophets SUBSCRIBER by his disciples and a large crowd. As he speak and touch the dead sons, who then approached the gate of the town he met a SERVICE funeral. The dead man was the only son rise and speak. In both stories it is declared of his widowed mother; and many of the that the miracle certifies the prophet ("Be- DEPARTMENT townspeople were there with her. When hold, I know that thou art a man of God," the Lord saw her his heart went out to LXX; "A great prophet has arisen," Luke). Difficulties with your subscription often can her, and he said, "Weep no more." With be avoided by simply knowing how a maga- that he stepped forward and laid his hand And both stories conclude with precisely the upon the bier; and the bearers halted. same words: "and he gave him to his zine works. Here are answers to some questions you Then he spoke: "Young man, rise up!" mother" (kai edoken auton té me-tri autou). The dead man sat up and began to speak; Not all readers of the New Testament may have about your subscription to FREE INQUIRY. and Jesus gave him back to his mother. will feel free to see this sort of intertextuality Deep awe fell upon them all, and they between the Gospels and their literary praised God. "A great prophet has arisen Inquiries among us," they said. 19 sources in the Old Testament as part of a When writing to us about your subscrip- view of the literary and fictive character of tion, please attach the current mailing label. This beautiful story is a prime example of the New Testament narratives, but those who It helps us to identify your account and provide much faster service. the principle enunciated by Frye, that early do will be the most interesting readers and Christians turned the Old Testament into a writers about the Gospels in the next century. Address change book about Jesus, finding in it stories they If you plan to change your address, read as "prophecies" about him. As it hap- please notify us six weeks before the change, Notes pens, the miracle stories about Elijah in First due to our advanced addressing schedule. Kings provided the basis for a number of 1. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, eds., miracle stories about Jesus. Elijah performs The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, Expiration Date several striking miracles, among them the Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 6. If you'd like to check on your expiration date, simply look at your mailing label. The creation of much food from little and the 2. Ernst Käsemann, Essays on New Testa- ment Themes, trans. W. J. Montague (London: date of the last issue of your subscription resurrection of a dead son. If these sound SCM Press, 1964), p. 48. appears as the middle four digits of the top familiar to a reader of the Gospels, he should 3. David Wenham and Craig Blomberg, eds., line (e.g., 8806 = June, 1988). not be surprised. Luke, or a Greek-speaking Gospel Perspectives: The Miracles of Jesus (Shef- Christian behind Luke, composed the story field, Eng.: JS0T Press, 1986), p. 7. Missing or late issues 4. James Barr, Fundamentalism (Phila- of the son of the widow of Nain on the You will receive the first issue of your delphia: Westminster, 1978), p. 64. subscription within eight weeks of order re- basis of the Greek Septuagint version of The Roots of the 5. Quoted in Bo Reicke, ceipt. First Kings, and its story of the resurrecting Synoptic Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), of the son of the widow of Sarepta: p. 15. Duplicate copies 6. Rudolf Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology," in Kerygma and Myth, H. W. If you receive two copies of an issue, And it came to pass that the word of the compare mailing labels. Any difference, Lord came to Eliu, saying Arise, and go Barsch, ed. (London: SPCK, 1972), p. 10. 7. Kistemaker, Simon J., The Gospels in however minor, could cause the problem. to Sarepta of the Sidonian land: behold, I Please send us both labels and tell us which have there commanded a widow-woman Current Study, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker to maintain thee. And he arose and went House, 1980), p. 71. one is correct. We'll correct the situation at to Sarepta, and came to the gate of the 8. Martin Dibelius, From Tradition to once; however, due to our addressing sched- city.... Gospel (London: Nicholson and Watson, 1934); ule, this problem may linger for one or two And it came to pass afterward, that and "The Speeches in Acts and Ancient Histori- issues. If this happens, please pass the addi- the son of the woman the mistress of the ography," in Studies in the Acts of Apostles, tional copies on to a friend with our com- house was sick; and his sickness was very Heinrich Greeven, ed., Mary Ling, trans. (Lon- pliments. severe, until there was no breath left in don: SCM, 1956). him... . 9. Ernst Hänchen, The Acts of the Apostles: Duplicate bills/Renewals (Philadelphia: Westminster, And Eliu said to the woman, Give me A Commentary Occasionally, we receive subscriber pay- 1971). thy son, and he took him out of her ments and renewal instructions after we bosom.... 10. Alter and Kermode, ibid., p. 469. 11. Frank J. McConnell, ed., The Bible and have sent second notices. If this happens to And he breathed on the child thrice, you, simply disregard the second notice. and called on the Lord, and said, 0 Lord the Narrative Tradition (New York: 0xford University Press, 1987), p. 17. my God, let, I pray thee, the soul of this Invitation to subscribe child return unto him. And it was so, and 12. Quoted in McConnell, ibid., p. 14. the child cried out, and he brought him 13. Alter and Kermode, ibid., p. 3. We often purchase the mailing lists of down from the upper chamber into the 14. Ibid., p. 4. other magazines and organizations, and you house, and gave him to his mother.20 15. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narra- may receive an invitation to subscribe to tive (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 24. FREE INQUIRY if your name is on one of 16. Alter and Kermode, ibid., p. 5. these lists. Please simply disregard this un- Both stories begin with a favorite Septuagin- 17. Robert Scholes, Text Book: Introduction avoidable duplication. tal formula, "And it came to pass" (Kai to Literary Language (New York: St. Martin's egeneto). Both concern the dead son of a Press, 1987), p. 129. 18. Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The FREE INQUIRY widow (chéra). In both the prophet "went" Bible and Literature (New York: Harcourt, 1982), Box 5, Buffalo, NY 14215-0005 (eporeuthé) to the town, where he met the p. 78. (716) 834-2921 woman at "the gate of the city" (ton pylona 19. Luke 7:11-16. les poleos, LXX; té pyC tes poleos, Luke), 20. III [I] Kings 17:8-10, 17, 19-23 LXX. •

Spring 1989 51 agnostics in the technical philosophical sense. Some of the philosophers of physics Soviet Atheism and Psychoanalysis in my Russian audience identified themselves as atheists, but distanced themselves point- Under Perestroika edly from party hack atheists in their coun- try, whom they derisively dubbed "profes- sional" atheists. Chiming in with their Adolf Grünbaum animadversion, I remarked that anyone who holds—as I do—that there are very cogent n 1983, the Soviet philosopher Vadim One cause of this cutback is that scholastic reasons for atheism should indeed reject all I Sadovsky of the Institute for Systems programs must now compete with commer- poor defenses of it. After all, fallacious argu- Studies in Moscow invited me to visit the cial ones for available accommodations. ments for it, especially if they rely on cheap Soviet Union for a week under the auspices Per-diem allowances for academic guests shots to boot, can only discredit it among of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. I was to have not been adjusted to keep pace with those who are unaware of telling reasons in deliver a number of lectures on my research the new hotel rates, which have been in- its favor. in the philosophy of science at several insti- creased for foreigners to match rates paid in I was interested in sampling actual atti- tutes in Moscow as a guest of the Academy. the United States by Soviet visitors. For tudes of the Soviet philosophers toward For various reasons, the trip did not materi- example, whereas Soviet patrons of my hotel theism, if only because a highly placed Soviet alize until the end of June 1988. in Moscow (the Leningradskaya) paid only academic administrator had told me on the From a purely practical point of view, it fifteen rubles a night, I had to pay ninety previous day that an important renaming was the most undesirable time, because (about $130 at the current rate of exchange), was probably in the offing: The Institute of hotels, restaurants, and entertainment facili- although my daily hotel allowance from my Atheism at the Academy of the Social Sci- ties in Moscow were overrun by throngs of host was only fifty rubles. ences was to be denominated thereafter as visitors of two quite different sorts: clergy- My first formal lecture, presented at the the "Institute for the Study of Religious men from all over the world, who came for Institute for Systems Studies, was devoted Questions," because the atheist label "begs the celebration of the millennium of Chris- to the philosophy of current physical cos- the question"! I responded that if there is tianity in Russia; and delegates from all over mology under the title "Is There a Problem such semantic question-begging, then the the Soviet Union, who were participating in of the Creation of the Universe?" with inter- designation of theological seminaries at the historic Congress of the Communist mittent translations into Russian by the able American universities as "divinity schools" Party, held in the huge Palace of Congresses Soviet interpreter Helena Vyshinskaya. commits a like petitio principii. The retort on the Kremlin grounds. The Ministry of (When she admitted in private conversation was that there are religious seminaries in Culture favored these visitors, so that I and to some embarrassment that her namesake, the Soviet Union as well, but they are private many others could not get tickets to the Andrej Vychinsky, had been tainted by rather than state divinity schools. The sug- Bolshoi through the ordinary channels— Stalin's crimes during the notorious purges, gested implication seems to have been that though I was able to see a fabulous circus I reminded her that one could not sink lower the Soviet state should not itself take a stand performance in Gorki Park, the scene of an than Adolf Hitler, whose first name I share!) on the merits of religious belief. At the time, American spy film. The gravamen of my cosmology lecture was I had not yet heard that religious faith was Quite independently of the lecture visit, that none of the recent scientific theories of actually one of the planks on which Bush the joint American Council of Learned the origin of the universe—such as the big ran against Dukakis. Societies/ Soviet Academy of Sciences Com- bang theory—pose a well-conceived problem A young philosopher, who sees himself mission for the Humanities and Social Sci- of creation. A fortiori, I argued, none of as a communist and a Soviet patriot, opined ences had recently invited me to head a U.S. these cosmologies lend credence to the hy- that there is no intrinsic logical connection delegation of philosophers that is to visit pothesis that a divine creator is required to between communism and atheism, and that Moscow (and perhaps Leningrad) in 1989 "solve" the pseudoproblem of creation.] atheism became state doctrine in the Soviet for an exchange of views on "Conceptions After a technical discussion of my presen- Union by the mere historical accident that of Human Nature." So while I was in Mos- tation, I took the opportunity to point out, Marx, Lenin, and Stalin happened to have cow in June, I met with Professor V. V. in a sociological vein, that the Reaganite espoused it. An avowed practicing member Mshveniaradze, the Deputy-Director of the depiction of the United States as a tradi- of the Russian Orthodox church, he pro- Institute of Philosophy, to make some tionally religious society glosses over some claimed its ethical superiority to the Roman arrangements for the upcoming visit. important facts concerning American intel- Catholic church. The former, he explained, I learned at once that amid the welcome lectuals: (1) A great many scholars in the had burnt "only" three people at the stake intellectual liberalization, perestroika is ex- country either are unacknowledged atheists, because of sexual transgressions, whereas the acting the price of a new economic austerity who have had no occasion to identify them- latter had put legions to death in this way. I in the provision of amenities such as car selves as such, or they pusillanimously use acknowledged that numbers do matter, but transport, quality of hotels, and expense- the misleading label "agnostic" to designate expressed dismay that any church that pro- paid sightseeing trips for academic visitors. their actually atheistic outlook, in order to fesses a religion of brotherly love would avoid being smeared as "atheistic commu- resort to the brutal method of live incinera- nists" by the self-righteous zealots; (2) Other tion as a means of putting people to death, Adolf Grünbaum is the Andrew Mellon intellectuals in the United States—no less even if the supposed sexual crimes were Professor of Philosophy and Research Pro- than their European, British, or Australian themselves violent and brutal, rather than fessor of Psychiatry at the University of confreres—are self-declared atheists, though just sexually unorthodox practices. (Inci- Pittsburgh. only relatively few of them are also Marxists; dentally, this same young academic praised and (3) Of course, still others are bona-fide the living standard achieved under Stalin

