ROBYN E. BLUMNER: JOIN OUR TRIBE!

CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY April/May 2017 Vol. 37 No.3

ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS Nanotech | Autonomous Cars | Autonomous Weapons What Future Do We Want? DAVID KOEPSELL | James Hughes | Ryan Jenkins | Patrick Lin | Wendell Wallach

OPINION by Greta Christina | Shadia B. Drury | Ophelia Benson Russell Blackford |Faisal Saeed Al Mutar |Janet L. Factor | James A. Haught

A/M 17 $5.95 CDN $5.95 US $5.95 05 UNRAVELING TRUMP: Peter Boghossian and James A. Lindsay | Gleb Tsipursky

Published by the Center for Inquiry in association 0 74470 74957 8 with the Council for Secular Humanism FI June July cut_FI 5/2/12 4:39 PM Page 67

We are committed to the application of reason and science We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence. to the understanding of the universe and to the solving We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be of human problems. allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, access to comprehensive and informed health care, and to look outside nature for salvation. and to die with dignity.

We believe that scientific discovery and technology We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, can contribute to the betterment of human life. integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that standards that we discover together. Moral principles are democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights tested by their consequences. from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities. We are deeply concerned with the moral education We are committed to the principle of the of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion. separation of church and state. We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences. We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual We are citizens of the universe and are excited by understanding. discoveries still to be made in the cosmos.

We are concerned with securing justice and fairness We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, in society and with eliminating discrimination and we are open to novel ideas and seek new and intolerance. departures in our thinking.

We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to disabled so that they will be able to help themselves. theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a source of rich per sonal significance and genuine satisfaction We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based in the service to others. on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity and strive to work together for We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather the common good of humanity. than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place We want to protect and enhance Earth, to preserve of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind suffering on other species. faith or irrationality.

We believe in enjoying life here and now and in We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest developing our creative talents to their fullest. that we are capable of as human beings.

*by Paul Kurtz

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APRIL | MAY 2017 Volume 37 No. 3 CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY

21 Issues in Technology and Ethics 40 Autopia: The Robot Car of Introduction Tomorrow May Just Be David Koepsell Programmed to Hit You Patrick Lin We are committed to the application of reason and science We believe in the cultivation of moral excellence. 22 A Dangerous Master to the understanding of the universe and to the solving We respect the right to privacy. Mature adults should be Wendell Wallach 43 Enhancing Virtues: Fairness of human problems. allowed to fulfill their aspirations, to express their sexual James J. Hughes We deplore efforts to denigrate human intelligence, preferences, to exercise reproductive freedom, to have 28 The Moral and Political Dangers to seek to explain the world in supernatural terms, access to comprehensive and informed health care, of Autonomous Weapons 51 Is the Unthinkable the New Acceptable? and to look outside nature for salvation. and to die with dignity. Ryan Jenkins Peter Boghossian and James A. Lindsay We believe that scientific discovery and technology We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, can contribute to the betterment of human life. integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility. Humanist ethics 33 Nanotech: New Legal and Moral Challenges 56 The Brain Science of Political Deception is amenable to critical, rational guidance. There are normative David Koepsell and the 2016 Election We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that standards that we discover together. Moral principles are Gleb Tsipursky democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights tested by their consequences. from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities. We are deeply concerned with the moral education We are committed to the principle of the of our children. We want to nourish reason and compassion. separation of church and state. EDITORIAL APPRECIATIONS REVIEWS We are engaged by the arts no less than by the sciences. 4 Join Our Tribe 17 George Albert Wells, We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise 63 Village Atheists: How America’s Robyn E. Blumner 1926–2017 Unbelievers Made Their Way in a as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual We are citizens of the universe and are excited by Godly Nation, 18 Nat Hentoff, 1925–2017 understanding. discoveries still to be made in the cosmos. by Leigh Eric Schmidt OP-EDS We are concerned with securing justice and fairness We are skeptical of untested claims to knowledge, Reviewed by Tom Flynn 6 Celebrating the Post-Truth World in society and with eliminating discrimination and we are open to novel ideas and seek new Shadia B. Drury LETTERS and intolerance. departures in our thinking. 65 Confessions of a Secular Jesus 19 Follower: Finding Answers in Jesus We believe in supporting the disadvantaged and the We affirm humanism as a realistic alternative to 8 Panic and Emptiness for Those Who Don’t Believe, Ophelia Benson disabled so that they will be able to help themselves. theologies of despair and ideologies of violence and as a LOOKING BACK by Tom Krattenmaker source of rich per sonal significance and genuine satisfaction Reviewed by Robert M. Price We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based 9 Keep Dissent Nonviolent 20 in the service to others. Russell Blackford on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual POEM orientation, or ethnicity and strive to work together for We believe in optimism rather than pessimism, hope rather 12 We Need to Say "No!" 64 Neversend post to the common good of humanity. than despair, learning in the place of dogma, truth instead of DEPARTMENTS Greta Christina my everlasting salvation ignorance, joy rather than guilt or sin, tolerance in the place 59 DOERR'S WAY We want to protect and enhance Earth, to preserve Robin Lee Jordan of fear, love instead of hatred, compassion over selfishness, 13 Toward a Rational Muslim Betsy DeVos and Blaming Blaine it for future generations, and to avoid inflicting needless beauty instead of ugliness, and reason rather than blind Immigration Policy Edd Doerr suffering on other species. faith or irrationality. Faisal Saeed Al Mutar 61 GOD ON TRIAL We believe in enjoying life here and now and in We believe in the fullest realization of the best and noblest 15 Doomed to Repeat? Why Does God Have developing our creative talents to their fullest. that we are capable of as human beings. Janet L. Factor to Be Worshipped? Sheldon F. Gottlieb *by Paul Kurtz 16 Many Struggles Won Religious Freedom James A. Haught

For a parchment copy of this page, suitable for framing, please send $4.95 to FREE INQUIRY, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, New York 14226-0664 it easier to form a tribe or connect ROBYN E. BLUMNER with fellow members. Take the pretty astounding social media reach of Editor Thomas W. Flynn EDITORIAL Managing Editor Andrea Szalanski the Center for Inquiry (CFI) and the Columnists Ophelia Benson, Russell Richard Dawkins Foundation for Rea- Blackford, Greta Christina, son & Science. Combined, we have Edd Doerr, Shadia B. Drury, over 100,000 Twitter followers, over Faisal Saeed Al Mutar 250,000 YouTube subscribers, and a Senior Editors Bill Cooke, Richard Dawkins, whopping 1.5 million Facebook likes. Edd Doerr, James A. Haught, Join Our Jim Herrick, Ronald A. Dawkins’s leadership has been key Lindsay, Taslima Nasrin to building this tribe and binding it Tribe together. His ideas on science and Contributing Editors Levi Fragell, Adolf Grünbaum, atheism, laid out in over a dozen Marvin Kohl, Lee Nisbet books, have given people a reason Assistant Editors Julia Lavarnway to come together. We join with him Nicole Scott and his ideas because his prescrip- Literary Editor Cheryl Quimba e are all tribal. That’s tion for evaluating the nature of real- Permissions Editor Julia Lavarnway what marketing guru ity through the application of critical Art Director Christopher S. Fix Seth Godin says in his thinking and the scientific method Production Paul E. Loynes Sr. insightful book Tribes. is demonstrably the best means of WWhat does Godin mean by “tribes”? human advancement. Being a part Center for Inquiry Inc. He writes, “a tribe is a group of peo- Chair Edward Tabash of organizations promoting Dawkins’s Board of Directors David Cowan ple connected to one another, con- ideas says something about who we Richard Dawkins nected to a leader, and connected to are, burnishes our sense of identity, Brian Engler an idea.” And we are all in them. Kendrick Frazier and connects us to others who share Barry A. Kosmin I would expand on that and say this profound vision for the better- Y. Sherry Sheng tribes are groups of people con- ment of Earth. (I wouldn’t be surprised Andrew Thomson nected to one another through an Leonard Tramiel if more than a few Trekkies were in Honorary: idea, an element of personal identity, there, too.) Rebecca Newberger or a community of interest. We define Readers of this magazine know Goldstein ourselves largely as members of vari- Susan Jacoby that there is connectedness among Lawrence Krauss ous tribes, from our nuclear families to them. If you saw someone reading our nationalities. This feeds our dual Chief Executive Officer Free Inquiry on a plane, you might feel and President Robyn E. Blumner need for self-identity and community. comfortable mentioning that you also My tribes include American, athe- Senior Research Fellow Ronald A. Lindsay subscribe. You have something valu- ist, civil libertarian, feminist, and the able in common: a worldview. Director, Campus and Community Programs Debbie Goddard small but scrappy Blumner clan. And The trick is to translate that I’m part of numerous other tribes, too, Director of Public Engagement Stephanie Guttormson sense of community into a force for from Cornellian (Class of ’82) down to real-world action. Regardless of how Vice President for Philanthropy Martina Fern the tribe of people who are fans of each of us voted in the last election, Director, African Americans for Humanism Debbie Goddard Ina Garten’s recipes. (Really, you must we must recognize that the presi- Director of Libraries Timothy Binga try her Linguine with Shrimp Scampi. dency of Donald J. Trump will have The lemon-garlic combination makes Communications Director Paul Fidalgo serious adverse consequences for it sing.) reason and science. Many of our Database Manager Jacalyn Mohr When I think of Trekkies, I think of a issues, including church-state sep- Database Administrator Dave Churvis tribe. Trekkies connect with a ground- aration, reproductive freedom, and Director of Digital breaking what-humanism-looks-like- support for science, are under threat. Product and Strategy Matthew Licata in-space television show, and they More than ever, we need our tribe of Director, Teacher Institute for want to share that passion with others Evolutionairy Science Bertha Vazquez humanists, atheists, and skeptics to who feel the same. be engaged and active. Staff Pat Beauchamp, Melissa Braun, One of the great self-actualizing For instance, if just 5 percent of the Lauren Foster, wonders of modernity is that we hu- people who connect with us on social Roe Giambrone, Cody Hashman, Nora Hurley, mans are no longer prisoners of the media and subscribe to FI responded Marc Kriedler, Stef tribes we were born into. We can to an Action Alert by calling their McGraw, Paul Paulin, Anthony Santa Lucia, choose our associations, and some of members of Congress and identify- Vance Vigrass us even create new tribes. ing themselves as secular/atheist/hu- Interconnectivity has never made manist, the secular community would

4 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org come roaring into its own as an activist pose candidates for public office and movement. It would raise our profile church-run political messaging could among the country’s power brokers occur without public oversight. No and make our secular tribe a leading wonder the Atlantic magazine de- voice in the public policy arena. Free Inquiry (ISSN 0272-0701) is published bimonthly by the Cen- scribed Trump’s repeal promise with ter for Inquiry in association with the Council for Secular Humanism, As of this writing, we have a cou- this headline: “Trump Wants to Make P.O. Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226-0664. Phone (716) 636-7571. ple of top legislative priorities. (It Fax (716) 636-1733. Copyright ©2017 by the Center for Inquiry and Churches the New Super PACs.” the Council for Secular Humanism. All rights reserved. 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secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 5 please make sure you are signed up In my view, all the lamentation to receive CFI’s Action Alerts from our SHADIA B. DRURY over the loss of truth in the American Office of Public Policy. Simply go to OP-ED media is a sign of puerility. What has www.centerforinquiry.net/takeaction happened to the American media is and add your name. a blessing in disguise. Throughout Secular people who make secular- history, Americans have enjoyed un- ism part of their identity and make pol- paralleled freedom of thought and iticians aware of it do a great service speech—enshrined in their Consti- to the cause of injecting reason and tution. Unfortunately, freedom of science into today’s lawmaking. Peo- Celebrating the thought and speech does not guar- ple who tell pollsters they have no re- antee immunity from deception and ligious affiliation (and nonbelievers are Post-Truth World propaganda. Nor is a free media a major subpart of this group) make up immune from groupthink. the biggest “religion” category within There are two different ways of the Democratic Party. If organized, we looking at freedom of thought and could have a major influence on public speech. One is bright and sunny and policy (and not just among Demo- has its source in John Stuart Mill. The crats). Now, we are ignored. other is dark and sinister and has It is possible to demand that our its source in Plato. Americans have, tribe be given a seat at the deci- hanks to the presidency of Don- ald J. Trump, the distinction for the most part, been living in the sion-making table. Utah’s Democratic cheery world of liberal ideology. Like Party recently approved a Secular Tbetween legitimate and illegit- imate news organizations has been Mill, they believe that free discussion Caucus within its ranks. Yes, Utah! allows the truth to emerge, and that But further steps need to be taken. obliterated. Trump has launched an all-out attack on the mainstream truth is always good for society. Un- Religiously unaffiliated people don’t fortunately, this sunny view is naive; it vote in proportion to their numbers. media as purveyors of lies and fake news. In the absence of the distinc- leads Americans to believe that they The latest surveys say the Nones make are among the fortunate few who can up 25 percent of the adult population. tion between truth and lies, how can bask in the bright light of Truth. Yet in 2016, the Nones made up only citizens make intelligent choices when In contrast, Plato realized that there 15 percent of those who voted in the is no guarantee that intellectual free- presidential election (with nearly seven dom will allow the truth to triumph. in ten voting for Hillary Clinton over On the contrary, in a free contest of Donald Trump). Part of the reason ideas, the most seductive, vociferous, for the low turnout is that the demo- “Suddenly the free cunning, crafty, and clever ideas are graphic that eschews religion skews media, which has the ones bound to succeed. Like younger (with 39 percent of young defined American so many philosophers, Plato thought adults saying they are religiously unaf- that he knew what was good for hu- filiated), and young people are notori- democracy, lies in manity. He was in possession of the ously inconstant voters. tatters. Americans Truth. If the latter is to triumph, it must Another challenge is that many find themselves secular people don’t feel a part of our be imposed. Because people are too tribe. People who tell pollsters they living in a post-truth ignorant and depraved to choose the are religiously unaffiliated are choos- world that threatens truth of their own accord, they must ing a default posture. They may not be their democracy be deceived. Accordingly, Plato be- expressing an affirmative identity at came the philosopher of “artful lies.” all. Part of our job is to show the non- and way of life.” Americans believe that they are believers within this religiously unaffili- on the sunny side in the freedom ated cohort the value in belonging to of speech debate. In truth, when it our community. They have moved in comes to their foreign policy, Ameri- our direction. Now we need to show cans fall back on artful lies. Like Plato, them why this is an essential element selecting their leaders? There is much they believe they know what is good of their identity, and why there is a lot fear and trepidation in the United for humanity. They have no qualms to gain from being a proud and open States over this epistemological cri- about using lies to influence the elec- member of our tribe. sis. Suddenly the free media, which tions of other countries. When the lies has defined American democracy, lies are not artful enough and the wrong in tatters. Americans find themselves results are achieved, then the demo- Robyn E. Blumner is the president and CEO of the living in a post-truth world that threat- cratically elected leaders are removed Center for Inquiry. ens their democracy and way of life. by the Central Intelligence Agency.

6 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org In 1953, the democratically elected an American election again. Accord- tions. Instead, they should put their secular president of Iran, Mohammad ingly, former President Barack Obama energy into figuring out how not to Mosaddeq, was replaced. In 1973, expelled Russian diplomats from the get hacked. the democratically elected Salvador United States. Even worse, congres- It is time for the media to rise to the Allende of Chile was removed. Amer- sional leaders suspect the collusion of occasion. Its first task is not to be dis- icans have interfered in Russian elec- President Trump with the Russian foe tracted by fact-checking the plethora tions since the fall of the Soviet Union. and are determined to investigate. of lies and falsehoods dished out by Unhappily, interference yields unan- the new administration. This may be a ticipated results—such as the grim deliberate policy to distract the media mullahs who rule Iran and the corrupt from what the administration is doing. oligarchy over which Vladimir Putin Second, the media must embrace the presides. Nevertheless, the United “Unfortunately, title of “liberal media” and take its job States continues to be a champion of seriously as defender of the rights and Plato’s artful lies. freedom of thought freedoms of Americans—not corpora- However, with the ascendancy of and speech does not tions. Third, the media must resolve the neoconservatives during the pres- guarantee immunity to be fair to Trump and his supporters idency of George W. Bush, the artful by taking them seriously. This means lies were no longer reserved for foreign from deception and questioning the bipartisan consensus consumption. They became a staple of propaganda. Nor is a on Russia as the evil empire. It means domestic politics. The result was two free media immune considering the negative effects of disastrous and unnecessary wars—in globalization on ordinary citizens. It Afghanistan and Iraq—wars that have from groupthink.” means taking seriously discussion of undermined America’s stature in the immigration, multiculturalism, and po- world, ballooned the national debt, litical correctness. It means not dis- and brought the United States to the missing conservatives as homophobic, brink of economic collapse. Far from racist, and sexist. In short, the media should affirm questioning these wars, the media the post-truth world as an antidote to cheered them on. the childishness of the feel-good pro- In spite of these fiascos, Americans paganda in which they have basked cling to their liberal stupor—namely, for so long. They should delight in the that a free media ensures the triumph doubt, multiplicity, and radical critique of truth. In reality, America’s main- In my view, the effort to punish of the most sacred cows that the post- stream media is rife with feel-good Russia for ruining the pure and uncon- truth world invites. propaganda. It never fails to remind taminated American electoral system Americans that they live in the greatest is just so much hypocrisy. The United nation on the planet, the most pow- States spies on everyone—friendly as Shadia B. Drury is professor emerita at the University erful nation on Earth—a nation with a well as unfriendly governments. It be- of Regina in Canada. Her books include Terror and world-historical mission. That mission hooves the leaders to keep quiet and Civilization (2004), Aquinas and Modernity (2008), is to spread freedom and democracy not make fools of themselves wasting and The Bleak Implications of Socratic Religion throughout the world and destroy the money and time on endless investiga- (forthcoming, 2017). enemies of freedom in every corner of the globe. The free media has been complicit in the propagation of the “Americans believe national mythology. It has contributed that they are on to the crowds chanting “USA! USA!” It has failed to inject a note of realism the sunny side in into the national conversation. the freedom of Americans and their leaders are speech debate. horrified at the post-truth world in In truth, when which they have been plunged. They blame Russia for loss of confidence it comes to their in American democracy. They blame foreign policy, Russia for destroying the world of truth, Americans which has made American democracy fall back on a beacon for the world. They are de- termined to punish Russia, so that no artful lies.” one will ever dare to interfere with

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 7 It’s degrading. It’s a humiliation for rity who couldn’t care less about the OPHELIA BENSON the whole country and all of us in it to truth can do what Trump did? OP-ED have an ignorant, dim-witted, narcis- His emptiness is frightening, pos- sistic bully as head of state, one with- sibly the most frightening thing about out even a façade of grown-up decent him. His cruelty and dishonesty and behavior. I still, after all these weeks narcissism are appalling, but it’s his since Donald J. Trump won the elec- emptiness that makes it so impossible tion, can’t wrap my head around the for him to be a better human being. fact that the forty-fifth president is a He is not furnished with anything that Panic and man who repeatedly called a U.S. sen- would get in the way of his constant ator “Pocahontas,” who insisted for urges to attack people who fail in their years that Barack Obama is not a U.S. duty to flatter him. It’s that crude and Emptiness citizen, who mocked a disabled re- simple, as he artlessly tells us on Twit- porter at a campaign rally, who agreed ter every morning. Alec Baldwin paro- with Howard Stern on live radio that dies him on Saturday night, and, like a his own daughter was “a piece of train arriving on time, Trump tweets his ass,” who bragged about his freedom rage on Sunday. ike just about everyone I know, as a celebrity to grab women “by the As an example of his emptiness, I’m struggling to adapt to life pussy”—and on and on. It’s as if we’d take his tweet about Martin Luther Lunder the Trump regime—espe- dropped in on some random fraternity King Jr. on January 16: “Celebrate cially mental life. That was a major part party and selected the loudest, dumb- Martin Luther King Day and all of the of the horror of election night and of est, meanest guy there to be our head many wonderful things that he stood the days and weeks since: the suffocat- of state. It’s too grotesque to be true. for. Honor him for being the great ing feeling of being stuck with having Yet it is true, and I can’t see how we’ll man that he was!” “Many wonderful to pay attention to this terrible yet triv- ever live it down. things,” “great man”—Trump could be talking about anyone or no one. ial and childish man. We had thought It’s especially galling and de- He could be a child answering a test we were about to escape the miasma moralizing, of course, for us pesky question without having done the read- of his insults and lies and provocations, intellectuals, for people who value ing. It’s embarrassingly obvious that and instead we are condemned to live such activities as free inquiry and rea- he doesn’t know what the “wonderful among them for an intolerable stretch soned argument and conscientious things” were. That would be discon- of time. It felt, and has gone on feel- truth-seeking. What’s the use, when an certing in a property tycoon, but it’s ing, like a prison sentence. empty-headed reality-television celeb- shocking in someone who was just elected head of state. A week before the inauguration, an interview with Trump was pub- lished jointly by the Times of London and the German newspaper Bild. The interviewers, Michael Gove (a former Tory cabinet minister) and Kai Diek- mann, asked Trump if he looked up to anyone. His reply is instructive in a horrifying way. Do you have any models—are there heroes that you steer by— people you look up to from the past? Well, I don’t like heroes, I don’t like the concept of heroes, the concept of heroes is never great, but certainly you can respect cer- tain people and certainly there are certain people—but I’ve learnt a lot from my father—my father was a builder in Brooklyn and Queens— he did houses and housing and I learnt a lot about negotiation from my father—although I also think negotiation is a natural trait, I don’t

8 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org think you can, you either have it or you wrong and why. We will need all our don’t, you get better at it but basically, RUSSELL intelligence, courage, and honesty. the people that I know who are great We need to stand and be counted negotiators or great salesmen or great BLACKFORD politicians, it’s very natural, very natu- when freedoms and benefits are ral. . . . I got a letter from somebody, OP-ED being stripped from ourselves or their congressman, they said what others. While I understand the you’ve done is amazing because you shock and fear—and indeed, I feel were never a politician and you beat some of it myself—we mustn’t allow all the politicians. . . . I believe it’s like it to cloud our thinking. hitting a baseball or being a good Keep Dissent golfer—natural ability, to me, is much One development that worries more important to me than experi- me is the temptation that some feel ence and experience is a great thing I Nonviolent to lash out with violence of their think it’s a great thing but I learnt a lot own, or at least to applaud and from my father in terms of leadership. encourage political violence. So far, They threw him a rope, and he chose most of the resistance to right-wing to go on floundering. They gave him a or secular liberal people, West- populist leaders has been peaceful. golden opportunity to tell us of some ern democracies have entered Some of it has been clever and way in which he saw beyond his own Fa difficult time. Many voters good-humored. But we’re seeing precious self to more lofty values, and have turned to right-wing populist violence from left-wing extremists, he spurned it in favor of bragging about leaders and their policies. These such as the masked, black-clad an- his own “natural” skill at haggling over voters are embracing isolationism, archists and antifascists who some- prices. xenophobia, anti-immigrant bigotry, times form a “black bloc” at demon- You would think Trump could have tariff wars, and other reactionary thought of something to say. There’s ideas. Their favored leaders are American history, for instance—there’s drawing support from a dangerous American presidential history, which he mix of theocrats, racist ideologues, is now tragically part of. He could have and sometimes even outright fas- “While I understand murmured the name of Jefferson or Lin- cists. However it came to this, it’s the shock and fear— coln. He’s a property developer; he could genuinely scary. Many people with have named an admired architect or city rational vantages on democratic and indeed, I feel planner. He could have mentioned Olm- politics are in a state of shock and some of it myself—we sted and Vaux, who designed the Central fear. mustn’t allow it to Park that provides such pleasing views We’ll need to push back against for the residents of Trump Tower. He’s a right-wing populism and its espe- cloud our thinking.” sports fan; he could have cited a star of cially troubling fascist fringes. If golf or baseball. we’re to act strategically, we’ll need But no. He did none of that, and in- to understand what has gone so stead chose to reject the whole idea of admiring someone better than himself. There are people who object to the con- cept of heroes because they are wary of hierarchy in general, but no one would ever accuse Trump of that sort of princi- pled objection. It’s all too obvious that what he rejects is the discomfort of nam- ing someone better than he is. The impli- cations of that fact are a horror we now have to live with.