52 FREE INQUIRY before World War H, but spurned Khrush- the evidential support for psychoanalytic embrace of Freudian doctrines that seems chev's economic and cultural policy as large- theory and therapy is quite weak. Thus I to be beckoning in the wake of glasnost. ly bogus.) was asked to give a lecture on the topic at Just such an unbridled adulatory reaction As reported in the European Herald the Institute of Philosophy, which is next occurred in Argentina when Alfonsin came Tribune, in a speech at the June/July 1988 door to the Pushkin Museum. to power and psychoanalysis was no longer Communist Party Congress, Gorbachev One of the Soviet philosophers who was politically taboo. stopped short of suggesting that the Soviet in the audience is a champion of the so- My host gave a very cordial farewell din- state should itself be religiously neutral ideo- called hermeneutic construal of psycho- ner at the Prague Restaurant in Moscow, logically: Though he declared theistic belief analysis, which is anathema to me. At my which is renowned as a favorite of leading incompatible with "scientific Marxism," he suggestion, however, he had contributed one Russian writers. On that occasion, my com- rejected personal disrespect toward religious of the nearly forty critical commentaries on panions praised President Reagan for his people—and a fortiori career discrimination my Foundations book to a review- role in the conclusion of the INF treaty, against them—as altogether unjustified. symposium on it.2 Though psychoanalysis and they were unconcerned by the reserva- has been denounced in the Soviet Union by tions 1 expressed toward the domestic policy n due course, I met with the Director of official Pavlovians for decades, I spoke to a of his administration. Understandably, I had I the Institute of Atheism, Professor Victor standing-room-only audience. And the tenor encountered a similar attitude toward Nixon Garadja, at the imposing building of the of the questions and comments addressed when I was in Yugoslavia in 1974. Academy of Social Sciences, which features to me during the ensuing discussion revealed On the personal level, I felt genuine a huge marble foyer with a large statue of the same distribution of viewpoints that I warmth and evident good will from all of Lenin at the center. I had seen Garadjá s have encountered again and again after lec- the philosophers I met in Moscow, including name on the list of people scheduled to tures in the United States and Europe. my talented multilingual guide, Dr. A. N. participate in the IHEU's Tenth Humanist I was much impressed that the Institute Lavruhin, who was especially gracious and World Congress, held in late July 1988 on employs a large number of scholars who do good-humored throughout. It was indeed a the SUNY campus in Buffalo. My guide full-time research in various areas of phi- professional meeting of minds, conducive to informed me that Garadja is a medievalist losophy, and that a fair number of them our becoming genuine colleagues and even from whom he happened to have taken a speak excellent English. For example, one personal friends. Apparently, they had never solid course on Aquinas and Augustine. woman there, who has specialized in Amer- been really cowed during the dreadful times Thus, Garadja is hardly a "professional" ican philosophy, is now devoting herself to of ideological repression. atheist in the pejorative sense intended by the literature on feminist philosophy. And it my philosophy-of-science colleagues. appears that the Soviet government will Notes My wife was with me in Moscow, and finance the travel of these scholars to the I. See my paper "The Pseudo-Problem of we were interested in getting a firsthand United States if they are invited by a U.S. Creation in Physical Cosmology," forthcoming impression of those Soviet Jews who seek a institution that can defray their living in J. Leslie, ed., Physical Cosmology and Phi- religious affiliation or who wish to emigrate expenses. losophy (New York: Macmillan, 1989), a volume for cultural or political reasons. On Friday, In response to an invitation from Pro- in the Philosophical Issues series edited by Paul fessor V. Lektorsky, editor-in-chief of the Edwards. well before evening religious services had 2. In Behavioral & Brain Sciences (vol. 9, no. begun, our guide took us to the Moscow leading philosophical journal Voprosy Filo- 2, 1986, pp. 217-284). • Synagogue. There, a young Jew told my wife sofii (Problems of Philosophy), I met with in broken English that he was being denied his entire editorial staff and presented a a university education merely because his report on my research in the philosophy of Readers' Forum mother was a Refusenik who had applied science since the time of the 1969 appearance for permission to emigrate to Israel. Though of the Russian translation of my space-time We want to know your opinion regarding an avowed Soviet communist, his father had book. The ensuing question-and-answer specific issues of interest to secular declared his readiness to join the family if period was marked by an atmosphere of free, humanists. Three suggested topics for the permission to emigrate to Israel could be ideologically unconstrained discussion, no forum are: secured. less than all of the others I had had, both Also, two young Jewish men with whom formally and informally, throughout the How did those of you who were pre- I spoke on the street expressed the suspicion week. Thus, there was not even any malaise viously religious grow toward your present viewpoint? that the synagogue was infiltrated by KGB in the give-and-take, let alone tension. informants. One of them disclaimed all reli- Occasionally, there were touches of levity: What children's books have helped you gious belief but was so eager for a cultural A psychologist remarked that in the morn- in teaching your children humanist affiliation with other Jews that he had ap- ings, Soviet clinicians would attack Freud, values? plied for an emigration visa to Israel. When but in the afternoons, they would practice his type of psychotherapy! What sort of answer would you give he was turned down, he lost his job as an to someone who asks, "What is secular engineer and was supporting himself with I was glad that Professor Lektorsky asked humanism, anyway?" lesser work. The other one was working as me to send him some of my critical articles a civil engineer, but was cynical about Gor- on psychoanalysis, with a view to publishing We welcome your letters on these bachev's reforms and quite inhospitable to a selection from them in Russian translation, topics, and encourage you to suggest my criticism of Israeli policy toward the and that Progress Publishers in Moscow will topics for future Readers' Forums. Please Palestinians in the occupied territories. probably publish a Russian translation of double-space all copy and send to In my 1984 book The Foundations of my Foundations book. As I told him, it is Readers' Forum, Mary Beth Gehrman, Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. my hope that these writings may be prophy- editor, Box 5, Buffalo, New York 14215. and in various articles, I have argued that lactic or antidotal to the uncritical, heady