Ophelia Benson edits the Butterflies and Wheels website. She was formerly associate editor of Philosopher’s Magazine and has coauthored several books, including The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense (Souvenir Press, 2004), Why Truth Matters (Continuum Books, 2006), and Does God Hate Women? (Bloomsbury Academic, 2009).

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 9 We’ve made giving a damn surprisingly affordable.

rom time to time we conduct reader surveys. to promote (If you’ve completed one, thank you.) When understanding results come in, two items of interest always among Americans Fjump out. of differing beliefs. One is that readers like you do not lack in We’re there to intelligence. You’ve probably noticed that we don’t ensure that the growing “dumb down” our articles. There’s no need. population of Nones is no longer overlooked. The other is that you give a damn. You give a damn about things like bettering the world, Not only that. We give science teachers tools standing up for science and reason, and promoting for teaching evolution, help provide schooling for human rights and secular values. Kenyan orphans, unite skeptics and freethinkers in problem-solving forums, stir things up with We give a damn, too. Many of our readers are our popular Point of Inquiry podcast on science, surprised to learn the extent to which the Center religion, and politics, and more. for Inquiry works on the front lines, over and above publishing magazines. To maintain this level of activism, we hold operational costs to the minimum. Our lean, And we’re winning. first-rate staff does the work other organizations TheFood and Drug Administration recently spread over many more people. As a result, you’d invited CFI to testify about the dangers and abuses be amazed at how far we make even the smallest of homeopathy. On November 15, 2016, the Federal contribution stretch. Trade Commission announced new regulations on If, like many of our readers, you give a damn the marketing of homeopathic health products. and long to help make a difference, here’s great Perhaps you’ve heard of writer-activist Shammi news: The step from giving a damn to taking Haque. It was the Center for Inquiry that helped action costs next to nothing. With our bare-bones her escape from her native Bangladesh, where approach, a pledge of as little as nine dollars a her name had landed on a notorious hit list. More month—c’mon, we know you can spare nine secularists in the Middle East are in danger, and we bucks—makes a BIG difference. If you can manage need to be there for them. more, you’ll make all the more difference. You probably know that the U.S. Supreme Court Please do more than care. To see how struck down a horrible Texas law designed to make affordable bettering the world can be, visit legal abortions there all but impossible. What you centerforinquiry.net/damn. You’ll be helping may not know is the role the Center for Inquiry spread knowledge, influence legislation—and, yes, played. The amicus brief we filed with the Court even save lives. did a thorough job of exposing the flaws behind the Thank you state’s arguments and its in advance. The so-called experts. best time to visit Right now we’re centerforinquiry.net/ participating in a new, Visit centerforinquiry.net/damn damn is now, while it’s national program designed or contact Rosemarie Giambrone on your mind. Phone: 800-818-7071 ext. 300 Email: [email protected] strations to smash and burn cars and from off-camera, punches him hard full never claimed to be an absolutist re- shops and fight on the streets. This in the face and then escapes into the garding free speech), but if so they will We’ve made giving a damn is a small component of the response crowd. At the time, Spencer had been have to be defined as narrowly as pos- to right-wing populism, but it has the peacefully giving an interview about sible (traditionally limited to inciting potential to do great social harm. his (admittedly deplorable) ideas. violence, but we should also consider surprisingly affordable. Violent anarchist and antifascist My social-media feeds then filled the most dehumanizing kinds of hate groups are not easily controllable by with people whom I know to be usu- propaganda). However, as long as mainstream political leaders, the po- ally sensible and gentle: they variously political participants are acting lawfully rom time to time we conduct reader surveys. to promote lice, or anyone else. We have little applauded the attack on Spencer, ex- in what they do and say, as Spencer (If you’ve completed one, thank you.) When understanding power to stop them, but we don’t pressed pleasure and glee, went out undoubtedly was, it is not the preroga- results come in, two items of interest always among Americans have to reward them and egg them of their way to broadcast their lack tive of ordinary citizens to impose their on. Whatever social damage they have of sympathy, and even claimed that own extralegal punishments. That way Fjump out. of differing beliefs. caused so far is relatively insignificant this is the proper method to engage lies public disorder, with every political One is that readers like you do not lack in We’re there to compared to that of far-Right dema- enemies on the far Right. I submit that group claiming a right to employ vio- intelligence. You’ve probably noticed that we don’t ensure that the growing gogues, but it still has to be contained. they ought to think again. Violence lence against its enemies. population of Nones is no longer I’d be less worried about these groups Imagine the carnage if we adopted “dumb down” our articles. There’s no need. except for one thing. I am now seeing a rule where anyone may physically overlooked. The other is that you give a damn. You give too many people who should know attack others whose ideas seem suf- a damn about things like bettering the world, Not only that. We give science teachers tools better viewing Antifa-style extremists ficiently dangerous or wicked. For ex- for teaching evolution, help provide schooling for almost as heroes. That might seem “Once a society ample, many people view abortion as standing up for science and reason, and promoting understandable, but violence is not murdering babies, and some fanatics human rights and secular values. Kenyan orphans, unite skeptics and freethinkers acceptable in democratic politics no degenerates into have already killed abortion providers. in problem-solving forums, stir things up with We give a damn, too. Many of our readers are matter who is the target. political violence, Do we really want a rule that allows our popular Point of Inquiry podcast on science, The issue came to the fore in Jan- antiabortion extremists to beat up surprised to learn the extent to which the Center it plays into religion, and politics, and more. uary 2017 following an attack on the anybody who advocates pro-choice for Inquiry works on the front lines, over and above political ideologue and activist Rich- fascists’ hands.” policies? Perhaps you’re thinking that publishing magazines. To maintain this level of activism, we hold ard Spencer. Spencer denies being a it wouldn’t be an individual, subjective operational costs to the minimum. Our lean, neo-Nazi, but at best he is too close decision as to which persons consti- And we’re winning. first-rate staff does the work other organizations to it for comfort. He may or may not on our public streets is not the way tute fair game to be beaten up for have some ideological disagreements forward. We should refrain from it; we their ideas, but in that case whose TheFood and Drug Administration recently spread over many more people. As a result, you’d invited CFI to testify about the dangers and abuses with Adolf Hitler and other leaders of should condemn it when it happens; decision is it going to be? If we each be amazed at how far we make even the smallest the Third Reich, but whatever those and we certainly should not applaud don’t get to decide for ourselves who of homeopathy. On November 15, 2016, the Federal contribution stretch. might be, Spencer’s own brand of it, encourage it, or publicly gloat over is fair game for a punch in the face or Trade Commission announced new regulations on white nationalism and his vocal sup- it. We have smarter, more effective, worse, who does choose? The police? If, like many of our readers, you give a damn the marketing of homeopathic health products. port for “peaceful” ethnic cleansing more principled, more democratically The courts? Some other arm of gov- and long to help make a difference, here’s great qualify him as a fascist by almost any legitimate options. ernment? Do we really want this? Perhaps you’ve heard of writer-activist Shammi news: The step from giving a damn to taking definition. So, why not fight him on No liberal democratic state can Once a society degenerates into Haque. It was the Center for Inquiry that helped action costs next to nothing. With our bare-bones the street if you get a chance? Foot- grant its citizens a right to commit political violence, it plays into fascists’ her escape from her native Bangladesh, where approach, a pledge of as little as nine dollars a age that has gone viral on the Internet political violence. Perhaps some kinds hands. Fascists are better at violence her name had landed on a notorious hit list. More shows a demonstrator doing exactly of political language should be pro- than most, and they love excuses for month—c’mon, we know you can spare nine that. A masked man rushes at Spencer hibited by the state (note that I have it. In turn, authoritarians who may not secularists in the Middle East are in danger, and we bucks—makes a BIG difference. If you can manage be outright fascists will seize on any ex- need to be there for them. more, you’ll make all the more difference. cuse to restrict demonstrations and im- You probably know that the U.S. Supreme Court pose their own version of what they call Please do more than care. To see how “order.” If things get chaotic enough, struck down a horrible Texas law designed to make affordable bettering the world can be, visit public opinion will be on their side. legal abortions there all but impossible. What you centerforinquiry.net/damn. You’ll be helping We shouldn’t take part in political may not know is the role the Center for Inquiry spread knowledge, influence legislation—and, yes, violence, and we shouldn’t tolerate it played. The amicus brief we filed with the Court either. Stop this nonsense, before even save lives. we’re sucked into a morass with no did a thorough job of exposing the flaws behind the Thank you escape. state’s arguments and its in advance. The so-called experts. best time to visit Russell Blackford is a regular columnist for Free Right now we’re centerforinquiry.net/ InquIry. His books include Freedom of Religion and participating in a new, Visit centerforinquiry.net/damn damn is now, while it’s the Secular State (Wiley Blackwell, 2012) and The national program designed or contact Rosemarie Giambrone on your mind. Mystery of Moral Authority (Palgrave Macmillan, Phone: 800-818-7071 ext. 300 2016). Email: [email protected] secularhumanism.org AprIl / MAy 2017 Free InquIry 11 of inclusivity or the free exchange of it’s hard to kick people out or never GRETA CHRISTINA ideas. We need to say “No!” clearly, even let them in, to draw clear bound- OP-ED now—not just to the hard-Right but aries and enforce them. We have to do to those who deny, minimize, gaslight, it anyway. (Trust me—it gets easier with trivialize, willfully ignore, falsely com- practice.) pare, and otherwise give the hard-Right Fascism is not too strong a word to support in our communities, organiza- describe what we’re seeing today. His- tions, and online spaces. torians who study fascism are looking at We Need to A hard-Right ideology ramps up the United States in 2016 and 2017 and gradually—and so does tolerance to it. saying, “Yup, this is how it starts, this Say ‘No!’ For years, many of us have cautioned is what the early rise of fascism looks that this is why secular spaces shouldn’t like.” As I wrote in my last column: permit open misogynists and racists to “This is not a drill.” We of all people do participate. We’ve been explaining that not want to be the ones standing in the e need to say “No” to hard- valuing free speech doesn’t require you rubble when it’s over, insisting to any- Right bigotry, to authoritar- to give your platform to harassers and one who will listen that we didn’t know. ianism, to racist dehuman- W bigots; that tolerating bigots shuts out To paraphrase from the play Ham- ization, to suppression of the press, to their targets; that letting bigots use your ilton: History has its eyes on us. When contempt for women, to government platform without any response gives the history of this time is written, in lies and disinformation, to nationalist them both visibility and legitimacy; that twenty or fifty or a hundred years, who xenophobia, to hate crimes, to the do we want to be? Do we want to be gradual or not-so-gradual roll back of treating bigotry as just another idea we can rationally debate helps to normal- the people who gave fascism a home, our rights. who looked the other way, who denied We need to say “No” to all these, as ize it; that “letting people vent” amps up hatred rather than dials it down; it was happening, who said it wasn’t clearly and forcefully as we can. And that that bad, who said they weren’t serious, means saying “No” in our own back- that strong and widespread public con- demnation of bigotry is one of the who said we needed to wait and see, yards—in our own secular organizations, who said we needed to calmly and online spaces, and communities. most powerful ways to defeat it. Just a couple of months ago, I found myself rationally debate all ideas including This is a humanist issue: the hard- fascism, who chided antifascist resis- Right is opposed to humanist values explaining the same things to the host of a secular YouTube channel—some- tors for being uncivil, who insisted that at every turn. This is an atheist issue: fighting fascism was mission drift? Do the hard-Right is an avowed enemy one I considered an ally—who was per- mitting comments from Nazis. Actual we want to be the people who let the of church-state separation and is en- water be gradually turned up hotter twined with the religious Right. This Nazis were openly spewing anti-Semitic hatred in his space. I had to explain why and a little hotter and a little hotter until is a skeptical issue: the hard-Right is we were all boiled? openly contemptuous of science, evi- this was a problem. Fascism ramps up gradually, and so Or do we want to be the people dence-based thinking, and even facts who resisted? Do we want to be the does the tolerance to it. We need to themselves. people who saw reality, accepted it draw a line, and we need to do it now. The unfortunate reality is that there even though it was painful and frighten- Sometimes, that means kicking people is a hard-Right strain in atheist, skep- ing, and took action? Do we want to be out of our spaces. It means saying up tical, and other secular communities. the people who drew a line? front that we oppose hard-Right ideol- There has been for years. If you haven’t History has its eyes on us. Orga- ogies and will not tolerate them. And it personally seen this, please listen to nized atheism, humanism, and skepti- means enforcing that. the people who have not only been cism have a chance to make a differ- I know that our culture values free watching this movement for years but ence. We have much to offer to the expression and open debate. But we have been its targets. (Go to my blog growing resistance movement. Among can support these things without letting on The Orbit and search for “Slymepit other things, we know a lot about how hateful bigots use our platforms and Documented.”) the human mind works and how it can without treating bigotry as a normal Perhaps more dangerously, there be fooled, and that will be invaluable in topic for rational debate. I know that is a much larger strain of people who the years to come. We have a chance our communities want to be welcom- aren’t themselves hard-Right but who to be on the right side of history. Let’s enable it by minimizing its importance, ing, that many of us have experienced take it. Let’s draw that line together. gaslighting its targets (even denying ostracism and are reluctant to inflict it that it exists), trivializing its effects, tell- on others. But there is literally no way ing its victims to ignore it, and falsely to be inclusive of everyone: when we Greta Christina is an author, blogger at The Orbit, and equating it with its opponents. At the tolerate hatred, or the denial and trivi- speaker. Her latest book is The Way of the Heathen: very least they advocate giving the alization of hatred, we shut the door in Practicing Atheism in Everyday Life (Pitchstone hard-Right a safe haven in the name the faces of that hatred’s targets. I know Publishing, 2016).

12 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org pants were influential Muslim figures went outside to smoke a cigarette. FAISAL SAEED such as Linda Sarsour, later an orga- During my presentation, one of AL MUTAR nizer of the 2017 Women’s March on the points I made was that just a few Washington; Wajahat Ali of Al Jazeera miles away on 49th Street, a Broadway OP-ED America; and Bassem Youssef, con- show called The Book of Mormon was sidered to be the Jon Stewart of the making fun of the Mormon religion— Middle East. yet there wasn’t much security there. I was not supposed to be part of Meanwhile, here we were, having a the debate. I was a last-minute re- formal discussion about Islam, and Toward a placement for Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had security was everywhere. I challenged received death threats. There were audience members to go home after Rational Muslim added security concerns because just the event and draw two cartoons: one four days before, two homegrown of Joseph Smith, the prophet of Mor- terrorists had attacked a “Draw Mu- monism, and one of Muhammad, the Immigration Policy hammad” contest in Garland, Texas. prophet of Islam—and see which one (The two were shot dead by guards; would earn them death threats for the the cartoon that won the contest was rest of their lives and either get them s an Iraqi national, I recently reprinted in Free Inquiry, October/No- killed or forced into hiding. As far as I spent about a week stranded vember 2015.) So I took Hirsi Ali’s know, no one accepted the challenge, Ain America: had I left the United place—I guess I was expendable. and I don’t blame them! States, I would have been unable to BAM’s announcement on its web- What I was trying to highlight, of return. That gave me a chance to think site made no mention of security is- course, was the fact that the Muslim even harder than usual about what a sues. It said Hirsi Ali had withdrawn world, and Islam in particular, are not rational policy on Muslim migration to “due to unforeseen circumstances.” the same as other religions at this the United States might look like. To The intention, I think, was to avoid point in time. Yet the cliché, “We are begin, let me offer some background. instilling fear in the audience and to all the same, and all religions are the On May 7, 2015, I took part in a de- make everything look normal. But it same,” is continually repeated by ig- bate on Islamophobia at the Brooklyn was not; when I arrived at the venue, noramuses on the left as if it were true. Academy of Music (BAM). The event most of the surrounding streets were Another relevant event was the was produced by BAM, WNYC (New controlled by New York City police of- June 18, 2016, conference of ex-Mus- York’s National Public Radio affiliate), ficers with bomb-sniffing dogs. During lims, called “Muslimish”—New York’s and local event-promoter Aaron Louis the event, security was so tight that a first such conference and one in which (not the rock singer). My co-partici- guard accompanied me each time I I played a role in organizing. There had

“The Muslim world, and Islam in particular, are not the same as other religions at this point in time.”

Islamists demonstrate in Pakistahn. secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 13 been much discussion of whether it including members of ISIS and al- the levels of danger they face in their was wise to hold the meeting in mid- Qaeda, Boko Haram, al-Shabab, and home countries and what other alter- town Manhattan. I and others feared similar groups. Other individuals in this natives might be open to them. For that members of ISIS or some other category include radical Salafists and example, the secular Bengali blog- terrorist group might try to attack Wahabists who tolerate or encourage gers whom al-Qaeda placed on its our speakers. Indeed, our keynote violent extremism against nonbeliev- death list cannot safely be resettled speaker, Ali A. Rizvi, author of The ers, gays, and members of religious in other Muslim-dominated countries Atheist Muslim, had received a death minorities. where the legal penalty for apostasy threat before the event. 8 to 7. Here belong Islamists who or blasphemy is death. I hope every- Was I being paranoid? I don’t think may not be violent but support the one agrees that these bloggers rep- so. Participants in other events that ideals of ISIS and al-Qaeda. They may resent no national security threat to dared to confront the topic of Islam try to use democracy against itself to the United States whatsoever and that had already been threatened. There promote theocracy and seek to imple- they should be welcomed here. Their was the Garland, Texas, incident, of ment Sharia law. Groups associated existence is hugely valuable because course. Attacks in other counties had with this viewpoint include Hizb al they are contributing intellectually to included a fatal shooting on February Tahrir, the Muslim Brotherhood, Kho- the war of ideas against jihadists. The 14, 2015, at a free-speech event in meinists, and other Islamist groups same can be said of many others who Copenhagen featuring cartoonist Lars active in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, fall from 4 to 0 on my spectrum. Exam- Vilks, known for a 2007 cartoon depict- and Egypt. ples include other religious minorities ing Muhummad’s head on the body 6 to 5. These are conservative Mus- such as the Yazidis and others who of a dog. One bystander was killed; lims who may not adhere to Islamism became victims of terrorism because multiple gunmen escaped.1 Only one and may not seek to implement Sha- of their faith. These are valuable op- week before that had come the grisly ria law in government but who hold ponents of radical Islam. Even individ- attack on the office of Charlie Hebdo deeply problematic views regarding uals who fall as high as 6 or 7 on the in Paris, in which twelve died. human rights, especially the rights of spectrum should be assisted to escape when necessary to a safer place where Two questions kept running homosexuals and women. Individu- they will not face discrimination and through my mind. The first was, “If als in this category may not support their values will not be at odds with we can’t organize an event in New the Charlie Hebdo attack, but they those of their host countries. For these York City with a title such as ‘Analyzing sometimes justify it by saying that the people, those conditions might rule Islam,’ then where can we do it?” My cartoonists brought it on themselves out resettlement in the United States. second question was, “Do we want or shouldn’t have provoked the Mus- Of course, the ideal long-term solu- more people in this country who are lim world by publishing caricatures of tion is to remove the need for these triggered by a cartoon or a speech Prophet Mohammad or criticizing him persons to leave their home countries critical of Islam and want to kill us?” in print. by working to make those countries My answer to the second question 4 to 3. These are moderately liberal places that will no longer export either is no, of course. But that doesn’t mean or progressive Muslims; they oppose terrorism or refugees. Until then, we I think we should oppose all immigra- theocracy in all its forms, but they ad- need sensible policies to decide which tion from Muslim-dominated coun- here to the religion in the theological individuals of Muslim background will tries, which is one of the reasons why I sense and practice it in their own ways. and will not be allowed into the United oppose Trump’s blanket ban. These individuals should be recog- States. Allow me, then, to propose a more nized as enormously valuable people A blanket ban will harm the very rational alternative. in channeling opposition against both people who are on the forefront in the Muslim refugees and immigrants radical Islamism and overly rigid inter- war of ideas against Islamist terrorism. coming from Muslim-dominated coun- pretations of the faith. It ignores all the nuances that need to tries are like any other human beings 2 to 0. These are people who iden- be understood in order to form a more in those countries. We can place them tify mostly with the cultural aspects of sensible policy. on a spectrum from 0 to 10, 0 meaning Islam. They oppose theocracy but also that they pose no significant security happen not to adhere to the theolog- risk and 10 meaning that they pose a ical aspects of the religion. They may clear danger to public safety. Let’s take maintain some traditions related to them in reverse order. the Islamic faith, such as celebrating 10 to 9. These are violent Islamists, Eid, Ramadan, and other festivities. Faisal Saeed Al Mutar was born in Iraq and now lives This group includes people of Muslim in the United States. He is a writer, public speaker, 1. Josh Sanburn, “Deadly Shooting Kills background who are freethinkers, ag- web designer, and social activist who founded the 1 at Copenhagen Free Speech Event,” Time, February 14, 2015, http://time.com/ nostics, atheists, and humanists. Global Secular Humanist Movement and Secular 3710252/denmark-shooting-copenhagen- When it comes to refugees, I be- Post. He is a community manager at Movements.org, lars-vilks/, accessed February 8, 2017. lieve in establishing tiers based on a division of Advancing Human Rights.