53 Spring 1989 suddenly beginning to realize that they lack accurate data about the sexual behavior of On Ted Bundy, Pornography, Americans. Until recently, most of the assumptions made about the extent of the AIDS epidemic relied upon the data col- and Capital Punishment lected by Kinsey before 1948, which, even at its best, did not represent a true national sample. Now, the threat of that deadly Vern L. Bullough disease has motivated the government to begin sponsoring research into this topic. A contract has been signed with the National ed Bundy's confession that he was like Bundy are secretly seeking revenge Opinion Research Center to interview indi- Tdriven to mass murder by reading against their mothers. So far no "expert" viduals and collect data about their sex pornography has received far more attention has weighed in with the verdict that Bundy habits, though the results probably will not from the popular media than it should have. was a repressed homosexual—another popu- be available for at least four years. Bundy, who had been on death row for ten lar answer from the immediate past—or that I would urge the researchers (and the years because of numerous appeals, went his problems were all due to the fact that he government) to include some questions into a frenzy of activity just before his exe- had been sexually abused as a child, which about the reading of pornography. This cution on Tuesday, January 24, perhaps is currently the fashionable explanation. would mark a new beginning to serious hoping to receive another stay of execution, In fact, however, none of these theories research on the topic. All we know now is or at least to leave a better impression. He is particularly valid because each supplies a that many people read and view what some confessed to twenty-three murders and im- simplistic answer for a complex problem, segments of the population deem to be plied that he would have confessed to more and each is designed to excuse Bundy from pornography. Even some of those who if he had had the time. responsibility for his actions. Behind each strenuously condemn it—the Reverend Jim- In the past when a famous person died of these supposed motivations still lurks the my Swaggart, for instance—are regular or was put to death, the last visitor he question, "Why?" Bundy seems to have had users. Such hypocrisy demonstrates that received was usually a priest or a minister, a fairly average childhood and a loving and there is a lot of guilt out there among at who often reported to the public and the forgiving mother. His claim that the comic least some of the consumers of pornography. press that in his final hour the dying person books he read as a child led him to pornog- Bundy's effort to justify his behavior simply had either confessed his sins or "come to raphy and then to killing is ridiculous; emphasizes that pornography is a topic de- terms with God" and become a believing millions of individuals have read comic manding of study and research, not headline- Christian. In fact, this became such a stan- books and not become murderers. hunting. Perhaps something constructive will dard practice that the families of Bertrand Claims that equate pornography with come from Bundy's last-ditch effort to ex- Russell and other respected atheists forbade killing have no basis in empirical fact. The cuse and rationalize what he did. such last-minute visits because they believed so-called Meese Commission heard some the clergy to be more interested in spreading testimony about the effects of pornography death-bed-conversion propaganda than in but almost all of it was hearsay; most re- listening to the last words of the individual searchers on the topic were deliberately ex- Paul Kurtz in question. cluded from testifying. Anyone who Now the clergy have been replaced by examined the formation and composition of psychiatrists and psychologists riding their the commission could have predicted its he nation was shocked to learn of the own hobbyhorses, and their answers are just findings well in advance, since its main pur- Tgruesome exploits of the serial killer as simplistic. One of Ted Bundy's last visitors pose was to detract attention from the sleazy Ted Bundy, who, after spending more than was the Reverend James Dobson, a psy- record of Ed Meese, which eventually was a decade on death row, had finally exhausted chologist well known for his campaign made public anyway. Donald Mosher, a all of his appeals and was executed in Jan- against pornography. Obviously Bundy knew psychologist from the University of Con- uary 1989. He had admitted to having per- what Dobson wanted him to say and he necticut, was one of the few experts allowed suaded unsuspecting women to accompany said it. It was perhaps inevitable that he to testify. He emphasized that there had been him to his car, often by using crutches or came away from the session announcing that only a few valid studies of the effects of wearing a shoulder sling and asking for their Bundy had told him pornography had led pornography and that their results had been help in carrying books or a parcel. Once at him to commit all the murders. Dobson's unclear, but were probably more in favor of the car, he would render his victim uncon- nose for publicity switched the focus of the pornography than against it. He then went scious with a blow to the head, handcuff news stories from the death of a mass on to explain what kind of studies need to her, drive to a remote area, and rape and murderer to the death of a poor helpless be done before preliminary conclusions can kill her, often mutilating the body. Though victim of pornography. It sounds almost as be drawn, and suggested ways in which these on the eve of his execution Bundy confessed if Bundy had planned it. studies could be implemented. Unfortunate- to more than two dozen brutal murders, the Dobson neglected to emphasize that in ly, the commission did not listen to him. FBI has linked him to at least fifty and an earlier statement Bundy had attributed Some such studies are currently being investigators have estimated that he may the killings to mood swings caused by alco- conducted independently. Though such re- actually have been involved in more than a hol consumption. One thing we can be search generally has not been popular with hundred. It is difficult to comprehend the thankful for is that Dobson did not blame funding agencies, the times are changing. enormity of his crimes. Bundy's mother; another psychiatrist, David The AIDS crisis has made serious sex studies For many, Bundy seemed to be an atyp- Abrahamsen, postulates that serial killers popular again, as government agencies are ical killer. He was sauve and well-educated,

54 FREE INQUIRY but also cunning as a fox. He often coordi- But is there in fact a causal connection between alcohol and violence? Should it be nated his own defense in the courtroom. between the availability of pornographic used as an argument for prohibition? Such The night before his death, Bundy was literature and incidents of violent crime? one-on-one causal hypotheses are facile; we interviewed by the Reverend James Dobson, Most studies have failed to show a correla- ought to be cautious in using them to argue a fundamentalist psychologist and a strong tion. Denmark, Holland, and other countries for the erosion of First Amendment rights. foe of pornography. During that interview that do not censor pornography do not have It is perhaps difficult for humanists, who Bundy expressed his belief that the pornog- high incidences of sexual violence. Bundy, a have an optimistic view of the positive raphy he had been exposed to as a teenager conservative Republican and a Mormon, reaches of human moral growth, to account may have been a cause of his later fascina- said that he had had a strict religious up- for moral monsters like Bundy, especially tion with violence, rape, and murder. bringing. Why not attempt, then, to draw a since "original sin" or inherent human Right-wing conservatives have seized on causal connection between his repressive depravity are concepts antithetical to Bundÿ s words and are using them to help religious background and his bizarre be- humanist philosophy. The causes of psy- mount an intensive campaign to ban both havior? Bundy also noted that during his chopathy are complex. Some researchers soft- and hard-core pornography, quoting early forays, he was "nearly always about have suggested a genetic explanation and him as an expert on the topic. half drunk." Does this point to a correlation have apparently identified a chromosomal

Excerpts from an Interview with Ted Bundy

Toward the beginning of a videotaped want to emphasize. The most damaging that point before you actually assaulted interview Monday afternoon with psy- kinds of pornography, and again I'm someone? chologist James Dobson at Florida State talking from personal experience ... are Bundy: I would say a couple of years. Prison, Bundy said he took full responsi- those that involve violence and sexual I was dealing with ... very strong inhibi- bility "for all the things I've done." violence. Because the wedding of those tions against criminal behavior or violent Bundy, handcuffed and sitting at a two forces, as I know only too well, behavior that had been conditioned into table across from Dobson, alternately brings out the hatred that is just too me, bred into me [by] my environment, sobbed and smiled during the 29-minute terrible to describe. in my neighborhood, in my church, in interview. Dobson: What was going on in your my school.... I [was] on that edge, I Here is a partial transcript: mind at that time? would say the last vestiges of restraint Bundy: Before we go any further, I [were falling away]. think it's important that people believe Dobson: Do you remember what Dobson: [A]s I understand it, you what 1 am saying. I tell you that I am pushed you over the edge? were raised in what you consider to have not blaming pornography. I am not say- Bundy: It's very difficult to describe been a healthy home. You were not phys- ing that it caused me to go out and do the sensation of reaching that point where ically abused, you were not sexually certain things. And 1 take full responsi- I knew that something had snapped, abused, you were not emotionally abused. bility for ... all the things I have done. [where] I knew that I couldn't control Bundy: No. And that's part of the That's not the question here. [it] anymore, that the barriers I had .. . tragedy of this whole situation. Because The issue is how this kind of literature learned . .. were not enough to hold me I grew up in a wonderful home with two ... helped mold and shape the kinds of back [from] seeking out and harming dedicated and loving parents, as one of violent behavior.... somebody. five brothers and sisters. [W]e regularly Dobson: It fueled your fantasies, Dobson: In the early days, you were attended church [and had] two Christian didn't it? nearly always about half drunk when you parents who did not drink [or] smoke; Bundy: In the beginning it fuels this did these things, is that right? there was no gambling, no physical abuse, kind of thought process, then at a certain Bundy: Yes. no fighting in the home.... time, it is instrumental, I would say Dobson: Was that always true? This is the message I want to get crystallizing. [It becomes] something Bundy: I would say that that was across. [A]s a young boy, and I mean a which is almost like a separate entity generally the case ... I was essentially a boy of twelve or thirteen certainly, I inside. normal person. I had good friends, I led encountered, outside the home, in the And it happened in stages, gradually. a normal life—except for this one small local grocery store, in a local drug store, It didn't necessarily—not to me at least— but very potent and very destructive seg- the [kind of] pornography that people happen overnight. My experience with ment of it that I kept very secret and call soft core.... And from time to time pornography generally, [and specifically] close to myself and didn't let anyone we would come across pornographic with pornography that deals on a violent know about. And part of the shock and books of a harder [or] more graphic, level with sexuality, is [that] once you horror to my dear friends and family explicit nature than we would encounter become addicted to it—and I look at this years ago when I was first arrested was at the local grocery store. And this also as a kind of addiction like other kinds of [that] there was no clue. They looked at included such things as detective maga- addiction—I would keep looking more me [as] the all-American boy. The basic zines. potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds humanity and the basic spirit that God Dobson: Those that involved violence? of material. gave me was intact, but unfortunately Bundy: Yes, and this is something I Dobson: How long did you stay at became overwhelmed at times. •