14 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org islators and shoot him “right between stumbled into this crisis without realiz- JANET L. FACTOR the eyes,” though fortunately there has ing what we were headed for. But ask as yet been no near-fatal caning on the the members of the religious Right, and GUEST OP-ED floor of the Senate. they will tell you that they have been All of this culminated in the pres- anticipating this for a long, long time. idential election of 1860. Unity was What moderates and those on the left nowhere to be found. Most of us have often dismissed as hysteria on the Doomed to remember only that Abraham Lincoln other side of the aisle is true, heartfelt won the contest for the Republicans, emotion for them. Full social and legal and the South seceded thereaf- equality for women poses an existen- Repeat? ter. But, this being before primaries tial threat to their culture—every bit as existed, the campaign began with much as abolition posed an existential We hold these truths to be self-ev- hard-fought conventions, so much so threat to the culture of the Old South. ident, that all men are created that the Democrats eventually split Their patriarchal way of life cannot equal, that they are endowed by into Northern and Southern factions endure it. their Creator with certain unalien- making separate choices, while the able Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Constitutional Union Party, the old Happiness.—That to secure these Whigs, put up their own candidate, rights, Governments are instituted making for four major nominees plus among Men, deriving their just one minor one representing the abo- “There was another powers from the consent of the gov- litionist Liberty Party. erned,—That whenever any Form of election remarkably Government becomes destructive The language directed at Lincoln similar to this one. of these ends, it is the Right of the during this contest was at least as People to alter or to abolish it, and unprintable here as much of the lan- There is no longer any to institute new Government, laying guage that was directed at Hillary living memory of it, but its foundation on such principles and Clinton during the campaign. If you organizing its powers in such form, those who study history as to them shall seem most likely to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential effect their Safety and Happiness. Museum in Springfield, Illinois, you will have been watching the have a chance to walk down a corridor —the Declaration of old pattern develop for Independence lined with caricatures of him published years.” in the press of the time, while speak- ake no mistake: a constitu- ers blare the words of his opponents’ tional crisis is in prospect attacks. I guarantee that you will emerge now that Donald J. Trump shaken. The deeply sexist must view prog- M ress for women much as slaveholders has assumed the presidency. Much Still, it seems to most of us that we has been said in the press and among can understand to some degree the viewed the succession of compro- individuals about how unprecedented boiling passions of that time. Slavery mises that kept the Union together this all is and how American politics was a profound moral issue, a huge before the Civil War. Each one nibbled has reached a previously undiscov- economic issue, and an issue that was away at their ambitions. The Missouri ered low. This is not true. central to an entire region’s culture, Compromise; women’s suffrage in There was another election remark- irredeemable though that culture abso- 1920. The Compromise of 1850; the ably similar to this one. There is no lon- lutely was. Slavery had deeply divided Pill, released in 1960. The advent of ger any living memory of it, but those the country from day one and had to Roe v. Wade in 1973 was the historical who study history have been watching be resolved. equivalent of 1854’s Kansas-Nebraska the old pattern develop for years. The That resolution meant revolutionary Act, the law that led to open conflict. partisan press, the growing polarization, social change. It meant, as Lincoln later Just as slaveholders could not abide the self-righteous rhetoric, the regional implied in his address at Gettysburg, the idea that settlers would have the divides, the complete unwillingness to that the understood meaning of our power to decide slavery’s fate in their compromise that extends all the way founding document had to be revised: territories, unrepentant patriarchs could down to split families, the local defiance equality had to be extended to men not bear the thought that women of federal law, the threats of violence who were not white. To do this the might exercise bodily autonomy. They that fanatics sometimes enact—all Constitution had to be rewritten. And it have been struggling to take it away of these are exactly what occurred in was. This was a change so profound that ever since. For them, an Equal Rights American politics in the lead-up to the even now it has not been fully realized. Amendment would be like abolition. Civil War. We have even had a sitting At first glance it seems that there is So it is no coincidence, I think, governor express (between expletives) no similar burning issue driving events that Trump and his bellicose disciples a desire to duel one of his state’s leg- this time. Many of us have somehow emerged as a major political force

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 15 in the first election where the nom- for his pyre. Philosopher-scientist Gior- inee of a major party was a woman. JAMES A. HAUGHT dano Bruno was burned in Rome in A University of Massachusetts study OP-ED 1600 for teaching that the universe is found that high, hostile sexism made infinite, with many stars that might be voters thirty percentage points more accompanied by planets. likely to support Trump—an effect The Enlightenment gradually equal to that attributable to racism changed Western civilization, instilling denial and approximately double that a new sense that faith is personal, attributable to economic dissatisfac- not to be dictated by authorities. It tion.1 This was true even controlling Many Struggles slowly bred the separation of church for other influences (race, partisan- and state, forbidding the use of gov- ship, ideology, and even authoritarian Won Religious ernment force to impose beliefs. or populist leanings). No wonder 81 But many struggles were required to percent of white born-again Christians achieve it. went for Trump. Freedom Here’s an example: when Quakers For a woman to occupy the top first began expressing their beliefs in leadership position in existence would the 1600s, England’s ruling Puritans have undermined everything that cre- reedom of religion means that under Oliver Cromwell denounced and ated and sustained the ancient social nobody—neither the govern- persecuted them. Many fled to the system they instinctively operate on. Fment nor the surrounding cul- New World—unfortunately to Puri­tan That is the zero-sum world of a strictly ture—can tell you what to believe. Massachusetts, where they were per- rank-ordered dominance hierarchy All people are free to reach their own secuted anew. Massachusetts law re- where women exist as prizes for the conclusions about faith. This past Jan- quired that all residents attend Puritan victorious men. (There is a reason why uary 16 was Religious Freedom Day, worship. In 1658, the Massachusetts Nigel Farage admiringly described so it’s appropriate to ponder the many, legislature decreed that Quakers must Trump looming behind Hillary Clinton many battles that won this precious be banned, on pain of death. Quakers in one of their debates as looking like right. arriving by ship were seized and jailed, a silverback gorilla.) their books burned. The presidential election of 2016 But Quakers stubbornly defied ex- will go down in history as a turning pulsion, returning repeatedly to hold point as significant as that of 1860. Full worship services in homes. Persecu- legal and social equality for women tion intensified. New laws decreed that would have been another fundamen- “January 16 was Quakers would be flogged or have their tal rewriting of our nation’s charter. It Religious Freedom Day, ears cut off or their foreheads branded would have proclaimed that all humans so it’s appropriate to or their tongues burned through with a were created equal and endowed with hot iron. Any resident who sheltered a equal rights; a red line would be struck ponder the many, many Quaker was fined. through the word men. battles that won this Quaker resistance finally forced a Had the forty-fifth president been precious right.” showdown. In 1659, three unrepentant Hillary Clinton, that line would have Quakers—Marmaduke Stevenson, been ink. Because it is Donald Trump, William Robinson and Mary Dyer— I fear it will be blood. were tried on capital charges and sen- tenced to death. The two men were 1. Brian M. Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams, hanged in Boston Commons on Octo- and Tatishe Nteta, “Explaining White In past centuries, religious wars, Polariation in the 2016 Vote for President: persecutions, and cruelties were com- ber 27, 1659, but Dyer was reprieved The Sobering Role of Racism and Sexism,” mon. Crusades against Muslims, Ref- and banished. However, she returned Available at people.vmass.edu/schaffne/ ormation wars between Catholics and to stubbornly defy the Puritan law and shaffner_et_al_IDC_conference.pdf. Protestants, pogroms against Jews, was hanged in 1660. The following Inquisition tortures of nonconform- year, a fourth Quaker, William Leddra, Janet L. Factor grew up in Barberton, Ohio, and ists, witch hunts, eradication of Ana- also was hanged. graduated from Hiram College, where she absorbed baptists, bloody jihads, and on and By this time, some Massachusetts the ideals of the liberal arts tradition. She is the on—history is full of horrors. Physi- Puritans had become revolted by their founder of Springfield (Illinois) Area Freethinkers. cian-scholar Michael Servetus, who colony’s cruelty and tried to soften Factor has written for Free Inquiry and the Secular discovered the pulmonary circulation punishments of Quakers. In 1661, King Humanist Bulletin, where she is a contributing editor of blood, was burned at the stake in Charles II ordered the colony to halt and for five years has authored the column Calvinist Geneva in 1553 for doubting executions. He sent a royal governor Heart&Mind. the Trinity. His own books were used who passed a toleration act allowing

16 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org some believers to hold unorthodox constellation, it is that no official, high Man and the Citizen and into the Uni- beliefs. It was a breakthrough for free- or petty, can prescribe what shall be versal Declaration of Human Rights dom of religion. orthodox in politics, nationalism, reli- adopted by the United Nations. Here’s another religious freedom gion, or other matters of opinion, or By coincidence, the first Boston breakthrough: during the patriotic fer- force citizens to confess by word or Quakers were hanged on October vor of World War II, some Jehovah’s act.” 27—the same date that skeptic Mi- Witnesses in West Virginia enraged Peaceful acceptance of all sorts of chael Servetus was burned in Geneva. neighbors because they refused to religious views is central to democ- So that date eventually was adopted salute the flag and wouldn’t let their racy. Separation of church and state as International Religious Freedom children do so in public schools. They was locked into the First Amendment Day, one of many observations lit- said their religion required them to of America’s Bill of Rights. tle-known to the public. Meanwhile, swear allegiance only to God. Some Virginia’s historic Statute for Re- America has its Religious Freedom Day on January 16, marking the date Witness families were brutalized or ligious Freedom, written by Thomas that Jefferson’s statute was signed into humiliated. Jefferson in 1777 and finally passed law. Today—although few people Witness children were expelled in 1786, declares that “no man shall know that January 16 is a special day from school for their “unpatriotic” be- be compelled to frequent or support of observation—freedom to believe as any religious worship, place, or minis- havior. But the American Civil Liberties one wishes is locked securely in the Union fought their case all the way to try whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, heart of democracy. the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled restrained, molested, or burthened in favor of the children in a famed in his body or goods, nor shall other- 1943 decision (West Virginia State wise suffer on account of his religious James A. Haught is editor emeritus of the West Virgina Board of Education v. Barnette). The opinions or belief; but that all men Charleston Gazette-Mail and a senior editor of Free court declared that personal beliefs shall be free to profess, and by ar- Inquiry. This column is adapted from his latest book, are “beyond the reach of majori- gument to maintain, their opinion in Hurrah for Liberals: How Progressives Defeated ties and officials.” Justice Robert H. matters of religion.” Similar guaran- Conservatives to Create Democracy, Human Rights Jackson wrote eloquently: “If there tees of church-state separation later and Safe Modern Life (CreateSpace, 2016). is any fixed star in our constitutional were written into France’s Rights of

APPRECIATION

George Albert Wells, 1926–2017

German scholar by education, the Council for Secular Humanism’s March 2015 issue of FI. George Albert Wells’s inter- International Academy of Humanism Wells is best known as an advocate Aests spread across academe to in 1983. of the thesis that Jesus is a mythical— the origins of language, biblical criti- Wells’s many publications covered not historical—figure, a theory pio- cism, and the early history of Christian- three main subject areas: German lit- neered by German biblical scholars. ity. He frequently contributed works of erature and thought of the eighteenth Wells defended this thesis in multiple religious criticism and historical insight and nineteenth centuries, the origin of books beginning with Did Jesus Exist? to the pages of Free Inquiry. language, and biblical criticism/early (Prometheus Books, 1975). In his last Born in 1926 in London, Wells Christian history. He was the author years, he retreated slightly from his earned numerous degrees from the and (co)editor of numerous books, former hard-mythicist position. University of London, ultimately re- the first in 1959 and the most recent We here at Free Inquiry and the ceiving an award for his doctoral thesis in 2009. He contributed articles on Council express our appreciation for in 1954. For forty years, he taught at biblical criticism and the early history the many articles Wells contributed to the university level, mainly on Ger- of Christianity to Free Inquiry over the our pages throughout the years and man literature and eighteenth- and years. His most recent article, “Al- offer our sincerest condolences to his nineteenth-century thought. He re- bert Schweitzer and The Quest of the wife of forty-seven years, Elisabeth. tired from teaching in 1988, but not Historical Jesus—One Hundred Years —Nicole Scott, before being elected a Laureate of On,” was published in the February/ Free Inquiry Assistant Editor

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 17 APPRECIATION

Nat Hentoff, 1925–2017

Obama during their terms, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, for what he perceived as their affronts to the Constitution. He vigorously ex- plored ways to improve education for public-school students. In addition to his columns, he also contributed a few feature-length articles. All told, Hen- toff’s writing appeared in more than fifty issues of Free Inquiry. He seemingly eschewed comput- ers, always submitting typewritten manuscripts replete with scratch-outs and handwritten insertions. Commu- nication was always by phone or fax. One day, however, he revealed that he had an e-mail account when he had to explore alternative ways to communi- cate during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (Greenwich Village, where Hen- toff lived, coped with power failures n 1997, Free Inquiry was fortunate was twelve, he sat on the porch of his and flooding during that storm). to have Nat Hentoff join its first house (which was near a synagogue) To the end, Hentoff remained in- Igroup of regular columnists. They and ate a salami sandwich in full view volved and engaged. In recent years, represented widely disparate views of passersby. “I wanted to know what writing a column was becoming more but were united in their commitment it felt like to be an outcast,” he wrote difficult for him. On at least one oc- to secular humanism. Hentoff was no in a memoir. casion, though, the health issue ham- different. Though an avowed secular As an adult, Hentoff became a jour- pering his writing could have been humanist, he was personally opposed nalist, social commentator, and jazz that of a much younger person: he to abortion, attacked political correct- critic. He wrote for the Village Voice was having difficulty typing because ness, and criticized advocacy groups for fifty years and also contributed to he had hurt his hand while walking his that he felt sometimes tried to censor the New Yorker, the Washington Post, new puppy. their opponents. His views often riled and dozens of other publications. He Hentoff’s final column, “Mounting many of his fellow humanists. wrote more than thirty-five books—fic- Suspension of Students Can Lead to Hentoff was born into an atmo- tion for adults and young adults and Prison for Many,” appeared in the Feb- sphere of lively debate. He was the nonfiction on civil liberties, education, ruary/March 2014 issue. Free Inquiry son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, and other subjects. He also wrote for routinely sends authors two compli- and in his childhood neighborhood in Downbeat magazine. A jazz aficio- mentary copies of issues in which their his native Boston he was surrounded nado, Hentoff frequented nightclubs articles appear. Hentoff regularly asked by Socialists, anarchists, Communists, and became an expert on the art form for six, “so his children could see that and more. He was a student at Boston and its performers. he amounted to something.” It seems Latin, the oldest public school in the Hentoff’s columns for Free Inquiry that he did. United States. focused on the Constitution and civil Early on, he explored what it felt liberties, education, abortion, end-of- like to express a different view from life issues, genocide, and many other his surrounding community. He re- subjects. He berated both former pres- —Andrea Szalanski, lates that on Yom Kippur when he idents George W. Bush and Barack Free Inquiry Managing Editor

18 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org LETTERS

LEIGH ERIC SCHMIDT ON AMERICA’S VILLAGE ATHEISTS word fascist gets thrown these Muslim Terrorists denying the divine inspiration of days at someone who simply isn’t their scriptures. Re: “That Radical Islamic CELEBRATING REASON AND HUMANITY February/March 2017 Vol. 37 No.2 liked by someone else. Historical Al Clarke fascists, originally the Mussolini Terrorism Question” by Faisal Thousand Oaks, California followers, featured organized Saeed Al Mutar (February/ Blackshirts, later sort of imitated March 2017). I agree with for- in Germany as Brownshirts. The mer President Barack Obama’s Harnessing the Power of closest people to Brownshirts refusal to use the term Islamic we see in the United States have terrorism when describing such the Nones WHAT REALLY MATTERS acts. Al Mutar lists three benefits REBECCA GOLDSTEIN and ANDY NORMAN explore the been showing up in places like theory of mattering … and maybe solve the Is-Ought Problem to such labelling. First, he says In “The Nones Weren’t Strong TRUMP’S ELECTION: Responses by Washington, D.C., unhappy after Enough” (FI, February/March Tom Flynn | Greta Christina | James A. Haught the recent inauguration and at that it protects Muslims who are GEORGE ZEBROWSKI: 2017), author James A. Haught New fi ndings on the (im)morality of A-bombing Japan not Islamists. I challenge you to F/M 17 $5.95 CDN $5.95 US various college speaking events, $5.95 suggests that if we can increase 03 FAISAL SAEED AL MUTAR: find ten random Americans who Why not say “Islamic terrorist”? anonymously destroying public the political participation of the Published by the Center for Inquiry in association 0 74470 74957 8 with the Council for Secular Humanism buildings and streets, beating could tell you the difference. Next, he continues the fallacy Nones we may be able to influ- up people, and burning immi- that the main motive of the many ence the results of elections in a grants’ cars and businesses. That terrorist groups is to “impose more liberal direction. But as we sounds closer to old-fashioned The Road Ahead for and force their lifestyle on the have just seen, national elections fascism, no? I gently suggest that rest of humanity.” I would argue are not won by which candidate Seculars the columnist widen her circle of that they use their religion as a received the most votes but on experts, as well as her range of Re: “For Seculars, Challenges foundation and justification to a state-by-state basis, i.e., the skepticism. Ahead,” by Tom Flynn (FI, Febru­ mask the real issue: they don’t Electoral College. So it won’t ary/March 2017). Donald J. George Stelzenmuller have anything (power, money, help our cause much if all of the Trump won the election by the Rochester, New York authority, rights, respect, etc.), Nones mainly live in California Electoral College, not the pop- and they want violently to change or New York! We need to deter- ular vote. The American people that. Last, he states that the term mine what the percentage of are not as solidly behind him as Greta Christina sends a message Islamist terrorism suggests a secu- Nones is in states such as Ohio, he thinks. The populist liberal that is alarming yet tempered by lar solution. It does no such thing. Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, element is still there and poten- reason and the lessons of history. Instead, as proven by our recent etc., and work to increase their tially powerful at the polls. It’s just Donald J. Trump’s only qualifica- election, it suggests that preju- political activity (as well as their in disarray right now and needs tion to be our president is that he dice and racism is the solution. numbers). Then we might see a to be reorganized. But as the was born here. He does not, in my The problem with the term isn’t significant impact of this group Women’s March on January 21, opinion, represent American val- that it isn’t descriptive enough; on national elections. 2017, demonstrated, this can be ues. Americans embrace diversity; it’s that most of the country isn’t Michael Lieberman done. Attend town hall meetings, most of us descend from foreign- smart enough to recognize how Honolulu, Hawaii join the local civic club, write to ers, and many are foreign-born descriptive it may be. newspaper editors, and teach ourselves. Our collective hard A. J. Fortunato and explain our point of view. But work and innovative ideas are Silver Spring, Maryland On Mattering under no circumstances should the catalysts that have made our we become complacent as we country a productive land. Thank you for the enlightening, did during this last election and perceptive essays from Rebecca Unlike Trump, who at- Faisal Saeed Al Mutar blames expect our political goals to Goldstein and Andy Norman in tracts white supremacists, true Islamic terrorism on inhumane come to pass. the “What Really Matters,” the Americans distance themselves “interpretations” of Islamic John L. Indo special section in the February/ from those repulsive elements. scriptures. The example he cites Houston, Texas March 2017 issue. Finally I’m able His brand of Americanism is an (death by stoning of a woman to understand the root sources insult to our ideals and to the for not being a virgin) and many of racism, anti-Semitism, and all spirit of our country. I will follow other passages in both Islamic A Call to Action the other isms that plague man- Christina’s advice to join the ranks and Christian scripture are not kind. On a personal level: when Greta Christina invited us to dis- of those who are fighting his re- amenable to an interpretation I retired, instead of being over- miss or not dismiss her article gime. Nevertheless, if the worst of that renders them innocuous. joyed with my newly acquired (“This Is Not a Drill,” February/ my fears come true, I hope one of Muslims and Christians should freedom, I felt irrelevant (I no lon- March 2017) as being “hysterical my Anglo friends will hide me in acknowledge that their gods are ger mattered). By volunteering at hyperbole.” It didn’t seem all that his or her attic. not invariably benevolent but the local library and picking up a hysterical, but it certainly trav- David Quintero can be evil. Advocates have the eled deep into hyperbole. The Monrovia, California choice of rejecting those gods or (Continued on page 66)

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 19 LOOKING BACK

35 Years Ago in Free Inquiry “It is necessary to go one step further and question the validity of the Bible, openly and publicly. There is a rich tradition in biblical scholarship, which includes studies in comparative religion, folklore, archaeology, and literary analysis. These disciplines have scrutinized claims of the Bible (whether interpreted literally or metaphorically) and the methods used to compile the biblical record have been laid bare. . . . Unfortunately, although these criticisms have been discussed in serious philosophical and theological journals, the public is largely unaware of them. “An entire generation of college students has been denied the benefit of free inquiry concerning religion.” —Paul Kurtz, Paul Beattie, Sidney Hook, Joseph Fletcher, Gerald Larue, and Richard Taylor, “A Call for the Critical Examination of Claims of the Bible and Religion,” Free Inquiry Volume 2, No. 2 (Spring 1982)

Editor’s Note: Paul Kurtz was, of course, the founder and editor of Free Inquiry. His coauthors (except Gerald Larue) were among the founding con- tributing editors of the magazine. Larue would join as a contributing editor a few issues after this statement was released.

25 Years Ago in Free Inquiry “If we judge [Operation Rescue] according to its stated aim of closing [abortion] clinics, it has failed. No clinic closed, no clinic was prevented from seeing women with appointments who made the effort to get in. No clinic was forced to whisk women clandestinely to some alternate location. No clinic had to close because the doctor was denied access. When drive- ways got blockaded, people walked in through human corridors. When entrances were seized, alternative entrances remained secure. It seems certain that the clinic defense tactics that worked so well in Buffalo will be copied elsewhere.” —Tom Flynn, “Reflections of Clinic Defense in Western New York,” Free Inquiry Volume 12, No. 3 (Summer 1992) Editor’s Note: In April 1993, the antiabortion group Operation Rescue­ made the abortion clinics of Buffalo, New York (where Free Inquiry was founded— its mail was screened for bombs during this event), its nationwide target for two weeks of attempted blockading. Similar protests the previous year in Wichita, Kansas, had been hugely disruptive; in Buffalo, thousands of counterprotestors­ trained to disrupt Operation Rescue’s tactics managed to keep every clinic open, every day. Operation Rescue never targeted another city’s clinics for a nationally promoted blockade. Flynn was then an associate editor of the magazine.

20 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org Issues in Technology and Ethics Introduction

David Koepsell

ecause technological development moves so quickly, it discussed by professional military ethicists, and Jenkins injects often outpaces changes in law and ethical norms that some needed philosophical discussion into the debates. Bmight be deemed necessary later. Sometimes, in the In my article (which has an online-only companion piece interim, people get hurt. At other times, preventive regula- available at www.secularhumanism.org), I consider the risks tions may be overreactions, unnecessary to prevent harms and roles of regulation and ethics in the field of nanotech- and ultimately a drag on science and innovation. Eventually, nology, which poses some unique threats and challenges. it seems, some balance is achieved, and a nascent scientific I try to raise analogies with existing technologies and also field or technology is allowed to progress mostly according point to a particular approach—a path of “openness” in to market forces. innovation and science—that I think may suit nanotech best Our technologies are certainly changing us and our and provide a good environment to guard against risks while planet. Largely, they have expanded our life spans and encouraging development. improved our well-being, but we remain, as ever, nervous Patrick Lin discusses the ethics of autonomous cars. This about the future in light of continuing technological change, is timely, as autonomous cars are now on our roads and, even and every day we are faced with new challenges to our ex- more so than robot warriors, pose an immediate, daily chal- pectations by burgeoning technological advancement. An lenge to many of our norms. How we enable autonomous example is automation. While the automation of countless cars to make decisions has life-and-death consequences, jobs in both production and services promises to release and philosophers and engineers are now grappling with millions of workers from dangerous and often tedious labors, engineering and policy decisions to best prevent harms and it poses a real challenge for displaced workers and govern- realize the cars’ potential and value. ments that must deal with them. Angst over automation and Finally, James Hughes’s piece on enhancing virtues of- the outsourcing of labor is warranted. Our current social and fers us a blueprint for hope. In the future, even if not the state policies are insufficient to deal with an expanding pool near future, as we perfect our abilities to design ourselves of unskilled laborers who are being replaced by robots. Will and improve on our features, how may we best adapt our our societies and governments adapt, or should we reject ethical organs? What values and virtues can we strive for, those technologies despite their obvious humane benefits? both through education and design, to improve ourselves as As life spans increase due to improved medical tech- moral creatures? nologies, we are faced with additional ethical dilemmas re- This collection of essays touches only the surface of issues garding retirement ages, long-term care for the elderly, and in technology and ethics that are coming to the fore or that more philosophical issues such as ensuring that our lives after will shortly, as science and technology rapidly change. I am work (if we can stop working in our old age) have meaning grateful for the opportunity to address them in this issue, my and value. We must also seriously confront the ethical reper- last formal editing and writing for the Center for Inquiry as I cussions of further populating an overpopulated world or step down from my role at CFI as director of education and of finding technological solutions to inevitable scarcity and move on to my next adventure. Many thanks to FI Editor Tom pollution. Flynn and the many contributors who took part in this issue. Wendell Wallach’s comprehensive book A Dangerous Best of luck to all at CFI. Master considers general issues of technology leading our ethical development and its risks. It is is recommended read- ing for anyone interested in balancing ethics and policy with technological and scientific advances and is excerpted herein David Koepsell is an author, philosopher, attorney (retired), and educator whose to provide a basis for some discussion and consideration. recent research focuses on the nexus of science, technology, ethics, and public Ryan Jenkins considers emerging issues around the rise policy. He has provided commentary regarding ethics, society, religion, and tech- of autonomous weapons. Autonomous and semiautonomous nology on numerous media outlets. He has been a tenured associate professor of weapons free soldiers from numerous dangers, allowing ro- philosophy at the Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Technology, Policy, bots to do jobs that otherwise put humans at risk. As we cede and Management in the Netherlands; visiting professor at UNAM (National decision-making to our machines, however, real ethical ques- Autonomous University of Mexico), Instituto de Filosoficas, and the Unidad tions arise about life and death and who should be respon- Posgrado, Mexico; director of Research and Strategic Initiatives at Comisión sible on the battlefield. These questions are actively being Nacional De Bioética in Mexico; and asesor de rector at UAM Xochimilc.

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 21 A Dangerous Master

Wendell Wallach

n December 6, 1999, after a successful landing, a operators. There was certainly some delay in the operators’ Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) unex- recognition of the UAV’s unanticipated behavior. Even after Opectedly accelerated its taxiing speed to 178 mph they realized something was wrong, they did not under- and, at a curve in the runway, veered off the paved surface. stand which of its programmed subroutines the aircraft was Its nose gear collapsed in the adjacent desert, causing following. The compensating instructions they did provide $5.3 million in damage. At the time of the accident, the were either not received or not accommodated by the operators piloting the UAV from the safety of their control aircraft. That the operators failed to understand what the station had no idea why it had occurred. An Air Force inves- semi-autonomous vehicle was trying to do and provided in- tigation attributed the acceleration to software problems effective instructions makes sense. But any suggestion that compounded by “a breakdown in supervision.” A spokes- the aircraft could understand what it was doing, or what person for Northrop Grumman, the UAV’s manufacturer, the pilots were trying to do, implies that the UAV had some placed blame for the excessive speed totally upon the form of consciousness. That was, of course, not the case. The vehicle was merely operating according to subroutines in its software programming. The Global Hawk UAV is only one of countless new “Expecting operators to understand technologies that rely upon complex computer systems to how a sophisticated computer thinks function. Most of the smart systems currently deployed and under development are not fully autonomous, but nor are and anticipate its actions so as to they operated solely by humans. The UAV, like a piloted coordinate the activities of the team aircraft or a robotic arm that a surgeon can use to perform a delicate operation, is a sophisticated, partially intelligent actually increases their responsibility.” device that functions as part of a team. This type of team exhibits a complex choreography between its human and nonhuman actors and draws aspects of its intelligence from both. When operating correctly, the UAV performs some tasks independently and other tasks as a seamless exten- sion of commands initiated by human operators. In com- plex systems whose successful performance depends upon coordinating computerized and human decisions, the task of adapting to the unexpected is presumed to lie with the human members of the team. Failures such as the Global Hawk veering off the runway are initially judged to be the result of human error, and a commonly proposed solution is to build more autonomy into the smart system. However, this does not solve the problem. Anticipating the actions of a smart system becomes more and more challenging for a human operator as the system and the environments in which it operates become more complex. Expecting operators to understand how a sophisticated computer thinks and anticipate its actions so as to coordinate the activities of the team actually increases The Global Hawk UAV

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their responsibility. Designing computers and mechanical for appreciating challenges, difficulties, and dangers that components that will be sufficiently adaptive and indepen- might otherwise be overlooked. Complexity need not be dent of human input is a longer-term goal of engineers. treated as a roadblock, but it does warrant our attention However, many questions exist as to whether this goal is if we are to safely navigate the adoption and regulation fully achievable, and, therefore, it is also unclear whether of new technologies. There are already fields of scientific human actors can be eliminated from the operation of a research in place for studying how complexity and chaos large share of complex systems. In the meantime, the need work. to adapt when unforeseen situations arise will continue to In the years following World War II, the interdisciplinary reside with the human members of the team. study of systems and how the components within those sys- Complex systems are by their very nature unpredictable tems behave became increasingly important and eventually and prone to all sorts of mishaps when met with unantic- evolved into a field called “systems theory.” Self-regulating ipated events. Even very well-designed complex systems systems can be natural, such as the human body; social periodically act in ways that cannot be anticipated. Events systems, such as a government or a culture; or techno- that have a low probability of occurring are commonly logical inventions, such as cars or synthetic organisms. In overlooked and not planned for, but they do happen. De- everyday speech, words such as complexity and chaos are signing complex systems that coordinate the activities of used loosely. In system theory, the words are used in a more humans and machines is a difficult engineering problem. precise way in order to lay a foundation for two related Just as tricky is the task of ensuring that the complex system fields, complexity science and chaos science. But are these is resilient enough to recover if anything goes wrong. The growing areas of scientific research helpful in wrestling with behavior of a computerized system is brittle—consider a the unpredictability of, and limiting the likelihood of, un- Windows computer that locks up when a small amount of anticipated catastrophes? Weather patterns are complex, information is out of place—and seldom capable of adapt- as are the behavior of economic markets. And yet modest ing to new, unanticipated circumstances. Unanticipated success has been achieved in predicting the behavior of events, from a purely mechanical failure to a computer both. The science of complex systems has made some glitch to human error to a sudden storm can disrupt the progress in modeling the patterns that might emerge out relatively smooth functioning of a truly complex system of an interdependent set of diverse inputs. Much of this such as an airport. I’ve concluded that no one understands progress relies upon computer simulations. complex systems well enough. As MIT professor and best-selling author Sherry Turkle once said to me in refer- ence to managing complex systems, “Perhaps we humans just aren’t good at this.” Can we acquire the necessary un- “There appear to be inherent derstanding? To some degree, yes, but there appear to be inherent limitations on how well complex adaptive systems limitations on how well complex can be controlled. adaptive systems can be controlled.” This is not a new problem. Debate has been going on for more than a half century as to whether governments and energy companies can adequately manage nuclear power plants. When the danger is known, generally extra care and attention are directed at managing the risks. But even so, many, but not all, of the nuclear accidents that Unanticipated factors, however, make predicting the ac- have happened were caused by a lack of adequate care, tions of markets and weather a combination of probability stupidity, or both. A few nuclear accidents were the result of and luck. The same holds true for predicting the behavior unexpected or unaddressed events. The meltdown of nu- of many technologies we create. This is deeply troubling, clear reactors at Fukushima, Japan, was caused by a huge because contemporary societies are increasingly reliant on once-in-a-thousand-year tsunami. The basic meaning of the truly complex technological systems such as computer net- word complex is easy to grasp. But why complexity func- works and energy grids. To appreciate the breadth of the tions as a game-changer is more difficult to understand. problem, it is important to note that technological systems This article will serve as an introduction to complexity, the are not merely composed of their technological compo- kinds of complex systems already evident, others under de- nents. In our UAV example, the complex system includes velopment, and the challenge in recognizing which forms the people who built, maintain, improve, operate, and of complexity pose dangers. In the process of clarifying interact with the technology. Collectively, the technological difficulties in monitoring and managing complex systems, components, people, institutions, environments, values, the related c-word chaos will also be elucidated. For our and social practices that support the operation of a system purposes, the inspection of complexity and chaos is central constitute what has been called a “sociotechnical system.”

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 23 Complex and Chaotic Systems The individual components of a complex system can be the nodes in a computer network, neurons in the brain, or buyers and sellers in a market. When many components are responding to each other’s actions, there is no surefire way to predict in advance the overall behavior of the system. To understand a complex system’s behavior, it is necessary to observe how it unfolds one step at a time. Consider a game of chess. The possible actions within each move are limited, but it is nevertheless difficult to predict what will happen five, ten, or twenty moves ahead. Deep Blue, the IBM com- puter that beat the World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997, required tremendous computing power to calcu- late possible sequences of moves. Even then, it could only predict with decreasing probability the fifth or tenth moves in a series that created new branches at each step. Each Water purification facilities, chemical plants, hospitals, and move made by Kasparov would eliminate some branches governments are all sociotechnical systems. In other words, while opening up additional possibilities. A mathematical a specific technology—whether a computer, a drug, or a formula yields a result by working through the problem, but synthetic organism—is a component within a larger socio­ the algorithms that lie at the heart of computer technology technical system. What is at stake is whether the overall define a process that must unfold step-by-step. A pattern system, not just the technological component, functions can emerge over time out of a sequence of events, but that relatively well. pattern may tell us very little about what to anticipate for a later sequence. Similar to the failure of the Global Hawk UAV, sophisticated future robots will act according to algo- rithmic processes, and their behavior when confronted with “It is unclear why Alife simulations totally new inputs will be hard if not impossible to predict in advance. The kinds of damage semi-autonomous robots have been so disappointing.” working in a warehouse shipping out Amazon orders could potentially cause might be judged acceptable given the rewards. But the unfolding actions of a robot that serves as a weapons platform could unexpectedly, yet conceivably, lead to the loss of many lives. To quote an old adage, “Bak- ing a cake is easy. Building a car is complicated. Raising a child is complex. . . .” My focus is on the technological components or pro- cesses, but the problems often arise out of the interaction Modeling Complexity of those components with other elements of the sociotech- In the 1980s, systems theory gave birth to the scientific nical system. Can complex systems ever be adequately study of complex adaptive systems, which examines how understood or sufficiently tamed? Engineers strive to make individual components adapt to each other’s behavior the tools they develop predictable so they can be used and, in turn, alter the system’s structure and activity. This safely. But if the tools we develop are unpredictable and transition in the study of complex systems was enabled by the availability of more powerful computers. Powerful therefore at times unsafe, it is foolhardy for us to depend computers facilitate the creation of simulations that model upon them to manage critical infrastructure. There is an im- complex activities. Systems theorists hoped that the scien- perative to invest the resources needed (time, brainpower, tific study of complex adaptive systems might offer a tool and money) to develop new strategies to control complex to understand, and, in turn, tame, the complex systems we technologies and to understand the limits of those strate- increasingly rely upon. Much of the study of adaptive sys- gies. If planners and engineers are unable to limit harms tems focuses on physical and biological processes. Even a then we, as a society, should turn away from a reliance on tiny biological system such as a living cell can be truly com- increasingly complex technological systems. The examples plex. The medical illustrator David Bolinsky created a cel- included here have been selected to help clarify which ebrated animation of the molecular dance of life within an aspects of complex adaptive systems can be better under- individual cell. The animation is wondrous to behold, a rich stood and therefore better managed, and which cannot. universe in which fantasy-like structures interact in dynamic

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ways. An enormous number of molecular micro-machines important factors that influence a system. Before the ad- within a cell change their state from moment to moment. vent of computers, scientists were limited to working with Bolinsky’s animated simulation was created, together with relatively simple conceptual models. Computer simulations the Harvard Molecular and Cell Biology Department, as a offer an opportunity to observe how a more complex sys- teaching tool to help students envision the complex inner tem unfolds step-by-step and have become an important life of a cell. However, for all of the intricacy the animation tool for studying the activity within all chaotic and complex displays, Bolinsky told me that so much happens within a systems from the molecular to the cosmological. With each cell that his team was able to illustrate only 10 to 15 percent new generation of faster computers and better program- of the molecular structures and their activity. Simulations of ming tools, simulations will be able to model increasingly evolution were an early focus in the study of complex adap- complex processes. Even excellent models can prove to be tive systems. Exploring evolutionary processes in artificial inadequate if they fail to incorporate an essential feature. environments offers a number of benefits. In the biological Chaos and complexity theory tells us that very small influ- world, countless generations are required to evolve suc- ences, which may have been left out of the model, can have cessful species with interesting features. Within a computer a significant effect. simulation, going from one generation to its progeny can take mere seconds. A new field called “artificial life” (Alife) emerged from the study of evolutionary processes. Alife researchers pop- “Even excellent models can prove ulated simulated environments with virtual organisms. The to be inadequate if they fail to idea was to explore how these artificial organisms would change and adapt in response to the actions of other en- incorporate an essential feature.” tities in the population or in response to changes in the environment. Think of this as the computer game SimLife (made by Maxis, the company that created The Sims and SimCity) on steroids. It was hoped that the organisms in the simulated world would evolve to become complex virtual creatures, and, in turn, shed light on the robustness of bio- logical life. Unfortunately, the evolution of virtual organisms On its opening day, the Millennium Bridge, an architec- plateaued. Artificial entities within computerized environ- tural wonder and acclaimed suspension footpath spanning ments did not mutate to levels of sufficient complexity. the Thames River in London, began to sway as thousands Thomas Ray, a biologist who developed a highly regarded of pedestrians walked across. The bridge immediately ac- software program (Tierra) for studying artificial evolution, quired the distinctly English nickname “The Wibbly Wob- admits “evolution in the digital medium remains a process bly.” Many of those walking on the bridge were disturbed with a very limited record of accomplishments.” It is unclear by the swaying, as was the engineering firm that designed why Alife simulations have been so disappointing. The fail- the bridge. The possibility that the bridge would sway had ures suggest a fundamental limitation in modeling biolog- not shown up in computerized models, nor was it evident ical systems within computer simulations, at least through in wind tunnel simulations. The firm soon realized that their the approaches that have been tried to date. Nevertheless, models had not incorporated the way the walkers would Alife researchers continue to explore new approaches with slowly begin to synchronize their stride in response to sub- varying degrees of success. tle vibrations in the suspended walkway. This synchronized Scientific understanding depends upon maps and mod- stride set the bridge swaying. In response to the sway, more els that are designed to capture salient features of physical, and more walkers joined in the synchronized pace, which, biological, or social contexts while ignoring apparently in turn, accentuated the swing of the walkway. Unpredict- extraneous details. A map lays out features that have al- ability is the enemy of engineers, whose job is to design re- ready been discovered. There can be gaps in a map that liable tools, machines, buildings, and bridges. Conquering represent the unexplored and the unknown. Dynamic mod- uncertainty is integral to safety. Mechanical systems are nat- els make the study of relationships and law-bound activity urally prone to move from orderly to chaotic behavior. For possible by focusing on those features that seem important example, friction can cause a vehicle’s motor to vibrate, and while disregarding the rest. For a theoretical model to this vibration, in turn, loosens or damages other compo- become a working hypothesis, it must reveal insights or nents. Detecting and eliminating chaotic behavior is key to predictions that are then confirmed by experiments in the insuring the optimal performance of complicated and com- real world. If a prediction proves wrong, the model is either plex systems. In the case of the Millennium Bridge, once the incorrect or incomplete. Models fail for a variety of reasons. problem had been recognized, the engineers determined Often a theoretical model is too simple to capture all the that installing dampers could effectively stop the swaying.