Spring 1989 55 defect in serial killers. Others maintain that criminals? The chances of rehabilitation are environment is the primary factor in the lack often slim, particularly in extreme cases. If of moral development. Whatever the causes, the goal of punishment is the protection of it is clear that some individuals have greatly society, then why should not a civilized com- Books underdeveloped moral consciences—and munity instead sentence murderers to life r though pornography has only recently be- imprisonment with no chance of parole? come an issue, history is dotted with the Some believe that heinous crimes need to exploits of such individuals. Some, such as be punished simply for themselves, without Abortion and Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, have used their consideration for the social benefit that may oddly paradoxical charisma to seize political be derived from the punishment. But can the Law power and then spill the blood of millions. justice be served only by Bundy's death? We might postulate a moral quotient, or Bundy escaped from prison twice to go on Mary Beth Gehrman M.Q., as a general scale of moral sensibility. to other murders, so perhaps the danger that People brought up in repressive social he might have again escaped is sufficient Abortion and the Constitution: Reversing spheres often consider obedience and fear justification for his execution. Roe v. Wade Through the Courts, edited by to be the bases of moral obligation. It ap- Some maintain that Bundy's death fulfills Dennis J. Horan, Edward R. Grant, and pears that such individuals sometimes lack our sense of accountability. 1 surely have no Paige C. Cunningham (Washington, D.C.: moral compassion and have little remorse sympathy for Bundy, but his execution did Georgetown University Press, 1987), 374 pp., for their actions that harm others. not bring back the innocent lives of those $22.95 cloth, $12.95 paper. I must confess that my lifelong opposition he murdered, or restore them to their fami- to capital punishment is sorely strained by lies. Most countries today have abandoned hile Randall Terry and his growing cases like Bundy's. Society surely needs to the death penalty; clearly there is a moral Wlegion of Operation Rescue groupies be protected from these moral monsters, and case to be made against it. There is no continue to grab headlines, mainstream if anyone "deserves" to die for his wicked clear-cut answer for humanists, and honest abortion foes are implementing a quieter— crimes, one might say that surely it is Ted men and women will differ about the moral- but perhaps more effective—plan. Bundy. ity of capital punishment. But the simple Until quite recently, those who support a But what is the purpose of punishment? injunction "An eye for an eye and a tooth woman's right to choose have remained Is it retribution? Can capital punishment be for a tooth" cannot be applied as the basic largely passive, perhaps hoping that the anti- considered a deterrent to crime? Or should principle of justice, as many of those who abortion movement would fade of its own we be concerned with the rehabilitation of cheer the return of the death penalty insist.• accord. But now that prochoicers appear more willing to enter into the fray, they should see to it that they are well-armed. Abortion and the Constitution: Reversing Roe v. Wade Through the Courts should be required reading for anyone who maintains an active prochoice stance. The editors of this volume, members of the Americans United for Life (AUL) Legal Defense Fund, present just about every con- ceivable argument against abortion: allowing it is merely the first step on the slippery slope toward utter moral turpitude; women who submit to abortions are simply the deluded victims of money-grubbing gyn- ecologists; the liberties of a few must be curtailed to protect the rights of many; and so on. In addition to general defenses, these essays attempt to expose weaknesses in the Roe decision—including its "distorted" historical precedents, its questionable asser- tion of the right to privacy, and the supposed flaws of its trimester approach. Essays of note include Joseph W. Della- penna's "Abortion and the Law: Blackmun's Distortion of the Historical Record"; Victor G. Rosenblum and Thomas J. Marzen's "Strategies for Reversing Roe v. Wade Through the Courts"; John M. Finnis's Pornograpy? The United States Post Office intends to issue a commemorative stamp in honor of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, which occurred in July 1889. "Liberty "Natural Law and the Rights of the Leading the People," the famous painting by Eugene Delacroix, will be depicted on the Unborn"; and "The Ancients and the stamp—but with one slight change that has produced considerable ridicule in the French Medievals on Abortion: The Consensus the press: Lady Liberty's breasts will be air-brushed to remove those pesky nipples. Court Ignored," by John R. Connery, S.J. Several of these essays maintain that the 56 FREE INQUIRY most effective court strategy will both "chip away at the props now thought to uphold Roe and ... forthrightly destroy the entire artifice." In "Prolife Litigation and the Civil Books in Brief Liberties Tradition," for instance, Richard S. Myers attempts to draw a parallel between the antichoice movement and the civil rights A Lifetime of Dissent by Corliss Lamont. John Cardinal O'Connor: At the Storm movement, claiming that both offer "protec- Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y. 1989. 414 Center of a Changing American Catholic tion for individuals and groups who are pages. $21.95 cloth. Corliss Lamont, long Church, by Nat Hentoff. Charles Scribner's without a voice in American political soci- an activist in the humanist movement, has Sons, New York, 1988. 290 pages. $19.95 ety." This, of course, is not a new argument. never been afraid to advocate an unpopular cloth. Nat Hentoff, the noted jazz writer, It is, however, interesting to see precisely position. In this collection of provocative social critic, and columnist for The Village how the AUL intends to fit what many con- essays, written over the span of six decades, Voice, is an unlikely chronicler of the life of sider to be the square pegs of today's anti- he details his clashes with the U.S. govern- New York City's Roman Catholic Cardinal choice principles into the round holes bored ment over its policies toward Cuba, Vietnam, John J. O'Connor. As he states early in this into the status quo by the Brown v. Board nuclear weapons, and relations with the entertaining and informative biography, of Education decision. Soviet Union. His desire to see closer ties "When I first interviewed Cardinal O'Con- If the state referendums approved during between the United States and the Soviet nor, I made a point of telling him that I am the recent elections are any indication, it Union led to his appearance before the in- a member of the Proud and Ancient Order would appear that the strategy of advancing famous McCarthy Senate Investigating of Stiff-Necked Jewish Atheists." Still, incrementally offers some hope to antichoice Committee in 1953. Age has not slowed Hentoff was willing to limber up his neck forces. Last year, voters in Michigan, Lamont down, as he demonstrates in his enough to write a fair, balanced examination Colorado, and Arkansas enacted or upheld essay "Militant Activist at 84." While his of the influence that the cardinal has had measures barring state financing for abor- controversial political views will no doubt on the life of New York. He details O'Con- tions; most significant among these anti- infuriate even many humanists, there can be nor's often controversial forays into politics, choice victories is that Arkansas, after an no doubt that Lamont has devoted his life including his clashes with Mario Cuomo and emotional campaign laden with religious to championing the causes of freethought, Geraldine Ferraro over the issue of Catholics overtones, added to its State Constitution personal autonomy, and government and abortion, and his 1986 visit to Lebanon, an "Unborn Child Amendment," which de- accountability. (T. M.) • during which he called for a homeland for fines life as beginning at conception. In the Palestinians. The O'Connor who emerges January the Supreme Court agreed to hear is a strong-willed yet charming figure. All an appeal defending the constitutionality of Don't Call Me Brother: A Ringmaster's those with an interest in the state of the laws regulating and restricting abortion in Escape from the Pentecostal Church, by American Catholic church owe it to them- Missouri; similar appeals from Ohio and Austin Miles. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, selves to read this well-written, fair-minded Illinois also await hearings. Roe may be N.Y., 1989. 280 pages. $19.95. Nontheists biography. Hentoff quotes the late author headed for serious trouble. are an independent lot, and many have Flannery O'Connor (no relation) as saying The religious tone of Abortion and the trouble understanding the intensity of the "A Catholic has to have nerves to write Constitution should also cause concern for born-again experience. In Don't Call Me about Catholics," then puckishly adds "A anyone who supports the principle of Brother, Austin Miles shows us what triggers non-Catholic, and indeed a Jewish atheist, separation of church and state. In "Case the conversion and grips the converted with has to muster considerable chutzpah to write Tactics and Court Strategies for Reversing such unswaying conviction. The rejection not only about Catholics but also about the Roe v. Wade," for example, William Bentley Miles felt growing up was assuaged some- `Cardinal of the Capital of the World.' " Ball writes: what when he became a clown in the circus; Lack of nerves has never been a Hentoff but the prominence and acceptance he found trait. (TM.) Theistic religion and its derivative morality in show business were nothing compared have been widely abandoned in individual Monkey on a Stick, by John Hubner and lives. Arising in their stead have been a with what he later discovered in the appar- materialistic and hedonistic culture and a ently sincere fellowship of "God's people." Lindsey Gruson. Harcourt Brace Jovano- profound tendency to restrict liberties Ignoring the blatant hypocrisy of his vich, New York, 1988. 414 pages, $19.95 associated with a belief in God. This cul- "brothers and sisters in the Lord" and the cloth. The Hare Krishna movement came to ture has acquired power and established the United States in 1965 and quickly gained its own legal regime, resulting in the growing estrangement of his beloved wife, gradual erosion of fundamental human Rose Marie, Miles became ever more in- thousands of shaven-headed, saffron-robed, rights. volved in Pentecostalism, and was on the chanting devotees who spread the message inside as the PTL scandal unfolded. He of Krishna consciousness, universal brother- Clearly, the larger issue is not abortion, managed to rationalize away the "sexual hood, and personal salvation. This book but dogmatic control. Unless they are willing perversion rampant among the ministers," provides a grim glimpse behind the scenes to submit to that control, those who believe the shady financial dealings, and the lust for of this supposedly peaceful movement. In in personal autonomy and free choice must power he saw all around him; in the process it, John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson (re- become more vocal in expressing their be- he lost his wife, his daughter, his life savings, porters for the San Jose Mercury News and liefs. For if they do not, the authors repre- and his health. This eminently readable and the New York Times, respectively) reveal the sented in Abortion and the Constitution may fast-paced personal account of a bewilder- cult's dark side, which, they maintain, in- succeed in their goal of "total erasure of ingly paradoxical world gives us a fasci- cludes several cases of child molestation, legal access to abortion on demand" and all nating glimpse into the manipulated mind financial swindles, illegal drug sales, and that it implies. • of the fundamentalist Christian. (M. B.G.) even premeditated murder. According to

Spring 1989 57 the authors, all too many "true believers" and values. The book is marred by an over- these areas, explaining that, because of space have been quite willing to do anything to reliance on "reconstructed dialogue," so that limitations, it was necessary to "select out" further the cause of "global harmony," in- it often reads more like a screenplay than a what he thought would interest his readers. cluding perpetrating acts of extreme vio- work of nonfiction. Also, more emphasis Following are some of the ideas I expressed lence. The Krishnas reportedly have been should have been placed upon the Hare that I wanted him to include. especially hard on followers who sought to Krishna theology—it is often unclear just defect. While emphasizing the seamier ele- what its basic tenets are. All in all, though, undamentalists label as "blasphemy" ments of the Hare Krishna movement, Hub- Monkey on a Stick is worth reading as a Fany deviation from literalist orthodoxy. ner and Gruson also show that many of frightening demonstration of what can occur Someone once characterized this as "the those who enter into it do so because of when rationality is thrown out the window deadliest social psychosis in American life." their disillusionment with Western religions for the sake of "enlightenment." (T. M.) • They are guilty of misology. Jesus thanked God for making his teachings unintelligible to the "wise and understanding" but clear to the children, the simple, and the uneducated. Paul is not only contemptuous of anyone An Atheist Handles Life who rejects these teachings—they are "folly" to him—but justifies the duplicity of his preaching by asking, "Why not do evil that good may come?" (Romans 3:7-8). Harry Daum Christian scholars have, for centuries, advanced arguments to support this decep- n December 1987, my town was sub- Jesus as my personal savior. I declined but tion. They try to force rational men to I jected to a concerted attack on the local would hear from her again. choose the comfort of unquestioning faith Planned Parenthood clinic and on a woman's In February of this year, I underwent over the sometimes harsh reality of atheism. right to decide whether or not to have an surgery for the removal of three-quarters of Ecclesiastes says, "In much wisdom there is abortion. While we were spared the bomb- my stomach along with two malignant much vexation, for he who increaseth ings that have plagued clinics in many cities, tumors. The cancer had metastasized to my knowledge increaseth sorrow" (1:18). there was picketing, with placards denounc- liver and intestines, inoperable and unre- Religion is a form of theoreticism, the ing the "murders," and the harassment of sponsive to either radiation or chemother- concept that unsubstantiated theory can be women trying to enter the Planned Parent- apy. The surgeon gave me four to six months asserted, not just as an investigative tool hood building ranged from verbal abuse to to live, the oncologist, less than six months. but as anti-empirical knowledge in its own physical blocking of the entrance. The local Wally Trabing, a featured columnist for right. It employs hermeneutics, in which Letters to the Editor columns were filled our local newspaper, the Santa Cruz social-historical actors and texts are given with praise for these illegal restraints and Sentinel, heard of this prognosis from a standards different from those of science. with exhortations to heed God's will, mostly mutual friend. Remembering the notoriety I Thus, they are absolved of empirical tests from writers representing right-wing Chris- had earned with my letter on secular human- and may be used for utopian speculative tian viewpoints. I wrote a rebuttal defending ism, he invited me to tell him how an atheist ends. The philosopher Jürgen Habermas, of secular humanism. feels about his imminent demise. the Frankfurt school, redescribes Marxism There were several letters to the editor Public response was equal to that from and psychoanalysis as nonscientific and attacking my atheism and only one sup- my letter. One man sent me a Jehovah's therefore, like religion, not subject to em- porting it. I got a number of favorable phone Witnesses tract and called to ask if he could pirical scrutiny. calls but many abusive ones. One caller said come and discuss it. My old friend, Carol, It is easy for people to assimilate simple that was what he would expect from a called, expressed sympathy, and then said it ideas, but ideas that require them to reor- "Commie Jew." was not too late to receive the Holy Spirit. ganize their view of the world meet with A kind lady sent me a copy of Anthony Could she come and pray with me? hostility or rejection. Some years ago I Campolo's book, A Reasonable Faith: The tone of most of the letters to the formulated what I called the Fallacy of Responding to Secularism—a collection of editor was one of outrage; only one or two Irrelevant Simplicity. All it means is that Jesuitical casuistry and scholastic anfractu- expressed agreement. About half a dozen when people are faced with complex prob- osity called by the Fundamentalist Journal calls and a number of friends thought lems they often opt for simple solutions. "a true Christian view of being human." Trabing's column made a favorable impres- Usually, however, the solutions they choose A dear lady named Carol phoned me to sion. I was, nevertheless, dissastisfied. are irrelevant. More penetrating and abstract quote largely irrelevant passages from Scrip- Though we had talked for more than an approaches are needed that are often difficult ture. She expressed surprise and pleasure to hour and he took several pages of notes, I to understand and even more difficult to learn that my knowledge of both the Old would estimate that 95 percent of what I achieve. This is why so many people are and New Testaments was at least equal to told him was ignored in the column. turning, in this increasingly complex world, her own. She pleaded with me to let her There were two topics on which I had to the simple answers offered by religion. come to my home so that she could kneel discoursed at some length: the menace of Nietzsche said, "Do not boast that you have down with me and pray that I would accept fundamentalism, whether Christian, Jewish, the courage of your convictions. Be proud, or Islamic; and the status of an American rather, that you have the courage to change Harry Daum, now retired, served in man- who is both a Jew and an atheist. I also your convictions." agerial and administrative positions in the explained my position as a rationalist based Fundamentalists have converted Chris- federal government for many years. on logical positivism and Ayn Rand's objec- tianity, like evil, into banality, a jejune per- tivism. Trabing gave almost no attention to suit of pious fantasies in a wasteland of