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 25 The Flash Crash of May 6, 2010, also garnered consider- puter-initiated shutdowns throughout eight states and into able attention and led to various reforms meant to halt mar- Canada. Software bugs compounded the blackout, as did kets once trading anomalies are detected. Yet even after decisions by human operators. In southern New England, intense study, not enough was learned nor were adequate we were spared the blackout because technicians evidently reforms enacted to tame the uncertainty of markets domi- overrode automated shutdown procedures and discon- nated by high-frequency computerized trading. The moral nected our provider from the multistate electrical grid. A of the story: even using highly refined models, the study few extra moments were sufficient to save those of us living of complex adaptive systems has not mastered, nor kept in Connecticut from the inconveniences and financial bur- up with, the vastly complex technologies that corporations den of a blackout. and governments continually build. Because our fledgling In a world where networks of tightly connected comput- understanding of complex adaptive systems falls short, we ers are increasingly the norm, extra moments can be hard need opportunities for human operators to step in. But in to come by. A little time can be bought by decoupling the order to give them the freedom to fulfill this responsibility, critical units in a complex system. A modular design, which we need to give them time. permits more independent action by individual units, can enhance safety by reducing the tight interaction of com- ponents. The backbone of the Internet is a good example of a modular system. A failure at a distribution center will not bring the Internet down, as it is designed to constantly “The dangers of relying upon seek new routes for transporting data among the available complex systems will continue nodes in the network. Charles Perrow and other experts recommend decoupling and modularity as ways to limit to be underestimated.” the effects of unanticipated events. Unfortunately, in many industries the prevailing trend leads to tighter coupling of subunits. Under pressure to increase profits, business leaders gobble up or merge with competitors, eliminate redundant units, and streamline procedures. Multinational corporations grow larger, become more centralized, and tightly integrate their individual units for greater efficiency. Wrestling with Uncertainty The business leaders who make these decisions are seldom I was working in my office on August 14, 2003, when the cognizant of the dangers they invite. They are just doing electricity went off for just a few moments and then came their jobs. The politicians who thwart regulation of large back on. A power surge in Ohio had caused the largest conglomerates also have no understanding that they invite blackout in the history of the United States and Canada. even greater disruptions to the economy each time a peri- States from Michigan to Massachusetts were affected, as odic downturn or unanticipated catastrophe occurs. well as the Canadian Province of Ontario. It would take two Decoupling the financial markets from the high-fre- days, and for some customers, two weeks, before power quency trading that accentuates fluctuations in financial was restored. The surge began when an overheated elec- markets could still be realized through a few modest re- trical transmission line outside of Cleveland sagged into forms. For example, a transaction fee could be charged a tree. That small incident cascaded into a chain of com- by the stock exchanges for each short-term trade. Or a tax might be introduced on the profits from all stocks, currencies, or commodities that are held by the purchasing firm for less than five minutes. Tendering all trades on the minute or even on the second would eliminate advantages to firms that acquire information or tender orders a fraction of a second faster than their competitors. Each of these reforms would significantly reduce the volume of high-fre- quency trading. Unsurprisingly, the firms that benefit from high-frequency trading worked viciously to defeat any measure that would interfere with their practices, and only a few reforms have been instituted since the Flash Crash. They argued that the liquidity from short-term trading pro- vides a service. Evidently, short-term efficiencies are much more important than long-term safety. The profits of those best able to game the system have taken precedence over

26 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

the integrity and stability of markets. It is not surprising that help of political allies, they have so far succeeded. those who benefit from a system will fight reforms. Nor It is unclear, however, whether the cumulative economic can we necessarily expect even reform-minded politicians benefits to oil companies and to the larger society from to fully understand whether the imperfect measures they not planning for low-probability disasters outweigh the consider will address perceived problems. economic and environmental costs when periodic catastro- Experts have considerable power to influence decisions phes do occur. Perhaps with a deeper understanding of regarding the management of complex systems. Consid- complexity, engineers and policy planners will discover new ering the intricacies, however, experts can also muddy the ways to tame the beast. But for the time being, decou- water and sometimes do so in support of the status quo or pling, modularity, locating dangerous facilities in remote to further ideologically inspired reforms. Whom can we task locations, slowing transactions that reward a few but whose with deciding how complex systems should be managed benefit to society is negligible, risk assessment, and bet- and when reforms should be instituted? ter testing procedures are the best methods available for Another recommendation for limiting disastrous conse- limiting disasters, or at least defusing the harm they cause. quences proposes that chemical factories, nuclear reactors, To believe such measures will be taken, however, remains and other potentially dangerous facilities be built in remote an act of faith. The more likely outcome is an increasing locations. That recommendation is also seldom heeded. reliance on ever-more complex technologies and a cavalier Placing a chemical plant near a large population center can disregard by a significant proportion of companies to adopt lower the cost of labor, transportation, and energy. Locating costly safety procedures. nuclear reactors nearer to the demand lessens the amount The dangers of relying upon complex systems will con- of infrastructure that must be constructed to transport en- tinue to be underestimated. Disasters will occur at ever-de- ergy to its consumers. Backup systems and redundancies creasing intervals. Nassim Taleb proposes that all efforts to are useful for addressing common component failures. conquer uncertainty merely turn gray swans (vaguely recog- 1 Automated shutdown procedures can protect equipment nized problems) into white swans. The very logic of a com- in a power grid from most surges. Safety certainly enters plex world is such that black swans will always exist. After a into the design of critical systems, but consideration is sel- disaster, a few black swans turn gray. This represents a tiny dom given to the low-probability event that could be truly decrease in black swans. But increasingly complex technol- catastrophic. For example, Japan experiences a tsunami ogies will spawn additional growth in the black-swan popu- on average every seven years, so the planners at the Tokyo lation. This inability to eliminate black swans should not, Electric Power Company made sure to build the nuclear however, be taken as an argument against safety measures power plant at the Fukushima Daiichi plant more than to reduce destructive events. eighteen feet above the average sea level. Their worst- This article is adapted with permission from Wendell Wal- case scenario, however, ignored the Jogan tsunami of 869 lach, A Dangerous Master: How to Keep Technology from CE, which produced waves similar to those of the 2011 Slipping Beyond Our Control (New York: Basic Books, 2015). tsunami that flooded the reactors. At its peak, the tsunami exceeded fifteen meters, five meters above the height of the sea wall that they had built. Wendell Wallach is known internationally as an expert on the ethical and gov- British Petroleum (BP) and Transocean, the parties re- ernance concerns posed by emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelli- sponsible for the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, made gence and neuroscience. He is a consultant, ethicist, and scholar at Yale the basic calculation that planning for disastrous events was University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics and a senior advisor to The too expensive and took the chance that outliers would not Hastings Center, a fellow at the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the occur. The resulting environmental damage, economic loss, Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law (Arizona State University), and a fellow at and cost of the cleanup was tremendous. By September the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technology. In addition to A Dangerous 2013, BP had spent $42 billion on cleanup, claims, and Master, Wallach coauthored (with Colin Allen) Moral Machines: Teaching fines and began fighting additional fees that might be as Robots Right From Wrong. He is a series editor for the forthcoming eighth vol- large as $18 billion. BP argued that many of the claims it ume Library of Essays on the ethics of emerging technology. He has also pub- was being asked to pay were not caused by the oil spill. A lished dozens of articles in professional journals. year later (September 2014), U.S. District Court Judge Carl 1.Low-probability events may be called “black swans” because if Barbier ruled that BP acted with gross negligence and must you see a swan that is black, you are likely to be surprised. Nassim pay all claims. In the scheme of things, BP was unlucky. Taleb, a Lebanese-American statistician and best-selling author, has Other companies that took similar risks have fared better. In championed the black swan theory as a way of highlighting why people the years following the Transocean explosion, many deep­ are blind to the inevitability of low-probability events and why these events, when they occur, are likely to have a broad impact. White swans water oil-drilling companies failed to implement costly, vol- are common events. Wallach uses the term gray swans to denote swans untary safety measures. They continue to fight legislation that were black—that is, unlikely events—but that appear to become that would make such procedures mandatory, and with the more common with increasingly complex systems.—David Koepsell

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 27 The Moral and Political Dangers of Autonomous Weapons

Ryan Jenkins

he state of the art in robotics and artificial intelligence It is high time that we ask ourselves: Is there something continues to advance at an accelerating clip, surpris- fundamentally wrong with delegating the task of killing to a Ting experts and futurists. Increasingly complex and machine? While autonomous weapons have been the stuff intelligent machines are changing the texture of human life of science fiction for decades, they have only recently come as they are insinuated into more spheres of activity, from under intense philosophical scrutiny. Thankfully, much of manufacturing to law enforcement to stock trading. that discussion has spilled from the academy into public Military applications have historically been one of the fora. These are questions that demand a public hearing, greatest drivers of innovation. We can trace the history of before we outsource what is perhaps the most significant warfighting—and especially its recent history—as a long decision a human being can make: taking a life. Abdicating arc of removing the warfighter more and more from harm’s our responsibility to investigate the arguments on either way.1 The so-called “drones” in America’s arsenal represent side of the question would be unforgivable. the latest in this progression, though, importantly, they still Making progress in complicated moral debates de- require a human to make the potentially lethal decision to pends on untangling the controversial principles at issue engage a target. and the human costs at stake. This is hindered by the fact However, robotics and artificial intelligence could soon that the basic concepts involved are often conflated or combine in lethal autonomous weapons: robots that are sloppily applied. Here is a discussion where the expertise deployed to identify and engage humans without direct of society’s professional ethicists—in this case, philosophers human oversight. This could represent the culmination of of technology, morality, and war—are called upon. We can the historical trend: removing warfighters not just from the begin to plumb the depths of our consciences, to interro- field of battle but from having a hand in lethal decisions gate and clarify the moral commitments we hold dear, to altogether. If autonomous weapons become feasible, the determine which course of action is congruent with the militaries of the world will probably find their strategic and hopes and goals of the human race. Among the most valu- economic benefits irresistible. able discoveries we can make is that we are wrong about

“If autonomous weapons become feasible, the militaries of the world will probably find their strategic and economic benefits irresistible.”

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what we thought we believed. We discover this when it that acting morally requires a kind of knowledge,9 but not turns out that our beliefs have unacceptable implications. the knowledge that might be found in a book or a list of And when the implications of a belief are unacceptable, simple instructions. Instead, navigating the gnarled moral we must extirpate the original commitment that generated dilemmas of everyday life—not to mention matters of life them. Only then can we hope to make progress and reach and death, such as those faced in war—is akin to a craft. some agreement on which course of action is acceptable It involves knowledge of certain basic principles, sure—a and which world we want to bring about. woodworker has to know how his or her tools work and how to maintain them, and a poet has to know the grammar and Could a Killer Robot Ever Behave as Well as a Human Soldier? syntax of his or her language. But these crafts also involve The idea that machines can be conscious has captivated an essential element of artistry, intuition, and feeling. It is the public imagination recently, with talk of artificial agents,2 the feeling an artist has of being in “flow” or the intuition the prospects of duplicating a human brain in a machine3 a native speaker has when a word sounds wrong in a sen- or uploading our minds into mainframes,4 or the claim that tence, even though he or she cannot articulate why.10 we could be living in a computer simulation.5 All of these fantastic ideas rely on the claim that machines themselves could be conscious. Unfortunately for the starry-eyed dreamers who entertain these ideas, the majority of philos- ophers who focus on the nature of the mind are skeptical “Among the most valuable about these possibilities. discoveries we can make is If they are right, then robots lack the ability to appreci- ate, feel, respect, discern, intuit, and the like. (It would be that we are wrong about what we appropriate to use these words to describe the behavior of thought we believed.” robots only in a metaphorical sense.) We may be comfort- able using these words in this context, but surely it cannot mean the same thing for a robot to detect an object in front of it that it means for a human to do the same, considering the way humans spontaneously associate objects with the rich constellation of concepts, meanings, uses, opportuni- ties, and so on that they represent.6 This view is traceable to Socrates, the progenitor of the The moral domain is a paradigm of an area of life where entire project of moral philosophy. And it is now accepted judgment, emotion, and intuition are necessary.7 Could ro- by ethicists that belong to many otherwise disparate and bots reliably navigate this domain, as controversial and subtle fiercely warring factions. It is called the “non-codifiability as it is? thesis,” after the idea that morality cannot be codified in Brian Orend, a military ethicist, has said, “Though war is an exhaustive list of rules that an intelligent person could hell, we try to make it at least a rule-bound hell.”8 Violence follow in any context. If machines can only follow pro- in war is governed by three moral principles: violence must grammed lists of instructions and are bereft of the capacity be inflicted (1) only when it is necessary; (2) only in ways that to feel or intuit, then it’s altogether mysterious how they are proportionate to the value of the end being sought; could behave like a careful and ethically sensitive human and (3) only in ways that discriminate between those who would. If that’s true, then autonomous weapons probably are liable to be harmed and those who are not (roughly, should not be trusted to perform as well as human soldiers combatants and civilians). in battle.11 Could robots ever reliably stay within these constraints? Does this imply that we could never trust robots to Take, for example, the requirement to discriminate between wage war on our behalf? It still seems possible that robots those who are liable to harm and those who are not: this could at least go through the motions of morality. Com- is not as straightforward as distinguishing between people puters have already demonstrated an ability to outperform wearing a uniform and people who are not. Whether some- humans in tasks that are sophisticated and contextual. For one is a legitimate target depends on whether he or she is example, consider AlphaGo or Watson, the artificial intelli- an active part of hostilities or retreating or surrendering. It gences created by Google and IBM, respectively, that were depends on complex causal factors, such as whether he or able to outperform humans in domains where we once she poses a threat, and it requires the ability, it seems, to thought we held an “indomitable superiority”—and they read the intentions of humans. This is difficult enough for have done this much sooner than was anticipated.12 Con- human soldiers—and it seems like exactly the kind of task cerns, then, about whether robots can really understand that computers will never be able to perform. or appreciate the significance of what they are doing are On a similar note, many philosophers have long held beside the point.

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 29 The history of artificial intelligence is littered with failed tion or intuition discussed above, robots cannot express predictions about what computers will never be able to do: mental attitudes that we think are important in our moral read human faces or emotions, recognize objects, trade lives. We commonly think that whether some action is right stocks, drive cars, play chess, and so on. It is plausible that depends on the attitudes that we hold while performing it. computers will one day be able to pass a moral Turing test, There is a big difference between giving a woman flowers impersonating the ethical judgments and reasoning of hu- to cheer her up and giving her flowers in order to make her mans.13 But even if robots are well-behaved, say, by killing boyfriend jealous, although both actions appear identical only the “right” people, might there be something wrong from the outside.15 One of these actions shows an attitude with the motives of these killings or the reasons why they’re of respect or sympathy; the other, covetousness. carried out? Take an example more clearly related to the conduct of war: robots cannot express respect for a person, which has been a hallmark of one strand of moral philosophy for hundreds of years. Some philosophers have argued persua- sively that the most important moral principles of waging a just war derive from respect.16 The philosopher Thomas Nagel set the stage for de- cades’ worth of discussion and introspection about the “A robot’s lack of a mental ethics of war with his seminal paper, “War and Massacre.” life is a double-edged sword.” Nagel argued that the difference between these two ac- tions depends on our ability to identify our adversaries and justify to them why they have been targeted. Nagel writes, “whatever one does to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as a subject . . . [and] should manifest an attitude to him rather than just to the situation.”17 This is Are Autonomous Weapons ‘Disrespectful’? the difference between aiming at a soldier because he or A robot’s lack of a mental life is a double-edged sword. For she is a soldier and spraying bullets in the general direction one, robots could not become jealous, angry, confused, fa- of an enemy, killing whomever you might hit. Deploying tigued, racist, and so on.14 These emotions cloud a human’s autonomous weapons might be “disrespectful” in this way, judgment and corrupt his or her actions. If we could strip a since they cannot manifest the appropriate attitude toward human of these emotions, it would improve his or her ability our enemies.18 After all, they have no attitudes at all. to wage wars in ways that are admirable and just. Since ro- On the other hand, it may strike some as incredible that bots are without any of these capacities to begin with, they soldiers “treat their enemies with respect,” even as they start with a certain innate advantage over humans. Some line them up in their crosshairs. It is even less plausible that writers have found this to be a cause for optimism. we treat our enemies with respect when launching cruise However, philosophers have found this emotionlessness missiles at unknown individuals from hundreds of miles problematic at the same time. Aside from lacking the emo- away. Here, there seems to be no acknowledgment of the

“Autonomous weapons could usher in the third revolution in warfare, centralizing state power while anonymizing and spreading the capability to inflict harm.”

30 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

humanity of our adversaries, and yet war has routinely been kept from the public to safeguard their operation and fought this way for decades (or centuries, if we go back fur- implementation—including, for example, kill lists whose ther to the advent of long-range artillery). It is difficult to see contents and criteria are classified. The deployment of how we could respect our adversary without knowing who, autonomous weapons could enlarge the sphere of choices in particular, he or she is.19 And yet, most of us think that that are insulated from public scrutiny, including matters of these methods of waging war are morally acceptable. If that national security. But the public has a very strong claim to is true, and if autonomous weapons are no less respectful, understanding whom the government is killing and why—in then this argument based on respect can’t ground a serious our name and with our tax dollars. moral objection to them. Each invention is a vote for a new kind of world. In our Moreover, imagine that robots could one day carry out technophilic society, we often focus too closely on costs wars in ways that satisfy the rules of war better than typical and benefits in terms of simple economic efficiency or, human soldiers. In that case, it seems positively disrespect- in this case, lives lost versus lives saved. But innovations ful to deploy humans instead of robots to do our fighting. cannot be fully justified by such an austere calculation. We How could it be considered respectful to wage war in a way should direct our attention equally to the implications that that will predictably lead, for example, to greater carnage such technologies have for “the form and quality of human or more civilian deaths? Opponents of autonomous weap- associations,”20 including the distribution of power in a so- ons may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of ciety, how our institutions serve or hobble their people, and defending inferior human soldiers if robotics and artificial whether freedom and flourishing are enhanced at home intelligence advance far enough. and abroad. There is no way for these discussions to advance with- out the international law community confronting its moral foundations. Is the tradition of military ethics and military law ultimately motivated by reducing the body counts in “The deployment of autonomous war and protecting civilians from harm? Or is its allegiance to “respect for one’s adversary” stronger? If the law is a weapons could enlarge the project of structuring interactions in a community so that sphere of choices that are people with different beliefs and values can coexist and flourish, then it is not obvious where to strike the balance insulated from public scrutiny.” between respectful attitudes and total social well-being (for instance, in terms of lives lost to war). People value both, and they can clearly conflict.

The Political Dangers of Autonomous Weapons The worries discussed above are intuitive and may have Nor do you have to be a paranoid liberal, bleed- an uncanny familiarity among non-philosophers. This is ev- ing-heart pacifist, or moral philosopher to appreciate the idence that in their discussions, philosophers have done a implications of ordering life in America around the pursuit decent job of capturing the widespread but often nebulous of more efficient ways to inflict harm. You could, for exam- repulsion felt when contemplating “killer robots.” But it ple, be World War II hero and Republican president Dwight remains difficult to pin the worries down, and it’s ultimately D. Eisenhower: “This conjunction of an immense military not obvious that they are justified. They each face serious establishment and a large arms industry is new in the Amer- challenges and rely on adjudicating more fundamental dis- ican experience. The total influence—economic, political, agreements. But before settling these disagreements, we even spiritual—is felt in every city, every statehouse, every should consider another possibility: that the most insidious office of the Federal government. . . . Our toil, resources, danger of developing and deploying autonomous weap- and livelihood, are all involved. So, is the very structure of ons might be something else altogether, what we might call our society.”21 the political dangers of autonomous weapons. They say there have been two revolutions in warfare:22 It may be a distraction to consider whether there is First, there was gunpowder, which made warfare a less something wrong with the act of killing by machine, as if personal and intimate affair and also democratized warfare, that act were performed in a vacuum. In fact, it is not. The forcing leaders to rely on hundreds of thousands of people most worrisome consideration could be autonomous weap- to wage war. By World War I, war had become deperson- ons’ larger place in the sociotechnical world we have built. alized mass killing. These weapons allow—or demand—that decision-making World War II was punctuated by the introduction of the power be concentrated into fewer hands as part of rigid second revolution in warfare, the atom bomb. This inven- command and control. They require that new secrets be tion transformed war into an existential threat to human

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 31 Notes 1. Bradley Strawser, “Moral Predators: The Duty to Employ Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles,” Journal of Military Ethics 9, No. 4 (2010): 342–68. 2. Luciano Floridi and Jeff W. Sanders, “On the Morality of Artificial Agents,” Minds and Machines 14, No. 3 (2004): 349–79. 3. Stan Franklin, Artificial Minds (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997). 4. Nick Bostrom, “The Future of Humanity,” in New Waves in Philosophy of Technology, eds. Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen, Evan Selinger, and Søren Riis (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 5. ———, “Are We Living in a Computer Simulation?” The Philosophical Quarterly 2003. 6. Robert Hanna, “Kant and Nonconceptual Content,” European Journal of Philosophy 2005; Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Donald Landes (London: Routledge, 2013). 7. Peter Asaro, “On Banning Autonomous Weapon Systems: Human Rights, Automation, and the Dehumanization of Lethal Decision-making,” International Review of the Red Cross 94 (2012): 687–709. 8. Brian Orend, The Morality of War (Basingstoke, UK: Broadview Press, 2013). 9. John McDowell, “Virtue and Reason, “ Monist 62, No. 3 (1979): 331–50. 10. Hubert Dreyfus, What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992). 11. Duncan Purves, Ryan Jenkins, and Bradley Strawser, “Autonomous Machines, Moral Judgment, and Acting for the Right Reasons,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18, No. 4 (2015): 851–72. 12. Ryan Jenkins and Duncan Purves, “Robots and Respect: A Response to Robert Sparrow,” Ethics & International Affairs 30, No. 3 (2016): 391–400. 13. George Lucas, “Engineering, Ethics, and Industry: The Moral existence and dictated the path of the international com- Challenges of Lethal Autonomy, “ in Killing by Remote Control: the Ethics of munity for the next fifty years, where every human being an Unmanned Military, ed. Bradley Strawser (Oxford, UK: Oxford University lived under the nightmare of mutually assured destruction. Press, 2013). (Then again, why were we so worried with fifty thousand 14. Ronald Arkin, “The Case for Ethical Autonomy in Unmanned nuclear weapons protecting us?) Systems,” Journal of Military Ethics 2010. 15. Agnieszka Jaworska and Julie Tannenbaum, “Person-Rearing Autonomous weapons could usher in the third revolu- Relationships as a Key to Higher Moral Status,” Ethics 2014. tion in warfare, centralizing state power while anonymizing 16. Rob Sparrow, “Robotic Weapons and the Future of War,” in New and spreading the capability to inflict harm. The advent of Wars and New Soldiers: Military Ethics in the Contemporary World, eds. targetable, unaccountable, relatively costless, and widely Paolo Tripodi and Jessica Wolfendale (Basingstoke, UK: Ashgate, 2011); Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologic, 2nd ed. (Fathers of the English available lethal violence could be one of the worst inven- Dominican Province, 1920). tions in the history of humanity. We have good reason to 17. Thomas Nagel, “War and Massacre,” Philosophy and Public think their use will make war more likely.23 And they could Affairs 1972: 123–44. radically destabilize the political order and introduce wan- 18. Rob Sparrow, “Killer Robots,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 24, No. 1 (2007): 62–77. ton violence and random terror in ways that are unprece- 19. Jenkins and Purves, “Robots and Respect.” dented. 20. Langdon Winner, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” Daedalus (1980): Developing and deploying technology is an endorse- 121–36. ment of a particular future. We have seen how, once such 21. Dwight Eisenhower, “Farewell Radio and Television Address to weapons are invented, they are appropriated by larger the American People,” January 17, 1961, Delivered from the President’s Office at 8:30 PM,” Interventionism, Information Warfare, and the forces and used in ways we did not intend or anticipate. Military-Academic Complex, 2011. (Whatever your party affiliation, you do not have to reach far 22. This idea is not originally mine, but I can’t trace the phrase to its into America’s past to find a questionable use of military original source. The claim that autonomous weapons are the third revo- force.) The use of new weapons sets precedents that fill a lution in warfare was used perhaps most famously in an open letter from the Future of Life Institute and signed by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, normative void before robust and carefully considered laws Steve Wozniak, and others (Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter from can arrive on the scene. The choices of technologies be- AI & Robotics Researchers, Future of Life Institute, July 28, 2015, http:// come fixed in capital and material costs, and our institutions futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/). and policies are reshaped around a commitment to their 23. Leonard Kahn, “Military Robots and the Likelihood of Armed Combat,” in Robot Ethics 2.0, eds. Patrick Lin, Ryan Jenkins, Keith Abney, retention and use. In this way, technological choices can and George Bekey (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, forthcoming). have an inertia that is formidable, if not unstoppable. It is for this reason that the turning point for considering the adoption of technology is before it is introduced. There is Ryan Jenkins is an assistant professor in philosophy at California Polytechnic State rarely any going back. Are we sure we want this future? University at San Luis Obispo. His work focuses on applied ethics and normative ethics.