58 FREE INQUIRY broken images and stony rubble. They hope enjoy without understanding its source. Christ to heaven. "Credo quia ineptum," to perpetuate their existence by controlling Rabbi Nachman of Bratislav said: "Laughter Peter replied; "I believe because it is absurd." the interpretation, formulation, and enforce- is the refusal to be victimized by the folly of A secular Jew believes in the dynamic uni- ment of their rituals. This is not designed to others. To really know the heart of some- verse described by Einstein and in the un- nurture their young to maturity but rather thing one must be able to mock it, to make stable, even chaotic rules for the physical to assert their authority beyond challenge fun of it." world posited by Heisenberg. His motto is by the force of reason. This oppression is The secular Jew who honestly examines Homo intellegendo fit omnia (through his more than symbolic but is rigorously and his life faces unreckoned consequences, the understanding, man can accomplish every- systematically used to indoctrinate and sub- most painful of which is the intractable thing). jugate young minds. Fundamentalism is a question of Jewish identity. His perceptions Trabing seemed equally puzzled by my contraceptive designed to prevent intellectual are distorted in the mirror of his spiritual attitude about death. 1 told him that it is a fertilization. exile. He resists the possibility of harmony vital fact, like breathing and having a heart- Trabing seemed puzzled by my secular with his perception of reality, whether it beat. 1 told him the legend of Gilgamesh, Jewishness. To be a Jew in the United States could be through assimilation or through who sought, found, and then lost the Tree means to be an outsider. To be an atheist accommodating his Jewishness to that real- of Life, which would have made him im- invites even greater estrangement. Therefore, ity. His resistance is a least common mortal. At first, Gilgamesh is ravaged by to be both a Jew and an atheist is an extreme denominator, a minimum credo in a grief. Then he reflects that all men wish to of isolation (or, perhaps, of narcissism). despairing vision of apocalypse. be eternally young. Immortality is a human Conservative Jews are made uneasy by this The secular Jew is something of an oxy- hunger, he says, but it is not given that man alienating choice. They hold that the viability moron. He rejects the Jewish god even while should emulate the gods. He must accept of Judaism depends upon a common tradi- he glories in and is uplifted by the beauty, his mortality as he accepts his humanpess. tion and culture, a common language, and, mystery, and wisdom of much of the Torah, And Gilgamesh faces death a better and most important, a sense of community, the Talmud, the Mishnah, and the Midrash. wiser man. which they define as belonging to a syna- He recognizes the cognitive dissonance that In the Old Testament, God, the Existen- gogue or temple. plagues his orthodox brothers, who, like tialist, says to the Hebrew people, "I call Sartre said, "The authentic Jew is one their Christian and Muslim counterparts, Heaven and Earth to witness against you who asserts his claim in the face of all the cling tenaciously to their religious convic- this day. 1 have set before you life and death, disdain shown him ... a lover of lost causes, tions and practice their empty rituals even blessing and curse. Choose life that thou an outsider resisting even his own successes." when reason and reality demonstrate the mayest live, thou and thy seed" (Deuteron- In my youth, my Jewishness was an admis- falseness of their religious beliefs. I am re- omy 30:19). sion. Now it is an assertion. The status of minded of Peter's reply to a Roman noble- When death comes, 1 want to meet it, pariah perhaps explains the special nature man who asked him if he really believed in like Oedipus, not with lamentation but with of Jewish humor, which non-Jews seem to the bodily resurrection and ascension of awe and wonder. Until then, 1 choose life. •

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In addition, there are three secular humanist computer networks we encourage you to use: Freethinkers Network (Compuserve ID No. 75216,2000). Pro-Citadel (Tel. 818/ 339-4704) Secular Humanist Bulletin Board (Tel. 615.455-8623)

59 Spring 1989 (Letters continued from p. 3) As an argument supporting the conviction values were in fact as sickly as that dogma— monetary contraction just the opposite of that religious beliefs do not necessarily lead because for him a secularized moralism was its prior (correct) policy. This, along with to exemplary behavior, Tim Madigan points nothing else but religiosity in modern garb: some short-sighted trade policies, led to correctly to the large percentage of prisoners humanism, the final, fading phase of faith. repeated and devastating contractions of the who are religious. But it is obvious that this Nietzsche repudiated conservatism, liber- economy. The acts of a governmental agency argument is unsound. Before entering prison, alism, progress, equal rights, and the aspira- overseeing the money supply, as well as prisoners have religious faith in about the tion to a free society. For him they were all governmental interference in trade, were the same proportion as does the general popu- outmoded relics. He spoke of science as a roots of the depression—not the actions of lation. However, once an individual finds "prejudice." So insistent was Nietzsche that the millions of private participants in the capi- himself in an overwhelmingly oppressive these were shibboleths that progress, the talist economy. In times of minimal govern- authoritarian environment, it becomes stra- notion behind most of them, came to seem ment interference in the economy, growth and tegic to adopt a very conservative, "safe" to him the great impediment to freedom of expansion of the standard of living have been attitude concerning religion. When the Parole thought. In his opposition to this chimera he the rule. These have been times of relatively Board members are Bible-thumping bigots, was driven to embrace the grotesque meta- great personal freedom and social plurality it doesn't pay to be an avowed atheist. physics of "eternal recurrence," a lapse into within the constraints of society and history. There are great numbers of frightened the Buddhist fatalism of his first mentor, Personal freedom brings us to the second prisoners who see themselves, correctly, as Schopenhauer. But it shows how far he was issue at hand. The people of Latin America living in a very dangerous environment. This willing to go to renounce and denounce all suffering under the heavy hand of right-wing group turns to God out of fear while in prison. liberalism and humanism. oppression are, in many ways, similar to There are many religious outreach programs God is unreal, but has real but muddled British subjects during the mercantilist era. that provide succor to lonely, fearful, and referents in lived experience. Man is the same. Mercantilism is a simple concept: Use the socially ostracized prisoners. I fall into this No one has ever met God or Man; but actual, power of government to make sure that you last category, but my mind won't abandon particular men (and women) have had real don't have to worry about competition dur- me. I look forward to my quarterly issues experiences they have interpreted as sacred ing the pursuit of your own economic self- of FREE INQUIRY for comfort. or moral. Nietzsche rejected these interpre- interest. If you have enough control over Don't believe for a minute that prisons tations but accepted the experiences (it would only contain dangerous criminals. In this era government (as do the landed classes in Latin be unscientific not to). Humanism must of conservatism, there are many innocent surpass its deity-surrogate values and engage America), then the lives of those less fortunate people, as well as sexual and political dissi- the experiences that take us beyond the than yourself can be sacrificed in your interest. dents, in prison. A combination of deadly impoverished sub-reality of everyday life. It Steve Allen should be reminded that the factors contributes mightily to the demoral- must be more, not less, Nietzschean than foundations of capitalism explicitly repu- ization of many fine people who find them- Nietzsche was. diated such mercantilist oppression in favor selves unjustly confined, some for many of the good of the capitalists, and thus the years. There is also a significant number of Bob Black statement is fundamentally in error. It was individuals whose crimes do not warrant the Albany, N.Y. in recognition of the harm that could be long prison terms that the conservative judi- wrought when government's interests were cial system imposes on otherwise redeemable aligned with a particular class of people that persons. I am heartsick when I hear rhetoric Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth exaggerated his led the founders of the United States to about concern for victims of crimes as an nationalism, militarism, and anti-Semitism, explicitly limit the scope of government and excuse to destroy the lives of men and women but she didn't make them up. He was no insist on objective principles of justice. whose crimes were victimless. The individ- liberal democrat. His published writings are It is not easy for humanists to face the ual's loss is also society's loss and in the end, full of the kind of stereotyped thinking that fact that our interests in human dignity and everyone pays a terrible price. the Nazis indulged in later. He despised freedom are not well represented by either present-day (bourgeois) Germans, but so did dominant political view in America. But the Name withheld upon request the Nazis; and he idealized the warrior tribes governmental paternalism and special interest Graigsville, Va. of the early Middle Ages, just as they did. politics of the Democratic party are no less If he had lived fifty years later, he would have inimical to the interests of personal freedom been a Nazi, just as Heidegger was and for than is the religious intolerance of some in Looking Back at Der Antichrist the same reasons. the Republican party. The religious threat just I too enjoy reading his psychological cri- seems more real since we are ourselves a direct Robert Sheaffer's summary of Nietzsche's tique of Christianity, and 1 believe that it fits target. Let us not blind ourselves to the fact psychology of Christianity (Winter 1988) is many Christians past and present. But it fails that endlessly expanding the role of govern- workmanlike if lacking the dazzle of the utterly to account for many others, such as ment in the economic realm "for the common original; except it lacks for more than that. Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Martin good" cannot but help cross the boundaries It does not occur to him to mention, if it Luther King, and the Berrigan brothers. It of the personal realm. If this should happen, occurred to him at all, that Nietzsche's cri- is another stereotype, which possesses internal it requires but a majority belief that atheism tique of religion is a critique of morality, coherence and happens to hit the mark in or agnosticism is "not consistent with the including humanism. Nietzsche is no more some cases, but which is more a priori than common good" to begin the process of a humanist than he was a Nazi; the new myth empirical: part of the pervasive and dangerous unraveling our right to our own beliefs. is as bogus as the old one. Nietzsche did not influence of Hegel. believe that humanist values could or should FREE INQUIRY needs to come to terms Mark Brittingham be disentangled from Christian dogma. He with the fact that the word "humanism" has Flanders, N.J. believed on the contrary that most humanist been discredited in some quarters by its 60 FREE INQUIRY association with Hegelianism of all kinds. insignificant back garden, may be allowed to where my heirs will become aware of its Marx and Nietzsche were humanists; com- grow into a mighty oak that can obscure the existence only upon my demise. munism and fascism are humanist concepts, view of liberty and justice for all. Galileo had the pope to worry about; I devoted to the fulfillment of particular have my associate and clients. I fear greatly visions of human perfection, and each is Lois Porter that reason will never prevail on this earth based on "science" rather than on transcen- Washington, D.C. for the vast majority of mankind. Until the dental mysticism. It will not do to dismiss end of time men will create gods of one sort them without argument as "false" humanism or another in a vain attempt to give some (or as "secular religions"), aiming at "false" Most Americans who rise to the upper levels meaning to what would otherwise appear to perfection and based on "false" science. of our culture do so without becoming great be a totally meaningless existence. Historically they have as much claim to the thinkers: They are great salesmen, great Keep up your good work! I enjoy your term "humanism" as do liberal democrats. politicians, great corporation executives, great magazine immensely. There is no substitute for detailed arguments TV preachers, or even great writers or about concepts and facts. What are "indi- novelists. But they accept without argument Name withheld upon request vidual rights," for example? Where do they whatever those around them "think" about Hayward, Calif. come from? What should we do when they theological matters. George Bush is no ex- conflict with the common good? Without ception to this general rule. such detailed arguments, identification of Bush was quoted as saying that "atheists Choosing Responsibly "humanism" with its liberal democratic vari- should not be considered citizens, nor should ety is just rhetoric. they be considered patriots." I was a torpedo- Henry Morgentaler has certainly led a bomber crewman in World War II, long courageous, altruistic fight for the legaliza- Richard J. Burke before Ensign Bush ever climbed into a tion of abortion, and he extends his concern Professor of Philosophy cockpit as a pilot. If he doesn't consider me to the tragic consequences of unwanted Oakland University a patriot, that's all right with me—those young pregnancies ("The Struggle for Abortion Rochester, Mich. ensigns needed a white cane and a seeing- Rights in Canada," Winter 1988/89). The eye dog to get around the big carriers anyway. singular right of abortion is often made to I managed to sneak by the recruiting office appear selfish by pro-lifers who pit it against More on George Bush and then plodded up from seaman to petty the "ending of an innocent life" while ignor- officer to commission. It might not be a bad ing the fact that an unwanted pregnancy On the eve of the inauguration of George Bush idea for atheists and agnostics to remember carried to full term may well sentence that ("On the Barricades," Fall 1988) as the forty- the words of George Bush, if he tries to start same innocent life to a brutal existence. The first president of the United States, I began another war and draft us into the services. fate of these unwanted children is also often to ponder the importance of the presidency. Let Bush get back in and fight his war—we overlooked by the advocates of free choice Certainly, there have been presidents who buck privates and apprentice seamen will stay as they focus on the woman's prerogatives. have made a vast difference. The first to come home and read all this atheistic literature. The emphasis should be shifted to the rights to mind, of course, is George Washington,. of living children, who need not only adequate Without him there would have been no United C. E. Windle physical sustenance but also the love, accep- States of America, and by his example he Redmond, Wash. tance, and education so essential to a happy shaped the role and importance of his office. childhood and to a productive adult life. Then there is Abraham Lincoln, without A new life isn't always a blessing even whom the Union would never have survived, Reason Under Wraps among the materially advantaged. My hus- and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who left a lasting band and I served as foster parents and legacy. When my business associate ascertained that encountered abused children from all walks But even presidents of lesser stature can I was reading FREE INQUIRY in our office of life. Some had been burned or beaten. make a difference. These days I've been he told me to destroy it before any of our Others had known abandonment, starvation, thinking of Dwight D. Eisenhower and the extremely conservative clients saw it on the isolation, or other atrocities. They were Pledge of Allegiance. It was he who added premises. My associate entertains the same unwanted, unloved children, the helpless the words under God to the pledge in 1954. philosophy of life as I, but he is very appre- victims of desperate, frustrated parents. Most At the time, no doubt, many congressmen hensive that someone in the outside world of these children will carry their emotional and others opposed the change, but some who might learn of it. I intend to accommodate and physical scars for the rest of their lives. objected may have thought it didn't really him and assuage his fears. Immediately upon Some foolishly claim that adoption could make much difference. The pledge, after all, receipt of future issues I will rush them into absorb all unwanted babies but innumerable is not in the Constitution, and was largely my inner office and hide them from public unfortunate children were consigned to something grammar school children said at view in my desk drawer. At the close of the orphanages, asylums, and charity homes the beginning of each school day. No real working day, I will securely lock the doors before the legalization of abortion. The situ- harm done. to our office suite, draw the window blinds ation would be much worse today. Pro-lifers Soon a substantial majority of federal tightly closed, withdraw your magazine from and religionists have no right to dictate to judges in this country, including justices of my desk drawer, sit back, relax, and enjoy others until they are able and willing to assume the Supreme Court, will have been appointed the stimulating articles in your current issue. the total and loving responsibility for each by Ronald Reagan and George Bush. It After 1 have read the magazine from cover unwanted baby. behooves us to remember that eternal to cover, I will surreptitiously sneak it out vigilance is still the price of liberty. An acorn of the office in the dark of the evening, whisk Elizabeth F. Lafler as small as eight letters, planted in an it across town and smuggle it into my home, North Tonawanda, N.Y. Spring 1989 61 Build Spirits, Not Gyms