32 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org Nanotech: New Legal and Moral Challenges

David Koepsell

e are interested in promoting beneficial technol- Nanotechnology ogies, which nanotechnology certainly promises Nanotechnology, like any technology, poses the potential Wto be, and doing so in ways that are efficient, for both significant improvements in our well-being and life- innovative, and ethical. At the same time, we must also con- styles as well as the potential for harms. These harms may sider how much and what type of regulation is warranted be environmental, or they may be direct harms to those regarding this new technology. Societal and individual working with the materials involved and to consumers who concerns regarding the environment, safety, and security willingly purchase nanotech-based goods. The “Belmont may warrant regulation of a new technology in some form, Principles,” established in an influential 1979 report in the whether by governments, international bodies, or the re- wake of the infamous Tuskegee Study, are relevant here. Ex- searchers and innovators themselves. Mistakes made in the panding their moral horizon to humanity as a whole—which past in developing and implementing technologies and the is, after all, subject to the introduction of new technologies resulting harms that have befallen individuals, populations, even though we are not all subjects of studies—should and the environment serve as examples by which nanotech- help us to avoid some of the ethical lapses of the past. nology can be more carefully introduced into the stream of Also relevant is the recent experience of the medical re- commerce and unnecessary harms avoided. We should be search sector in coming to grips with the moral dimensions mindful, however, that critics’ exaggeration of risks and ir- of risk. While a fair amount of the institutional machinery rational public fears have also proved harmful to society, as of today’s bioethics involves self-policing and peer-re- worthwhile new technologies have been stifled or delayed view, given the lapses of the past, governmental rules, when they were needed most. regulations, and laws now back up many of those insti-

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 33 tutions. Failures of ethics in the modern era can bring legal consequences or at least result in significant institutional The Tuskegee Syphilis Study punishments, fines, and withholding of licenses, as well as personal and professional liability.1 In response to the Nazi medical experiments conducted Self-policing of behavior is preferable in modern liberal during World War II, a nonbinding set of ethical principles to polities and economies because doing the right thing out guide future research on human subjects, the Nuremburg of proper motivation is morally preferable to either skirting Code, was promulgated after the war. Among its principles duties or acting with bad intentions but also because it is are: the necessity of voluntary consent; the beneficence of more efficient. The less bureaucracy, the lower the costs of the research (Is it aimed toward good ends with good inten- the technology or industry, and institutional rules and regu- tions?); the requirement to avoid unnecessary harm and un- lations add to bureaucracy. necessary risks; and that the research should be performed It is incumbent upon both scientists and those seeking only by qualified researchers. These principles were sound to create nanotech-based products that either affect the and based on a centuries-long tradition in moral philosophy, environment or that will enter the stream of commerce and but they were nonetheless only guidelines. directly affect users and those working with those products It was only after the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study that the mistakes of the past be avoided. The ethical duties that the Nuremberg Code was formalized into legally en- embodied in the Belmont Principles and similar interna- forceable rules, and modern bioethics became a more formal, tional codes are owed despite the regulations that came applied field. The Tuskegee Study lasted forty years and fol- to be deemed as necessary. Choosing in the early stages lowed a cohort of syphilis-infected African American share- of the development of nanotech to abide by ethical duties croppers in Alabama. The study was designed to discover may help obviate the need later to enforce good behavior the full range of symptoms over the course of the disease. by institutional means and avoid top-down rules, regu- It began before any treatments for the disease were known, lations, and laws and the bureaucratic inefficiencies that but, even after penicillin was found to be an effective cure, inevitably follow. Even absent a desire to do the right thing the drug was not provided to study subjects. They remained for its own sake, enlightened self-interest should provide untreated and uninformed about the existence of an effective sufficient incentive to avoid the mistakes of other sciences treatment—for decades. As a result, the study subjects and industries. deteriorated due to untreated syphilis. The study lasted until Proper respect for the ethical duties noted above re- 1972 and continued thereafter collecting data on the original quires special consideration of the characteristics of nan- cohort. It only ended when the press learned of the plight of otech products and why they must be carefully studied the Tuskegee Study subjects and, in the face of public outcry, before people are exposed to them. The factors that make 2 the study was terminated. nanotech so interesting and useful, namely the size of the materials and machinery involved, make nanotech a spe- cial concern regarding human exposure. Specifically, small things are more “reactive” and pose the possibility of harms that larger materials do not. Because of their high surface area, nanoscale materials and objects may be aspirated through airways, become deeply lodged in lungs and other tissues, and even permeate the skin, all offering means to harm people that many other products do not. Various organizations, professional groups, and governments have “Fear about the proliferation recognized the special nature of nanotechnology in regard of nuclear weapons and the use to human health and have promulgated various recom- mendations and codes of behavior to guide the fledgling of nuclear technology by other industry. The Foresight Institute, which owes its genesis to countries . . . encouraged secrecy Eric Drexler, published its Foresight Guidelines for Respon- sible Nanotechnology Development in 2006.4 In 2008, the and restraint of the technology itself.” Commission of the European Communities published its report A Code of Conduct for Responsible Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies Research.5 It remains to be seen whether nanotechnology will suffer lapses such as those of medical science, and whether more regulation or other institutional responses will eventually be necessary to protect people from its potential harms.

34 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

While nanotech poses unique harms, as noted above, some features have been present (and proven harmful in some circumstances) in other technologies and products. The Belmont Principles Dioxins are molecules; cigarette smoke (and other pollut- ants) are composed of nanoscale objects. But while we are In the wake of the Tuskegee Study, numerous efforts were un- familiar with the risks in general, each new nanotechnology dertaken to prevent future breakdowns of research ethics involv- product will pose unknown risks that must be carefully ing human subjects. An independent commission was formed evaluated. And while we can agree that the community of that authored the seminal Belmont Report, released in 1979. well-intentioned researchers and developers of marketable The “Belmont Principles,” which define the duties of scientists technologies will do well to be guided by ethical princi- to human subjects, include respect for persons, beneficence, ples, it is concerns about bad actors whose intentions are justice (involving vulnerable subjects and populations), fidelity already unethical and who wish to cause harm that lead (involving fairness and equality), non-maleficence, and veracity. us to consider whether rules, regulations, and laws should If the Belmont Principles embody ethical duties owed to govern the dissemination of technologies (such as some human subjects of research, shouldn’t they also be applicable nanowares) that can be put to evil uses. to humanity as a whole or at least to those who are directly af- fected by research through the development and introduction of Security products into the stream of commerce? I have argued as much 3 Even the most benign technologies can be adapted in in the journal Science and Engineering Ethics. order to cause harm. Fertilizers meant to increase crop yields killed many scores of innocent people when Timothy McVeigh used them to bomb a U.S. federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. Household implements have been used to hurt, maim, or murder people for as long as man has been making tools. Certain technologies, however, have recently been developed that are considered so inher- ently dangerous that significant regulatory steps have been developed to contain them. Until the twentieth century, guns and gunpowder were generally available to any who could afford them, but larger, deadlier weapons such as cannon remained too expensive “The knowledge and materials for those of ordinary means. While many technologies have been developed specifically for killing and warfare, tech- necessary for synthetic biology niques that incorporated the use of deadly chemicals into are already generally available and ordinary arms prompted the first attempts to curtail the use of certain technologies relating to warfare. As early as 1675, growing cheaper every day.” the Strasbourg Agreement between France and Germany banned the use of poison-tipped bullets. In 1874, the Brus- sels Convention regulated the use of chemical weapons. Although three Hague treaties were signed before the start of the First World War, chemical gas weapons were used patents on it as well. One of the purposes of patents is to in that war and have been occasionally used even since enable others to practice and improve the art disclosed the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which in Article 171 in its claims once the patent expires and the invention stated that “the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other moves into the public domain. Fear about the proliferation gases and all analogous liquids, materials or devices being of nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear technology by prohibited, their manufacture and importation are strictly other countries to create their own weapons encouraged forbidden in Germany . . . the same applies to materials secrecy and restraint of the technology itself—except by specially intended for the manufacture, storage and use of those within the U.S. government. But knowledge about the said products or devices.”6 the underlying science was already well-known, and other After the Second World War, control of chemical weap- governments soon duplicated the United States’ success ons was subsumed into general, international regulations in building both fission and fusion bombs. The genie was concerning weapons of mass destruction, which included out of the bottle. Yet even after the spread and duplication the newest, deadliest technology: nuclear weapons. Fear of nuclear technology by other states, the United States about the spread of nuclear technology inspired the United and most of the other nuclear states attempted to regulate States to make the technology itself classified and to forbid proliferation of both the knowledge and the production of

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 35 nuclear materials and eventually entered various treaties Synthetic biology is essentially engineering at the na- among themselves to further limit nuclear technology out- noscale level using biological systems. Synthetic or systems side of the select group of first-comers. biology essentially extends an engineering approach to Nuclear arms control and anti-proliferation treaties have biological systems and attempts to create basic building created international monitoring and enforcement mech- blocks by altering genetic code to construct materials and anisms to track the flow of fissile materials and to outlaw even nanoscale machinery. One of the essential mecha- attempts to build or otherwise possess nuclear weapons by nisms for synthetic biology is the identification of useful other states. Similar treaties continue to monitor pathogens snippets of genetic codes and other biological materials capable of use in biological warfare and also the stockpiling so that they can be combined in new ways. Researchers of dangerous chemical agents. Since the Oklahoma City can now order custom-made strings of DNA or, if they can bombing, even quantities of fertilizers capable of being afford the equipment, create the sequences themselves. used for explosives are now tracked, and there are limits on In 2002, researchers at the State University of New York at who can purchase them. Stony Brook created a synthetic polio virus, pathologically While uranium is found in the environment, purifying it identical to a naturally occurring one (but with markers to for use in a weapon can hardly be done without attracting denote its artificial manufacture) by using mail-ordered the attention of those agencies and organizations tasked sequences.8 The potential for mischief as synthetic biology with tracking attempts to build nuclear weapons. It is ex- matures is clear. If polio could be constructed in the lab, pensive, complicated, and takes attaining a certain level then so could smallpox or, even worse, hitherto unknown of technological advancement and the possession of spe- biologically based weapons of mass destruction. cialized equipment to create fissile materials for bombs. Synthetic biology is being touted as a quick and easy Manufacturing sufficient quantities of chemical weapons for path to realizing some of the promises inherent in nano- use in war or for terror is also difficult to do without being technology, piggybacking off nature’s success in design- noticed, although it is easier. Creating weaponized biowar- ing nanoscale processes and products and speeding our fare agents is easier still and harder to track. Witness, for means to achieve nanoscale constructions of our own. The instance, the successful anthrax attacks in the United States tools to make it possible are also becoming cheaper and in 2001 and 2002. more available to amateur and professional synthetic biolo- gists. With growing (and spreading) knowledge of the fun- damentals of biological processes, combined with falling costs of equipment and greater availability, nation-states are growing nervous about potential uses by terrorists. Researchers understand that such an incident, should one ever happen, will bring this fledgling science to a screaming “International pressure to limit halt. Self-policing the industry by a variety of mechanisms proliferation of nuclear weapons has become a widely accepted necessity, even if there are questions about its efficacy. creates a climate for blackmail.” As early as 2002, researchers in the field met for their second international conference, “Synthetic Biology 2.0,” and discussed in some depth issues relating to safety and security. In 2006, out of that meeting and subsequent meetings and colloquia (as well as public input), came a white paper titled “From Understanding to Action: Com- Nanotechnology and synthetic biology pose cata- munity-Based Options for Improving Safety and Security in strophic possibilities for rogue states and terrorists to Synthetic Biology.”9 The document heavily stresses the du- attain weapons of mass destruction cheaply and without ties of researchers and commercial suppliers in the field to drawing attention. Because of the potential for essentially be aware and to self-police. Numerous other efforts by non- “garage”- or “basement”-made mayhem, those involved governmental organizations, governmental bureaucracies, at the early stages of research and development are also commissions, and law-enforcement agencies have also trying to develop ways to track the use of the components begun to examine the security implications of the spread of deadly products. Nanotech terrorism is a long way off of knowledge and means to conduct synthetic biology. (though arguably, the weaponized anthrax may have been Several national and international consortia in Europe have purposely coated with silicon particles7). In the meantime, launched inquiries and studies into the ethics and practical security concerns in connection with synthetic biology are concerns of regulating synthetic biology, with a special rising among various militaries and security agencies and emphasis on security concerns. In 2007, a white paper was researchers themselves. published by Synbiosafe, a project involving the University

36 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

of Bath, the University of Bradford, and the Organization And what other regulatory and governance issues can we for International Dialogue and Conflict Management.10 In address now, in the nascent stages of nanotech science? 2009, the European Group on Ethics published its report on ethical and practical issues in synthetic biology, noting The Path of Openness certain security issues as well.11 The Synth-Ethics project, Consider what might have happened had nuclear tech- funded by the European Union and in which I have been nology been kept open and the knowledge and means of an investigator, published its first report in late 2010.12 The producing nuclear weapons, as well as nuclear’s peaceful trend, begun with the “Synthetic Biology 2.0” meeting, is uses, not been regulated so heavily. Would the world have to focus on voluntary notification and enforcement mech- been less safe? At one point during the Cold War, when the anisms, as well as individual researcher responsibility. This Soviet Union and the United States had helped create an model is proposed in a joint report of the J. Craig Venter international climate in which those two states held a vir- Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the tual monopoly on nuclear weapons, each side had enough Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The warheads to destroy Earth. A nuclear exchange would have report, published in 2007, was titled “Synthetic Biology: eliminated most life on the planet. How safe were we then? Options for Governance”13 and explores a number of policy During the Cuban Missile Crisis, we came closer to nuclear options. Although it presents no recommendations per se, war than at any other point so far in history. A diplomatic the weight of the projected impacts of the various options presented leans heavily in favor of voluntary professional oversight, education, and openness in order to encourage innovation without significant top-down control mecha- nisms and to help prevent intentional misuse of the tech- nology. The alternative to this trend is much more closed, tighter regulation of research that would affect knowledge dissemination and include oversight of labs, materials, and “The post–Cold War era researchers. Of course, this sort of restricted environment is offers a glimpse of what the generally anathema to a liberal democracy, to say nothing of the smooth conduct of research in a rapidly evolving world might have been like had we field; in any case, it is doubtful whether such measures would accomplish the overall goal of improving security. never regulated nuclear technologies.” As we have noted, the knowledge and materials nec- essary for synthetic biology are already generally available and growing cheaper every day. Unlike the tools and ma- terials used in nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, and even some weaponized biological agents, there is really very little that can be done to effectively police the pursuit failure could have spelled the end of civilization. War was of synthetic biology. For now, this is not the case with the only narrowly averted. The balance of terror maintained by tools and knowledge necessary for pursuing true molecular the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) may have nanotechnology. So far, the cost of things such as powerful helped avert nuclear war, or it may have been just lucky that electron microscopes is prohibitive for garage tinkerers, given our capabilities, we conscientiously avoided use of and the various grassroots efforts at creating fabricators are our nuclear weapons due to some other inhibition. In the not close to achieving technical detail. But if the trajecto- post–Cold War era, some truths have emerged that have ries of both the top-down and bottom-up approaches to tested the MAD policy and suggested that deadly tech- nanowares continue to merge, then nanotechnology will nologies are not likely to be used even by rogue states or have to take issues of security as well as safety seriously. terrorists, with some exceptions. Perhaps more so than any other industrial failure, either Although nuclear technologies continue to proliferate intentional or accidental, the use of nanotechnology by bad and states such as Pakistan, India, Iran, Israel, and North actors will undermine public confidence in the technology Korea are known to possess, or likely possess, either the and bring to bear a measure of government regulation and technology to produce nuclear devices or the devices oversight that could choke the field and hinder its progress themselves, they have not yet been used. International and benefits. nonproliferation treaties and policies of containment have What can we learn from regulatory efforts regarding generally failed. These agreements actually serve as bar- other technologies in the past, and how can we best gaining chips rather than deterrents. As a society attains the pursue nanotechnology’s benefits while avoiding the envi- level of technological capability to produce nuclear weap- ronmental, safety, and security dangers expressed above? ons, it makes more sense to do so secretly to the degree

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 37 one can and then to use this capability, once achieved, to Had the nuclear world after World War II been multi-po- bargain for something. International pressure to limit prolif- lar instead of bipolar and had no caps been imposed upon eration of nuclear weapons creates a climate for blackmail. the research and development of nuclear technology, an States that skirt these agreements and develop their own international stalemate would have likely prevented the nuclear capabilities can then taunt the world community wartime use of nukes. We are arguably less safe now that with their technological achievement, flout their violation of any state might develop destructive technologies in secret, treaties, and use their new membership in the nuclear club then use blackmail later, than if we simply assumed that any as leverage to secure aid, cooperation in some other dis- state might develop and possess weapons of mass destruc- pute, trade deals, or attain other demands. Since the end of tion legally if it had the capability. The latter climate encour- the Cold War, in which the two major nuclear superpowers ages multi-polar diplomatic agreements to curtail the use of came to a stalemate, the growth in the number of nuclear these weapons, rather than complex institutional measures states has been steady. International efforts to curtail the and threats of force to prevent their development. There spread of nuclear technology seem to have achieved the seems more to be gained for safety and security from open- opposite. And yet, are we any less safe? ness rather than through tight regulation and curtailment of The post–Cold War era offers a glimpse of what the knowledge and technology development. world might have been like had we never regulated nuclear Astonishingly, we have failed to destroy ourselves as technologies. If everyone has weapons of mass destruction, a species, despite the means to do so being available for is the threat of nuclear conflagration any greater than if only the past sixty years. Of course, it’s still possible that we will two mortal enemies possess them? In the Cold War world, do so—if for no other reason than because of the still-vast if the USSR or the United States used nuclear weapons on a supply of nuclear weapons, primarily still in the hands of small state that had developed and used a nuclear weapon the United States and Russia. Every day that we reduce on its nonnuclear neighbor, the chances of a U.S./USSR the number of nuclear weapons, the likelihood of global nuclear exchange would have increased, and either of the nuclear catastrophe falls. This doesn’t mean that someone two superpowers would have looked like a bully. In a post– won’t someday use a nuclear device in war (as the United Cold War world, in which (presumably) anyone might de- States did twice) or for terror. But cheaper, easier means velop and possess nuclear technology, the risks to a state for conducting terror exist, as the events of September that chooses to use nukes increases dramatically, because 11, 2001, graphically demonstrated. Doomsday scenarios retaliation could be immediate and pose less diplomatic aside, more banal and significantly more destructive means consequences to non-superpower states that choose to of killing people remain widely available, and no amount of use them given that such a use would be self-directed and regulation will rein them in. legitimately defensive. Could it be that we can be trusted with dangerous knowl-

“Astonishingly, we have failed to destroy ourselves as a species, despite the means to do so being available for the past sixty years. Of course, it's still possible that we will do so.”