Bellevue, Omaha—Instead of building more In the Name of God gyms and classrooms, the Bellevue Public Schools should add religion to the district's curriculum to balance educational, physical, and spiritual needs, schoolboard member God vs. Science dancing is sinful. The school has appealed Shirley Arndt said last December. to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. She said the schools should be giving Two recent surveys rate the United States Louis. students "innate knowledge of God" to at the top among Western nations in belief Purdy High's prohibition on dancing was soothe their troubles with alcohol, drugs and in God and at the bottom among six major immortalized in the 1985 film Footloose. suicide. When asked whose God the schools countries in school kids' understanding of (The Freedom Writer) should teach about Arndt spelled science and math. This could be dismissed "B-I-B-L-E." as chance, but it shouldn't be. While our economic competitors' schools are teaching students advanced math and Birth Control science, many of our schools are wasting and the Body of Christ Boy Starves for Spirituality energy debating whether to teach evolution or creationism, which maintains that God Alexandria, Va.—Nothing seemed amiss that Wilkes-Barre, Pa.—An unemployed former created the universe over a six-day period Sunday morning last June when Alexandria minister and his wife had more than $3,700 about 6,000 years ago. City Council member T. Michael Jackson but did not use the money to save their If this dopey intrusion of closed-minded- approached the altar of St. Joseph's Catholic teenage son from starvation because it "be- ness into education continues, the United Church. Jackson, who has worshiped at longed to God." States will soon be reduced to waiting for nearby St. Mary's for most of his life, was Larry and Leona Cottam were arraigned Judgment Day as a national policy. Only visiting St. Joseph's and had joined the line on charges of criminal homicide in the death then will our God-lovers triumph over edu- of parishioners taking communion from the of their fourteen-year-old son, Eric. The cated agnostics. Rev. Joseph Miller. couple and their twelve-year-old daughter, I liked this country better when the peo- But when Jackson extended his hand to Laura, were hospitalized with varying de- ple banging on our doors each Saturday receive the wafer, he was stunned to hear grees of malnutrition, dehydration, and vita- were selling encyclopedias, not salvation. Miller say, "1 cannot give you the eucharist." min deficiencies. (Bill Mandel, San Francisco Sunday He was even more shocked several days after "Larry Cottam said he did not spend the Examiner and Chronicle) the mass when Miller explained why. Jack- money because it did not belong to them," son said Miller described him as "a public according to a state trooper's affidavit. "He and obstinate sinner." stated that the money was 'tithe' money and Purdy Progressive Jackson's transgression? Several months belonged to God. earlier he had voted with other members of "The money was ten percent of all their On December 10, 1988, Purdy High School, the Alexandria City Council to establish a earnings and was to be turned over to God. located in Purdy, Missouri, held its first health clinic that, among other services, At that time, Leona Cottam stated that he dance ever. Dancing had never been allowed would provide birth-control advice and con- shouldn't have shown the money to this in this century-old town because Christian traceptives to teenagers. officer because nobody would understand." fundamentalists felt it would lead to all kinds Catholic officials had adamantly opposed State police found the teenager dead in of immorality. the clinic, and Miller considered Jackson's the Cottam's modest Nuangola home, just In August, U.S. District Judge Russell vote a moral offense so grave that it justified outside of Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Clark ruled that the school's ban unconstitu- excluding him from the fellowship of his Pennsylvania. The five-foot-ten inch youth tionally promoted a religious belief that church and his faith. (Washington Post) weighed sixty-nine pounds. (AP)

Gallup Graphics And They Shall Take Up Serpents Sneedville, Tenn.—Members of the Sneedville Holiness Church say that We Believe In Miracles (Mostly) the Reverend Gerald Fleenor would not have been put in the hospital if his mother had had more faith in the Bible. Response of adults to statement: "Even today, miracles are Fleenor spent some time in the intensive care unit at the University of performed by the power of God." Tennessee Hospital in Knoxville after being bitten while handling a rattle- 47% snake at a church service in Kentucky. After he got home to Sneedville, his Completely agree mother insisted he be checked by a doctor. Fleenor belongs to a church 35% that believes the Bible commands its followers to handle poisonous snakes Mostly agree without fear of being harmed. 9% The Reverend Henry Swiney said he has been handling snakes for fifty Mostly disagree years. "We wear them around our necks and on our heads," he said. "I got FM 4% bit by a cottonmouth I don't know how many times this summer, and I Completely disagree wasn't hurt. We trust in God to take care of us. If we didn't, it would F1-7.1 5% be just like a preacher trying to preach when he ain't got the message." Not sure (the Knoxville News-Sentinel)

62 FREE INQUIRY Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH) The Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (C0DESH) is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt educational organization dedicated to fostering the growth of the traditions of democracy, secular humanism, and the principles of free inquiry in contemporary society. In addition to publishing FREE INQUIRY magazine and the Secular Humanist Bulletin, CODESH sponsors the Academy of Humanism and the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion. The Academy of Humanism The Academy of Humanism was established to recognize distinguished humanists and disseminate humanistic ideals and beliefs. The members of the Academy, listed below, are nontheists who are (I) devoted to free inquiry in all fields of human endeavor, (2) committed to a scientific outlook and the use of the scientific method in acquiring knowledge, and (3) upholders of humanist ethical values and principles. The Academy's goals include furthering respect for human rights and freedom and the dignity of the individual, tolerance of various viewpoints and willingness to compromise, commitment to social justice, a universalistic perspective that transcends national, ethnic, religious, sexual, and racial barriers, and belief in a free and open pluralistic and democratic society. Humanist Laureates: Steve Allen, author, humorist; Isaac Asimov, author; Sir Alfred J. Ayer, Oxford; Kurt Baier, professor of philosophy, University of Pittsburgh; Sir Isaiah Berlin, professor of philosophy, 0xford University; Sir Hermann Bondi, Nobel Laureate in mathematics, Churchill College, London; Bonnie Bullough, dean of nursing, SUNY at Buffalo; Mario Bunge, professor of philosophy of science, McGill Univ.; Bernard Crick, professor of politics, Univ. of London; Francis Crick, Nobel Laureate in Physiology, Salk Inst.; José Delgado, chairperson of the Dept. of Neuropsychiatry, Univ. of Madrid; Milovan Djilas, author, former vice-president of Yugoslavia; Jean Dommanget, director, Royal Observatory of Belgium; Paul Edwards, professor of philosophy, Brooklyn College; Sir Raymond Firth, professor emeritus of anthropology, Univ. of London; Joseph Fletcher, theologian, professor emeritus of medical ethics, Univ. of Virginia Medical School; Betty Friedan, author and founder of the National 0rganization for Women (N0W); Yves Galifret, professor of physiology at the Sorbonne and director of l'Union Rationaliste; John Galtung, professor of sociology, Univ. of Oslo; Stephen Jay Gould, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard; Adolf Grünbaum, professor of philosophy, Univ. of Pittsburgh; Murray Gell-Mann, professor of physics, California Institute of Technology; Herbert Hauptman, Nobel Laureate and professor of biophysical science, SUNY at Buffalo; Donald Johanson, Inst. of Human Origins; Franco Lombardi, professor of philosophy, Univ. of Rome; Jolé Lombardi, organizer of the New Univ. for the Third Age; André Lwoff, Nobel Laureate in Medicine and professor of science, Institut Pasteur; Paul MacCready, Kremer Prize winner for aeronautical achievements; Mahailo Markovié, professor of philosophy, Univ. of Belgrade; John Passmore, professor of philosophy, Australian National Univ.; Jean-Claude Pecker, professor of astrophysics, Collège de France, Académie des Sciences; Wardell Baxter Pomeroy, psychotherapist and author; Sir Karl Popper, professor emeritus of logic and scientific method, Univ. of London; W. V. Quine, professor of philosophy, Harvard; Max Rood, professor of law and former Minister of Justice in Holland; Richard Rorty, professor of philosophy, University of Virginia; Carl Sagan, astronomer, Cornell; Andrei Sakharov, physicist, Nobel Peace Prize winner; Svetozar Stojanovic, professor of philosophy, Univ. of Belgrade; Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry, SUNY Medical School; V. M. Tarkunde, chairman, Indian Radical Humanist Association; Richard Taylor, professor of philosophy, Union College; Alberto Hidalgo Tuñón, president of the Sociedad Asturiana de Filosofía, Oviedo, Spain; G. A. Wells, professor of German, Univ. of London; Edward O. Wilson, professor of sociobiology, Harvard. Deceased: George O. Abell, Brand Blanshard, Lawrence Kohlberg, Ernest Nagel, George Olincy, Chaim Perelman, Lady Barbara Wooton. Secretariat: Vern Bullough, dean of natural and social sciences, SUNY College at Buffalo; Antony Flew, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Reading Univ.; Sidney Hook, professor emeritus of philosophy, New York Univ.; Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy, SUNY at Buffalo, editor of FREE INQUIRY; Gerald Larue, professor emeritus of archaeology and biblical studies, Univ. of Southern California at Los Angeles. Executive Director: Steven L. Mitchell. Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) The Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion was developed to examine the claims of Eastern and Western religions and of well- established and newer sects and denominations in the light of scientific inquiry. The Committee is interdisciplinary, including specialists in biblical scholarship, archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, the social sciences, and philosophy who represent differing secular and religious traditions. Committee members are dedicated to impartial scholarship and the use of objective methods of inquiry. Gerald Larue (President), USC at Los Angeles; Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities, Univ. of Richmond; Michael Arnheim, professor of ancient history, Univ. of Witwatersrand (South Africa); Joseph Barnhart, professor of philosophy, Univ. of North Texas; Vern Bullough, SUNY College at Buffalo; Joseph Fletcher, Univ. of Virginia Medical School; Antony Flew, Reading Univ. (England); Theodor Gaster, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Columbia University and professor of religion, University of Florida; Van Harvey, professor of religion, Stanford; Sidney Hook, New York Univ.; Robert Joly, professor philosophy, Université de Mons (Belgium); Paul Kurtz, SUNY at Buffalo; Ron Lindsay, attorney, Washington, D.C.; William V. Mayer, director, Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, Univ. of Colorado; Delos McKown, professor of philosophy, Auburn Univ.; John F. Priest, professor of religion, Florida State University; James Robinson, director of the Institute for Christianity and Antiquity, Claremont College; George Smith, president, Signature Books; Morton Smith, Professor Emeritus of History, Colombia University; A. T. Steegman, professor of anthropology, SUNY at Buffalo; G. A. Wells, Univ. of London. Biblical Criticism Research Project (CSER Subcommittee) R. Joseph Hoffmann (Chairman), professor of philosophy and religion, Hartwick College; David Noel Freedman, professor of 0ld Testament, Univ. of Michigan; Randel Helms, professor of English, Arizona State Univ.; Robert Joly, professor of philosophy, Centre Interdisciplinaire d'Etudes Philosophiques de l'Université de Mons (Belgium); Carol Meyers, professor of religion, Duke Univ.; James Robinson, director, Inst. for Antiquity and Christianity, Claremont College; John F. Priest, professor and chairman, Dept. of Religion, Florida State Univ.; Morton Smith, professor of history, Columbia. Faith-Healing Investigation Project (CSER Subcommittee) David Alexander, special investigator; Robert S. Alley, Univ. of Richmond; Luis W. Alvarez, Professor Emeritus of Physics, Univ. of California; Stephen Barrett, M.D., consumer health advocate; Bonnie Bullough, SUNY at Buffalo; Shawn Carlson, Lawrence Berkeley Labs; Joseph Fletcher, Univ. of Virginia Medical School; William Jarvis, chairman, Dept. of Public Health Science, Loma Linda Univ., California; Richard H. Lange, M.D., chief of nuclear medicine, Ellis Hospital, Schenectady, N.Y.; Gary Posner, M.D., St. Petersburg, Florida; Wallace I. Sampson, M.D., Stanford; Robert Steiner, chairman, 0ccult Committee, Society of American Magicians; Rita Swan, President, Children's Health Care Is a Legal Duty, Sioux City, Iowa. Coordinating Council: Joseph Barnhart, Paul Kurtz, Gerald Larue, and James Randi, conjurer and principal investigator of the Project. The Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles and Values

• We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems. • We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, to seek to explain the world in super- natural terms, and to look outside nature for salvation. • We believe that scientific discovery and technology can contribute to the betterment of human life. • We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities. • We are committed to the principle of the separation of church and state. • We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding. • We are concerned with securing justice and fairness in society and with eliminating dis- crimination and intolerance. • We belieVe in supporting the disadvantaged and the handicapped so that they will be able to help themselves. • We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity. • We want to protect and enhance the earth, to preserve it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless suffering on other species. • We belieVe in enjoying life here and now and in developing our creative talents to their fullest. • We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence. • We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have access to com- prehensive and informed health-care, and to die with dignity. • We belieVe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative standards that we discover together. Moral principles are tested by their consequences. • We are deeply concerned with the moral education of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion. • We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences. • We are citizens of the uniVerse and are excited by discoVeries still to be made in the cosmos. • We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, and we are open to novel ideas and seek new departures in our thinking. • We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich personal significance and genuine satisfaction in the service to others. • We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind faith or irrationality. • We belieVe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest that we are capable of as human beings.

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