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edge? Might even the most evil of people be thwarted by besides guiding our protective actions. Considerations of external factors, or by fear and trepidation, from engaging justice should encourage efforts to repudiate regulatory in deliberate acts of large-scale destruction? We can hope, measures aimed at curtailing the free flow of information though history shows that outliers emerge now and then wherever it threatens the positive potential of the technol- who will stop at nothing to kill or to commit genocides or ogy. As we have discussed, the modus operandi of liberal launch dreadful wars. And while scientists and innovators democracies is to increase political participation and en- must be cognizant of the possibility that such people will courage freedom and open markets. Yet powerful regula- use their technologies for harm, this cannot serve as an tory forces currently work against these goals out of an ex- argument not to pursue potentially deadly knowledge. pressed motivation to encourage the progress of “science Attempts to build nuclear weapons were underway inside and the useful arts.” Intellectual property (IP) is now taken Nazi Germany; outside of it, the knowledge of Nazi efforts for granted as a right, although its history suggests that the to do so, and Albert Einstein’s awareness of the technical rights established by IP are relatively recent, wholly positive, capability of the Nazis to succeed, arguably helped enable and not founded upon the sort of principles that have the Allied forces to prevail. No chance of victory could have grounded other human rights. If we are interested in pro- emerged from attempts to squelch the knowledge itself. moting the growth and full potential of nanotechnology It is the nature of information and knowledge to spread, and investigating the role of all regulations in this effort, despite attempts to curtail it. Attempting to curtail the then we must also focus on the role and impact of IP on spread of seemingly dangerous knowledge only encour- innovation in general and nanotechnology in particular. We ages those who wish to have that knowledge at all costs cannot take for granted that it always achieves its stated to do harm to acquire it and to operate underground, ends, or that we must accept without modification its cur- secretively, and beyond the view of those who might be rent forms. able to prevent that knowledge’s evil uses. Consider the drug trade. A dangerous underground system of manufac- ture and distribution exists. Thousands of people are killed each year in wars among rival gangs, and the products are Notes unregulated, impure, tainted with the blood of innocents, 1. For an extended discussion of the moral principles involved in eval- and uncontrolled. Market demand has continued unabated uating risk in connection to both technological innovation and medical and even been exacerbated despite and perhaps due to research, see my “The Morality of Risk: A Primer,” available online as an appendix to this issue on the Council for Secular Humanism website (www. regulations. As use is criminalized, the ability to intervene secularhumanism.org). and treat addictions is diminished, and the cycle of illegal 2. Tuskeegee Study—Timeline. NCHHSTP. Centers for Disease Con­ manufacture, distribution, and use is that much harder to trol, June 25, 2008, http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm, accessed­ September 22, 2010. track. If people want something, they will find a way to 3. David Koepsell, “On Genies and Bottles: Scientists’ Moral make it, or entrepreneurs will emerge who will satisfy the Responsibility and Dangerous Technology R&D,” Science and Engineering market demand. Ethics 16, No. 1 (2009):119–33. 4. http://www.foresight.org/guidelines/current.html, accessed Septem­ ­­ Attempts to curtail knowledge about nanotechnology, ber 22, 2010. or to regulate the availability of the machinery and equip- 5.http://ec.europa.eu/nanotechnology/pdf/nanocode-rec_pe0894c_ ment needed to realize its full potential, will ensure that a en.pdf, accessed September 22, 2010. black market emerges. It will become that much harder to 6. The Avalon Project—The Laws of War, Yale Law School, Lillian Gold­man Library, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/lawwar.asp, track the development of potentially harmful products and September 22, 2010. uses, and overall safety and security will be diminished. We 7. Press Briefing by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, Health should instead encourage openness. While we survived the and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, and Centers for Disease Control Emergency Environmental Services Director Dr. Pat Cold War, the emerging multilateral post–Cold War envi- Meehan, October 29, 2001, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index. ronment will only be survivable if we adopt maximum open- php?pid=79187, accessed September 22, 2010. ness. Given the means, the better angels of our natures can 8. J. Cello, A. V. Paul, and E. Wimmer, “Chemical Synthesis of Polio­virus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template,” be trusted to prevent intentional catastrophe. The distant Science 297, 5583 (2002): 1016–1018. possibility of “gray goo” should be kept in mind, and the 9. http://gspp.berkeley.edu/iths/UC%20White%20Paper.pdf, accessed current and near-future dangers of synthetic biology ought September 22, 2010]. to motivate us, but only to educate those who are involved 10. http://synbiosafe.eu and http://www.idialog.eu/uploads/file/ Synbiosafe-Biosecurity_awareness_in_Europe_Kelle.pdf, accessed Sept­ in these sciences about their duties and encourage the free ember­ 22, 2010. spread of knowledge as a preventive measure. The more we 11. http://ec.europa.eu/european_group_ethics/docs/opinion25_en. know about the possibilities and the better capable we are pdf, accessed September 22, 2010. 12. http://synthethics.eu/, accessed September 22, 2010. of evaluating risks, the more likely researchers will be moti- 13. Michele S. Garfinkel, Drew Endy, Gerald L. Epstein, and Robert M. vated and able to prevent nanotechnology’s harmful uses. Friedman, “Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, Openness also leads us to more proactive measures, and Science,” December 5, No. 5 (2007): 359–62.

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 39 Autopia: The Robot Car of Tomorrow May Just Be Programmed to Hit You

Patrick Lin

uppose that an autonomous car is faced with a terri- But physics isn’t the only thing that matters here. Pro- ble decision to crash into one of two objects. It could gramming a car to collide with any particular kind of object Sswerve to the left and hit a Volvo sport utility vehicle over another seems an awful lot like a targeting algorithm, (SUV), or it could swerve to the right and hit a Mini Cooper. similar to those for military weapons systems. And this takes If you were programming the car to minimize harm to oth- the robot-car industry down legally and morally dangerous ers—a sensible goal—which way would you instruct it to go paths. in this scenario? Even if the harm is unintended, some crash-optimization As a matter of physics, you should choose a collision algorithms for robot cars would seem to require the delib- with a heavier vehicle that can better absorb the impact of erate and systematic discrimination of, say, large vehicles a crash, which means programming the car to crash into to collide into. The owners or operators of these targeted the Volvo. Further, it makes sense to choose a collision with vehicles would bear this burden through no fault of their a vehicle that’s known for passenger safety, which again own, other than that they care about safety or need an SUV means crashing into the Volvo. to transport a large family. Does that sound fair?

40 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

What seemed to be a sensible programming design, would die, and surely killing someone is one of the worst then, runs into ethical challenges. Owners of Volvos and things auto manufacturers desperately want to avoid. other SUVs may have a legitimate grievance against the But we can quickly see the injustice of this choice, as manufacturer of robot cars that favor crashing into them reasonable as it may be from a crash-optimization stand- over smaller cars, even if physics tells us this is for the best. point. By deliberately crashing into that motorcyclist, we are in effect penalizing him or her for being responsible, Is This a Realistic Problem? for wearing a helmet. Meanwhile, we are giving the other Some road accidents are unavoidable, and even auton- motorcyclist a free pass, even though that person is much omous cars can’t escape that fate. A deer might dart out less responsible by not wearing a helmet, which is illegal in in front of you, or the car in the next lane might suddenly most U.S. states. swerve into you. Short of defying physics, a crash is immi- Not only does this discrimination seem unethical, but nent. An autonomous or robot car, though, could make it could also be bad policy. That crash-optimization design things better. may encourage some motorcyclists not to wear helmets in While human drivers can react only instinctively in a order to not stand out as favored targets of autonomous sudden emergency, a robot car is driven by software, cars, especially if those cars become more prevalent on the constantly scanning its environment with unblinking sen- road. Likewise, in the previous scenario, sales of automotive sors and able to perform many calculations before we’re brands known for safety, such as Volvo and Mercedes-Benz, even aware of danger. It can make split-second choices to may suffer if customers want to avoid being the robot car’s optimize crashes—that is, to minimize harm. But software target of choice. needs to be programmed, and it is unclear how to do that for the hard cases. In constructing the edge cases here, we are not trying to simulate actual conditions in the real world. These sce- narios would be very rare, if realistic at all, but nonetheless “Even if the harm is unintended, some they illuminate hidden or latent problems in normal cases. From the above scenario, we can see that crash-avoid- crash-optimization algorithms for robot ance algorithms can be biased in troubling ways, and this cars would seem to require the delib- is also at least a background concern any time we make a value judgment that one thing is better to sacrifice than erate and systematic discrimination of, another thing. In previous years, robot cars have been quarantined say, large vehicles to collide into.” largely to highway or freeway environments. This is a rel- atively simple environment, in that drivers don’t need to worry so much about pedestrians and the countless sur- prises in city driving. But Google recently announced that it has taken the next step in testing its automated car in city streets. As their operating environment becomes more The Role of Moral Luck dynamic and dangerous, robot cars will confront harder choices, be it running into objects or even people. An elegant solution to these vexing dilemmas is to simply not make a deliberate choice. We could design an autonomous Ethics Is about More Than Harm car to make certain decisions through a random-number gen- The problem is starkly highlighted by the next scenario, erator. That is, if it’s ethically problematic to choose which one also discussed by Noah Goodall, a research scientist at the of two things to crash into—a large SUV versus a compact car, Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research. or a motorcyclist with a helmet versus one without, and so Again, imagine that an autonomous car is facing an immi- on—then why make a calculated choice at all? nent crash. It could select one of two targets to swerve into: A robot car’s programming could generate a random either a motorcyclist who is wearing a helmet or a motor- number. If it is an odd number, the car will take one path, cyclist who is not. What’s the right way to program the car? and if it is an even number, the car will take the other path. In the name of crash-optimization, you should program This avoids the possible charge that the car’s programming the car to crash into whatever can best survive the collision. is discriminatory against large SUVs, responsible motorcy- In the previous scenario, that meant smashing into the clists, or anything else. Volvo SUV. Here, it means striking the motorcyclist who’s This randomness also doesn’t seem to introduce any- wearing a helmet. A good algorithm would account for the thing new into our world: luck is all around us, both good much-higher statistical odds that the biker without a helmet and bad. A random decision also better mimics human

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 41 driving, insofar as split-second emergency reactions can be So, Now What? unpredictable and are not based on reason, since there’s In future autonomous cars, crash-avoidance features alone usually not enough time to apply much human reason. won’t be enough. Sometimes an accident will be unavoid- Yet the random-number engine may be inadequate for able as a matter of physics for myriad reasons—such as at least a few reasons. First, it is not obviously a benefit to insufficient time to press the brakes, technology errors, mimic human driving, since a key reason for creating auton- misaligned sensors, bad weather, and just pure bad luck. omous cars in the first place is that they should be able to Therefore, robot cars will also need to have crash-optimiza- make better decisions than we do. Human error, distracted tion strategies. driving, drunk driving, and so on are responsible for 90 To optimize crashes, programmers would need to design percent or more of car accidents today, and 32,000-plus cost-functions—algorithms that assign and calculate the people die on U.S. roads every year. expected costs of various possible options, selecting the Second, while human drivers may be forgiven for mak- one with the lowest cost—that potentially determine who ing a poor split-second reaction—for instance, crashing into gets to live and who has to die. And this is fundamentally an a Pinto that’s prone to explode instead of a more stable ethics problem, one that demands care and transparency in object—robot cars won’t enjoy that freedom. Program- reasoning. mers have all the time in the world to get it right. It’s the It doesn’t matter much that these are rare scenarios. difference between premeditated murder and involuntary Often, the rare scenarios are the most important ones, mak- manslaughter. ing for breathless headlines. In the United States, a traffic Third, for the foreseeable future, what’s important isn’t fatality occurs about once every 100 million vehicle-miles just about arriving at the “right” answers to difficult ethical traveled. That means you could drive for more than one dilemmas, as nice as that would be. It’s also about being hundred lifetimes and never be involved in a fatal crash. Yet thoughtful about your decisions and being able to defend these rare events are exactly what we’re trying to avoid by them—it’s about showing your moral math. In ethics, the developing autonomous cars, as Chris Gerdes at Stanford’s process of thinking through a problem is as important as School of Engineering reminds us. the result. Making decisions randomly, then, evades that Again, the above scenarios are not meant to simulate responsibility. Instead of thoughtful decisions, they are real-world conditions anyway, but they’re thought-exper- thoughtless, and this may be worse than reflexive human iments—something like scientific experiments—meant to judgments that lead to bad outcomes. simplify the issues in order to isolate and study certain variables. In those cases, the variable is the role of ethics, Can We Know Too Much? specifically discrimination and justice, in crash-optimization A less drastic solution would be to hide certain information strategies more broadly. that might enable inappropriate discrimination—a “veil of The larger challenge, though, isn’t thinking through eth- ignorance,” so to speak. As it applies to the above scenar- ical dilemmas. It’s also about setting accurate expectations ios, this could mean not ascertaining the make or model of with users and the general public who might find themselves other vehicles, or the presence of helmets and other safety surprised in bad ways by autonomous cars. Whatever answer equipment, even if technology could let us, such as vehi- to an ethical dilemma the car industry might lean toward will cle-to-vehicle communications. If we did that, there would not be satisfying to everyone. be no basis for bias. Ethics and expectations are challenges common to all Not using that information in crash-optimization calcula- automotive manufacturers and tier-one suppliers who want tions may not be enough. To be in the ethical clear, auton- to play in this emerging field, not just particular companies. omous cars may need to not collect that information at all. As the first step toward solving these challenges, creating an Should they be in possession of the information and using open discussion about ethics and autonomous cars can help it could have minimized harm or saved a life, there could raise public and industry awareness of the issues, defusing be legal liability in failing to use that information. Imagine a outrage (and, therefore, large lawsuits) when bad luck or fate similar public outrage if a national intelligence agency had crashes into us. credible information about a terrorist plot but failed to use This article is adapted with permission from Wired, May 6, 2014. it to prevent the attack. A problem with this approach, however, is that auto Patrick Lin, PhD, is the director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at manufacturers and insurers will want to collect as much California Polytechnic State University, where he is an associate philosophy profes- data as technically possible to better understand robot-car sor. He is currently affiliated with Stanford Law School, the University of Notre crashes and for other purposes, such as novel forms of in- Dame, and the World Economic Forum. He is the lead editor of Robot Ethics (MIT car advertising. So it’s unclear whether voluntarily turning Press, 2012) and Robot Ethics 2.0 (Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2017). a blind eye to key information is realistic given the strong The statements expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect temptation to gather as much data as technology will allow. the views of the aforementioned organizations.

42 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

Enhancing Virtues: Fairness

James J. Hughes

ur moral codes are rooted in preconscious feelings human infants under two years old react negatively when of disgust with people who hurt others, cheat, they observe unequal rewards given to others.3 According are disloyal, disobey authority, and violate social to Paul Bloom, one of the leading researchers on the moral O 4 taboos. Some of these moral feelings support modern life of infants and the author of Just Babies, infants exhibit Enlightenment ideas of morality, while others are in contra- four moral sensibilities: diction with modern values of individual rights and critical • Moral judgment: some capacity to distinguish between thought. By illuminating the ways that our value systems are kind and cruel actions. shaped by prerational impulses, we can make more con- • Empathy: suffering at the pain of those around us and scious choices about how to build a fair society and practice wishing to make this pain go away. the civic virtues of fairness and engaged citizenship. But we also can begin to experiment with ways to enhance our • Fairness: a tendency to favor those who divide resources moral reasoning with drugs and devices to become even equally. better citizens than previously possible. • Justice: a desire to see good actions rewarded and bad actions punished.5 From Moral Intuition to Moral Reasoning Just as we have ancient neural architectures for bonding with our fellow mammals, we also appear to have evolved deeply wired neural intuitions about fairness and morality. One of our deeply ingrained moral intuitions is that it is wrong to cheat and that cheaters need to be punished. This impulse can be demonstrated in a laboratory exper- “We can begin to experiment iment called the “ultimatum game.” One participant is with ways to enhance our moral given some money and instructed to offer a portion of it to the other participant. Any fraction of the amount or none reasoning with drugs and devices to at all can be offered, but the first person doesn’t get to become even better citizens.” keep any of the money if the other person rejects the split. Three-quarters of participants offer something between 40 percent and 50 percent. When the splitter offers less than half, it triggers a disgust reaction in the amygdala of the person who needs to choose to accept or reject the split. When that disgust reaction is strong enough, which We experience these biologically rooted moral intu- is usually when the offer is less than 40 percent, the per- itions differently than we do other kinds of values. A group son will reject the split even though it means he or she is at DePaul University in Chicago surveyed students about giving up whatever was offered. That self-sacrifice to spank a variety of moral attitudes. Some had been ranked by the “cheater” at the cost to oneself is known as “altruistic previous researchers6 as biologically determined and inher- punishment.” itable, such as attitudes toward premarital sex, racism, and These intuitions can be observed in our simian cousins the death penalty; and others as only weakly influenced by and human children. When chimpanzees and human chil- biology and genes, such as attitudes about privacy. They dren are set up in ultimatum situations, they also mostly found that the stronger the likely genetic influence on the offer fairish splits, and their willingness to sacrifice rewards value, the more deeply held the students’ beliefs were to punish cheaters is the same as in adult humans.1, 2 Even about that value.7

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 43 Just as empathy has to be cultivated by intelligence to Using survey responses from twenty-five thousand become a mature theory of mind and social intelligence, people that allowed them to be assessed for their re- our moral intuitions can take us only so far. Is affirmative sponse to these moral intuitions and their views on po- action fair? Is collateral damage in a war morally justified? litical issues, Haidt and his team found that these moral Should a poor person be allowed to steal bread? In order to intuitions predicted positions on issues ranging from gay cultivate the virtue of fairness, we need to move from innate marriage and immigration to global warming and defense moral intuitions to mature moral reasoning. spending.9 These innate moral sentiments help explain why our political debates so often are like we are talking Liberal and Conservative Brains different languages. We simply can’t understand how the The psychologist Jon Haidt adds to this picture by show- other side can take certain kinds of arguments or senti- ing that we are not all equally sensitive to inherited moral ments seriously and not see the importance of our views. intuitions. Haidt began his research on moral intuitions by As Haidt and his collaborators recently framed it, liberals studying reactions to topics such as cannibalism and incest. and conservatives are as different as people from entirely By unraveling how people felt about these deeply emotive different cultures.10 These political differences are deeply subjects, he eventually identified a set of core moral intu- rooted in neurobiological differences. The idea that polit- itions that he and the other proponents of moral founda- ical ideology has biological roots seems counterintuitive, tions theory believe have evolutionary and neurobiological since political views seem so determined by the time and roots: place we find ourselves in. Also, what evolutionary advan- tage could there have been for humans to develop such divergent moral and political views? But a recent study by researchers from Harvard University, Brown University, and “Even human infants under two years Penn State University dramatically illustrates how deep biological political ideology appears to be. They recruited old react negatively when they observe twenty-one adults, ten strongly liberal and eleven strongly unequal rewards given to others.” conservative. The participants were asked to bathe in scent- free soap and refrain from cigarettes, alcohol, deodorants, perfumes, sex, or sleeping with humans or pets. They then taped a gauze pad under their arms for twenty-four hours. The pads were frozen in vials and thawed out later to be smelled by 125 participants whose politics had also been ascertained to be either strongly liberal or strongly • Care/harm: protecting others from harm. conservative. The smellers rated each vial on a scale of • Fairness/cheating: treating others in proportion to their 1 to 5 on attractiveness of the body odor. Controlling for actions. gender, conservatives found the smell of other conserva- • Liberty/oppression: judgments about whether subjects tives more attractive, and liberals liked how liberals smelled better. Somehow the biological bases of ideological pref- are tyrannized. 11 • In-group loyalty: to your race, group, family, nation. erences were being communicated through body odor. The evidence that these biological determinants of • Respect for authority/hierarchy. ideology are genetically inheritable is now quite strong. • Sanctity/purity: sanctity/degradation, avoiding disgusting A 2014 meta-analysis of the effects of genes on politics things, foods, and actions. looked at nineteen studies of twelve thousand twins in five Haidt found that conservatives, liberals, and libertarians countries spanning three decades.12 As in studies of ge- differ in their sensitivity to these innate, monkey-brain moral netic influences on intelligence, they did not find any single sentiments. Liberals are more sensitive to the first two, the gene that explained a significant amount about the twins’ impulses to protect others from harm and to fairness. Con- political views. But they did find a significant and substantial servatives are less sensitive to those and more sensitive to genetic influence on political views across a wide range of the impulses to protect the in-group, to defer to authority, issues in every country and time period. Attitudes toward and to have disgust for the profane. For instance, liberals things as diverse as school prayer, the death penalty, gay are more likely to agree with the statements “I wish there rights, foreign aid, feminism, taxation, and global warming were no nations or borders and we were all part of one big were all genetically linked. group” and conservatives are more likely to agree that “Re- spect for authority is something all children need to learn.” PFC vs. Amygdala Libertarians are more sensitive to the liberty/oppression One of the most popular scenarios used in the emerging intuition and less sensitive to the other five.8 experimental philosophy field is the trolley dilemma.13 In

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the first trolley scenario, the participant is told to imagine alcohol or other cognitive burdens, people express more standing beside a train track and seeing a runaway trolley racial bias31 and conservative opinions.32 They become about to hit five men down the track. The participant is more conservative and morally judgmental when the amyg- standing next to a lever that can switch the trolley to a track dala’s disgust response is triggered by bad odors or the on which only one man is standing. Will the participant feeling of stickiness.33, 34 switch the train to the track to kill just one man instead of five? This is a classic utilitarian choice; the greater good Liberal Virtues for five outweighs the harm imposed on one. Most people How then can we understand liberal versus conservative choose to pull the lever. ideas of virtue? As Haidt and his colleagues recently ob- In the second scenario, the “footbridge dilemma,” the served, the intuitive style of thought favored by conserva- participant is standing next to a very fat man on a bridge tives is the human default style, while the analytical style of over the track. The participant is told that (however implau- thought more common among liberals has to be learned.35 sibly) the only way to stop the trolley hitting the five men is Liberals and conservatives don’t actually differ in their moral to push the fat man onto the track. Most people say they intuitions about authority, in-group loyalty, and sacred val- wouldn’t or couldn’t push the fat man, even though the result would be the same as in the first scenario: one man dies, five live. Since neuroscientist Josh Greene and colleagues first used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to watch the brains of people making these trolley decisions, more than a decade of experiments has shown that the “Liberals and conservatives are utilitarian decision in the first scenario is largely handled as different as people from entirely by the rational, prefrontal cortex (PFC), while the second, footbridge dilemma strongly stirs up the emotional centers different cultures. These political of the brain, overriding rational utilitarian calculation.14, 15 differences are deeply rooted Passive moral judgments based on intuitions such as “it’s never OK to push someone to his or her death” are based in neurobiological differences.” in the amygdala, while active moral reasoning, such as the reasoning necessary to rationalize pushing the fat man on the track, relies on parts of the PFC.16 People with larger, more active, and better-connected prefrontal cortices are better able to filter and channel the hot moral intuitions— ues. Both liberals and conservatives have prefrontal cortices including the desire to protect others and punish others but that have been taught Enlightenment values and amygda- also disgust, loyalty, and submission to authority—bubbling las pinging them with disgust and alarm reactions. Rather, up from our amygdalas. On the other hand, when people their differences emerge because the prefrontal cortices are sleepy, distracted, pressed for time, or under stress, of liberals are capable of filtering out the signals from the they are less likely to make rational, utilitarian judgments.17, amygdala more successfully than in the prefrontal cortices 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 of conservatives. When liberals feel impulses for deference Another way of understanding the genetic influences on to authority and hierarchy, they are checked by reminders of moral and political thought is that our genes partly deter- the importance of equality and the questioning of authority. mine the relative influence of the prefrontal cortex versus When liberals feel uneasy about out-groups or impulses to the more emotional parts of the brain such as the amygdala favor their own kind, they are checked by reminders of the on our moral and political decision-making. Conservatives importance of tolerance and universalism.36 When liberals have larger and twitchier amygdalas than liberals and liber- feel revulsion about the breaking of taboos, such as seeing tarians, startle more easily, and react more strongly to bad two men kiss, the feelings are checked by reminders that smells and unpleasant images.23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28 Conservatives “They aren’t hurting anyone.” are therefore more sensitive to the discomfort of uncer- The real difference between liberal virtue and conser- tainty and cognitive dissonance and work harder to avoid vative virtue then is why and how the two tribes come to it.29 Sensitivity to the two liberal moral intuitions, care and moral conclusions. Conservatives believe that moral intu- fairness, is correlated with larger volumes in the PFC, while itions are self-justifying. Liberals believe that reason needs sensitivity to conservative moral intuitions, deference to to interrogate our intuitions. This leads liberals to be more authority, in-group loyalty, and purity/sanctity, is correlated tolerant and humble in their moral and political claims, a with larger volumes in the emotive limbic system.30 When cautiousness and diffidence that conservatives interpret as the influence of the PFC over the amygdala is reduced by weakness and uncertainty.

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 45 Intelligence, Personality, and Ideology dercut cognitive bias in ways that conservative psychology In 2010, the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa does not. Liberals are far more invested in the project of published an article provocatively titled “Why Liberals and a deliberative democracy guided by science and rational Atheists Are More Intelligent.” Kanazawa reviewed the discussion. large body of evidence that correlates intelligence with Haidt has drawn a very different conclusion from the atheism37 and political liberalism38, 39 and proposed the differences between liberals and conservatives, however. “Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis.”40 The theory starts To Haidt, liberals are deaf to important conservative moral with the observation that human brains first evolved in the intuitions that they should work harder to appreciate. This African savanna between 2.5 million and 130,000 years is a version of the “naturalistic fallacy,” the idea that some- ago. Then, as we faced environmental challenges and thing is right because it exists. The root of liberal deafness started migrating around the globe, we had to evolve new to conservative moral intuitions is not because liberals lack cognitive abilities to deal with novel situations. This flexible a cognitive faculty but because, in general, they are better form of learning and problem-solving is the basis of general at exercising their cognitive faculties. intelligence, which then allowed us to invent tools, agricul- The enhancement of fairness, moral reasoning, and the ture, and civilization. Individuals and groups with more of “liberal virtues” is, therefore, part of the larger project of this ability are more open to novel experiences, more toler- cognitive enhancement, focused on becoming increasingly ant of ambiguity and complexity, and more open to novel aware of and independent of one’s own cognitive biases. ways of thinking, such as atheism and liberalism. Fairness is a liberal virtue rooted in instinctive aversion Earlier, I reviewed how the personality trait of openness to cheating and inequality but then filtered through pre- to novelty is partly genetic and correlated with intelligence. frontal cognition. Since the spread of Enlightenment values, It is also correlated with political liberalism.41 Across more fairness has grown in importance as a virtue, especially for liberals with stronger prefrontal cortices and weaker amyg- dalas. Fairness finds less support among conservatives, for whom respect for authority, in-group loyalty, and disgust/ sanctity are more neurologically salient. What impact do social policy and individual practices have on the influence “People with larger, more active, and of fairness and cognitive biases? better-connected prefrontal cortices Building a Fairer Society are better able to filter and channel Education. Much of the spread of the liberal virtues of tol- erance, antiauthoritarianism, egalitarianism, and secularism the hot moral intuitions … bubbling up can be attributed to rising levels of education, which both from our amygdalas.” spreads those norms and strengthens the prefrontal cog- nitive faculties and habits of reflection that enable them. For instance, educational level is the strongest predictor of Americans’ tolerance of sexual and racial minorities and general liberalism45, 46 and of Europeans’ acceptance of than seventy studies of personality and politics reviewed by immigrants.47 Education is also a predictor of endorsement Sibley and Duckitt, people who scored higher on openness of fairness and caring moral intuitions. In an analysis of to experience were less right-wing, racially prejudiced, and almost sixty thousand people who had taken the Haidt et authoritarian.42 Just as the variations in serotonin genes al. Moral Foundations Questionnaire, Leeuwen, Koenig, may partly explain why some populations are happier, Graham, and Park found that people with more education geographic variations in the genetic settings for personality were more likely to endorse the caring and fairness moral may be influencing the politics of countries and American intuitions.48 states. Using personality data for six hundred thousand Class and social equality. The structure of society, and Americans, a group at the University of Illinois found that our position within it, also has a powerful effect on the way the liberalism of a state was strongly related to its citizens’ we view morality and fairness. People not only become level of openness to experience.43 more tolerant as they are exposed to higher education but Liberals are not without their own cognitive biases, of also as they become more financially secure49 in more equal course, and there are intelligent conservatives and stupid societies.50 Citizens of more equal societies generally are liberals. Both liberals and conservatives are prone to tune also more supportive of redistributive policies; acceptance out information that doesn’t fit with their worldviews.44 But of social inequality is both a cause and an effect of actual the biases of liberals and conservatives are not symmetrical. social inequality.51, 52 On the other hand, the affluent—in- The psychological factors that tend toward liberalism un- fluenced by their vested interest in society—are generally

46 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

less supportive of egalitarian redistribution than the poor.53 These methods work by changing the emotional va- So the natural political polarization on class lines is in lence of the stigmas bubbling up from the amygdala. An- between an egalitarian but racial-nationalist, moralistic, and other approach, however, is to slow down those reactions authoritarian working class and tolerant and cosmopolitan and give the prefrontal cortex a chance to intercept and but inegalitarian middle and upper classes.54 There is less reject the biases. There is evidence, in fact, that people with of this moral polarization in more equal countries, however; stronger executive function exhibit less implicit bias.60, 61 By the relatively equal Finns and Danes have higher moral shining a light of awareness on our biased sentiments, we consensus around the importance of an equal and tolerant can develop our moral muscles.62 society than the relatively unequal Britons and Swiss.55 In other words, social inequality and social class distort the impact of liberal virtues on moral cognition, especially by weakening the egalitarian moral intuitions of educated and “Conservatives have larger affluent cosmopolitans, while liberal virtues are expressed more consistently and broadly in more equal societies. and twitchier amygdalas than

Training to Reduce Implicit Racial Bias liberals and libertarians, startle more One especially timely application of fairness enhancement easily, and react more strongly to is the attempt to reduce implicit racial biases in policing, bad smells and unpleasant images.” spurred by the disproportionate killing of black men by American police. But evidence for the ubiquity of uncon- scious biases about race, gender, and all kinds of things has been accumulating for sixty years, since a study of racialized attitudes toward dolls helped convince the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education. The most common tool used to test for implicit One study that demonstrated the effects of bias aware- racial bias today is the Harvard Implicit Association Test ness looked at the calls made by National Basketball As- (IAT). The IAT asks subjects to rapidly match positive and sociation (NBA) referees before and after a major report negative words on a computer screen with white or black on referee racial bias was published. The report showed faces. More rapidly associating positive words with white that referees were more likely to call personal fouls against faces and negative words with black faces (and vice versa) basketball players who were of a different race than the ref- is a measure of unconscious racial bias, which is often at eree.63 The report was released in May 2007 and received a odds with the professed values of the subject. The test finds lot of attention in basketball circles. When the team looked unconscious negative associations with black faces in both for the same patterns after the report had been published, white and black subjects. however, they had disappeared.64 The referees, along with Many strategies for reducing biases have been at- society, had examined their behavior and overcome their tempted, but only now are we systematically evaluating unconscious biases. their efficacy. As with the rethinking of psychotherapeutic approaches to trauma, which has discovered that some Practicing Mindfulness of Biases forms of talk therapy reinforce rather than dampen trauma, Would the same effect have been achieved if only the refer- research on antiracism programs has found that some can ees had become aware of their racial biases and not society actually cause resentment and reinforce racial antago- as well? One suggestive study found that bilingual people nism.56 Some of the most effective interventions turn out not to be discussions of racism or the importance of fairness make more utilitarian decisions in the trolley dilemma when but rather exercises that bind positive associations with they use the less-used language; having to think harder stigmatized groups, such as reading about the heroism of slows down the instinctive reaction of amygdala to reject 65 black soldiers, using a black avatar in a video game,57 or pushing the fat man. There is also evidence accumulating imagining oneself being rescued by a black firefighter.58 that mindfulness meditation can dampen biases, such as Loving-kindness meditation, which explicitly works on asso- ageism and racism,66 change political cognition, and actu- ciating positive emotions with people one doesn’t like, has ally shrink the size of the amygdala.67 also been found to be effective in reducing implicit racial In 2013, geneticist James Fowler and some colleagues bias. In one controlled trial that compared whites randomly recruited 139 people for an experiment on the effect of assigned to practice loving-kindness meditation, talk about mindfulness on political opinion. The participants were loving-kindness, or do nothing, the loving-kindness medita- told they would be shown some disgusting images and tors saw significant declines in implicit racism.59 assigned to one of three groups. The first group was given

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 47 this instruction to mindfully reappraise feelings of disgust: Fairness Reminders and Ethical Assistance Software As you view the images, please try to adopt a detached In a sense, we have used exocortical aids to improve moral and unemotional attitude. Or, you could think about the decision-making since the beginning of civilization, in the positive aspect of what you are seeing. Please try to think form of amulets, tattoos, clothing, and haircuts designed about what you are seeing objectively, watch all images to remind us and our community of moral commitments. carefully, but please try to think about what you are seeing Today the moral exocortex has expanded to include “What in such a way that you feel less negative emotion. Would Jesus Do?” bracelets and electronic Bible and A second group was instructed to suppress feelings of Qur’an apps. But many secular digital aids are also emerg- disgust: ing. The New York State Bar Association, for instance, has created an app that gives users access to more than nine As you view the images, if you have any feelings, please try your best not to let those feelings show. Watch all images hundred decisions of its Professional Ethics Committee on carefully, but try to behave so that someone watching you issues confronting judges and attorneys. The Moral Com- would not know that you are feeling anything at all. pass app provides a flowchart of moral decision-making questions, and the SeeSaw app allows users to query other The third group was given no instruction. Then the three users about which action they should take in a situation. groups were shown images of things such as cockroaches Secular ethics assistants will also likely emerge from the and dirty toilets and asked to fill out the Moral Foundations efforts to design “moral machines” and ethical artificial Questionnaire that Haidt developed to test moral intu- intelligence (AI). Some of this work is being done in order itions. The mindful reappraisal group was significantly less to provide onboard rules of engagement for autonomous disgusted and was significantly less likely to express moral battlefield robots, but there are moral decision applica- purity concerns on the Moral Foundations questions. tions being thought about for robots in many occupations, including industry, transportation, and medicine. Should your autonomous car drive you into the river to prevent killing five others?68 How should a robotic home caregiver react when a demented patient refuses to bathe, eat, or take medication?69 The effort to codify and balance all the factual and value considerations involved in messy, human moral decision-making will be very complicated and result in multiple possible morality settings, since there is wide “The real difference between moral variability in humans. As Wendell Wallach and Colin liberal virtue and conservative virtue Allen have argued, the full replication of recognizable human moral decision-making in machines will probably then is why and how the two tribes require both human-level cognitive abilities and the pro- come to moral conclusions.” gram of character development and moral reasoning that produces mature morality in humans. Eventually, as these morality AIs become more sophis- ticated and woven into our environment and exocortices and then tied directly to our brains, they will become a seamless part of our own cognition, allowing us to choose consciously to achieve levels of moral consistency that are Next, the researchers recruited 119 people and first currently impossible for most.70 asked them to answer political questions. Then they wired But what if our inner AI angel reminders aren’t as loud them to track their heart rates and asked them a series of as the persistent voice of our hind brain devils? Are there questions to measure their sensitivity to disgust, such as ways that we can affect the way our brain works to whether they would touch a dead body. Then the subjects strengthen the hand of fairness and moral cognition? were randomly assigned to the three groups—reappraisal, suppression, and no instruction—and shown disgusting im- Notes ages. The mindful reappraisers’ heart rates did not respond 1. D. Proctor, S. F. Brosnan, and F. B. M. de Waal, “How Fairly Do to the images, while the other two groups’ hearts did. Chimpanzees Play the Ultimatum Game?” Communicative & Integrative Biology 6, No. 3 (2013): e23819. Then they were tested on moral intuitions and policy views. 2. D. Proctor, R. A. Williamson. F. B. M. de Waal. and S. F. Brosnan, Disgust-prone subjects remained more conservative in the “Chimpanzees Play the Ultimatum Game,” PNAS 110, No. 6 (2013): suppression and no-instruction groups. But for the mindful 2070–2075. 3. S. Sloane, R. Baillargeon, and D. Premack, “Do Infants Have a Sense reappraisers, disgust sensitivity no longer was related to of Fairness?” Psychological Science 23, No. 2 (2012): 196–204. adopting moral and politically conservative views. 4. P. Bloom, Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil (New York:

48 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org ISSUES IN TECHNOLOGY AND ETHICS

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The Case of Attitude Heritability,” Social Psychological and Conservatism,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 38, No. 6 (2011): Personality Science 3, No. (2012): 172–79 808–20. 8. R. Iyer, S. Koleva, J. Graham, P. Ditto, and J. Haidt, “Understanding 33. S. Schnall, J. Benton, and S. Harvey, “With a Clean Conscience: Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Cleanliness Reduces the Severity of Moral Judgments,” Psychological Libertarians,” PLOS ONE 7, No. 8 (2012): e42366. Science 2008. 9. S. P. Koleva, J. Graham, R. Iyer, P. H. Ditto, and J. Haidt, “Tracing the 34. T. G. Adams, P. A. Stewart, and J. C. Blanchar, “Disgust and the Threads: How Five Moral Concerns (Especially Purity) Help Explain Culture Politics of Sex: Exposure to a Disgusting Odorant Increases Politically War Attitudes,” Journal of Research in Personality 46 (2012): 184–94. Conservative Views on Sex and Decreases Support for Gay Marriage,” 10. T. 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Milligan, “Economic Inequality, Poverty, and Tolerance: Evidence 27. R. Kanai, “Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure from 22 Countries,” Comparative Sociology 11, No. 4 (2012): 594–619. in Young Adults,” Current Biology 21, No. 8 (2011): 677–80. 28. E. G. Helzer and D. A. Pizarro, “Dirty Liberals! Reminders of Physical 51. W. R. Kerr, “Income Inequality and Social Preferences for Cleanliness Influence Moral and Political Attitudes,” Psychological Science Redistribution and Compensation Differentials,” Journal of Monetary 22, No. 4 (2011): 517–22. Economics 66 (2014): 62–78. 29. H. H. Nam, J. T. Jost, and J. J. Van Bavel, “Not for All the Tea 52. K. S. Trump, “The Status Quo and Perceptions of Fairness: How in China!’ Political Ideology and the Avoidance of Dissonance-Arousing Income Inequality Influences Public Opinion,” dissertation submitted to the Situations,” PLOS ONE 8, No. 4 (2013): e59837. Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 2012.

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 49 53. R. Andersen and M. Yaish, “Public Opinion on Income Inequality in 20 Democracies: The Enduring Impact of Social Class and Available Now: Digital-Only Subscriptions to Economic Inequality,” AIAS GINI Discussion Paper 48, 2012. 54. P. Flavin, “Differences in Income, Policy Preferences, and Priorities in American Public Opinion,” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National Conference, 2009; available at http://citation.allacademic. com/meta/p362665_index.htm. 55. J. Kulin and S. Svallfor, “Class, Values, and Attitudes Towards (See back cover for details.) Redistribution: A European Comparison,” European Sociology Review 29, No. 2 (2013): 155–67. 56. C. A. Moss-Racusin et al., “Scientific Diversity Interventions,” Science 343, No. 7 (2014): 615–16. YES! I’d like to give _____ digital gift subscription(s) to FREE INQUIRY! 57. T. C. Peck et al., “Putting Yourself in the skin of a Black Avatar Reduces Implicit Racial Bias,” Consciousness and Cognition 22, No. 3 Your name ______(2013): 779–87. Your FI subscriber account number ______58. C. K. Lai et al., “Reducing Implicit Racial Preferences: I. A Subscribers: Your account number is printed above your name on this back cover. Comparative Investigation of 17 Interventions,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143, No. 4 (2014): 1765–1785. Your address ______59. Y. Kang, J. R. Gray, and J. F. Dovidio, “The Nondiscriminating Heart: Lovingkindness Meditation Training Decreases Implicit Your city/state/ZIP ______Intergroup Bias,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143, Your e-mail (required) ______No. 3 (2014): 1306–1313. 60. B. J. Diamond et al., “Implicit Bias, Executive Control and  I wish to make this gift anonymously. Information Processing Speed,” Journal of Cognition and Culture 12, No. 3–4 (2012): 183–93. Credit card # ______61. T. A. Ito et al., “Toward a Comprehensive Understanding of Executive Cognitive Function in Implicit Racial Bias,” Journal of Exp. ______/ ______Code______Personality and Social Psychology 108, No. 2 (2015): 187–218. 62. C. A. Fitzgerald, “A Neglected Aspect of Conscience: Signature(s) ______Awareness of Implicit Attitudes,” Bioethics 28, No. 1 (2014): 0269–9702. Recipient #1 63. J. Price and J. Wolfers, “Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 125, No. 4 (2010): Subscription term  1 year, $18.95  2 years, $32.95  3 years, $44.95 1859–1887. Recipient 1 name______64. D. G. Pope, J. Price, and J. Wolfers, “Awareness Reduces Racial Bias,” NBER Working Paper, 2013; available at http://www. Recipient 1 address ______nber.org/papers/w19765. Recipient 1 city/state/ZIP:______65. A. Costa et al., “Your Morals Depend on Language,” PLOS ONE 9, No. 4 (2014): e94842. Recipient 1 country, if not U.S. ______66. A. Lueke and B. Gibson, “Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Recipient 1 e-mail (required) ______Implicit Age and Race Bias: The Role of Reduced Automaticity of Responding,” Social Psychological and Personality Science 2014: 1–8. 67. B. K. Holzel et al., “Stress Reduction Correlates with Structural Recipient #2 Changes in the Amygdala,” SCAN 5 (2010): 11–17. Subscription term 1 year, $18.95 2 years, $32.95 3 years, $44.95 68. N. J. Goodall, “Machine Ethics and Automated Vehicles,” in    Road Vehicle Automation, eds. G. Meyer and S. Beiker (New York: Recipient 2 name ______Springer, 2014), 93–102. Recipient 2 address ______69. P. Lin, K. Abney, and G. A. Bekey, Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, Recipient 2 city/state/ZIP: ______2011). Recipient 2 country, if not U.S.:______70. J. Savulescu and H. Maslen, “Moral Enhancement and Artificial Intelligence: Moral AI?” in Beyond Artificial Intelligence, Recipient 2 e-mail: (required) ______eds.J. Romportl et al. (New York: Springer, 2015), 79–95. For additional recipients, please attach another sheet. This article is adapted with permission from Ethical Technology­ , February 14, 2015. Total for all gift subscriptions $ ______

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50 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org Is the Unthinkable the New Acceptable?

Peter Boghossian and James A. Lindsay

hould slavery have ended? right and confuse the meaning of the term. They also were Questioning whether slavery should have ended enormously influential in Trump’s election. Ssurpasses being shocking. It goes so far beyond being For both the alt-right proper and their orbiting nebula impolitic to think it, much less ask it aloud—or, much worse, of muckrakers, open flirtation with white nationalism and put in print—that one simply cannot avoid the sickening outright racism, on the one hand—and a certain Pyrrhic feeling of basking in tar that comes even with having just “conservatism,” on the other—situates much of what they read it. Surely, the answer to this of all questions is so obvi- have to say well outside of until-now acceptable political ous it needn’t be asked. Surely slavery should have ended, discourse. How could they have risen to such prominence just as surely thinking otherwise is abhorrent. that alt-right has become a buzzword, and their preferred Political scientist Joe Overton (1960–2003), who served candidate—who is manifestly unfit for the office of the as vice president for the free-market Mackinac Center for presidency for reasons going well beyond his unwillingness Public Policy think tank, gave us insight into our feelings to repudiate the alt-right’s extreme views—have won the about moral questions such as this. He defined the nor- presidency and then named Bannon his chief strategist? mative “window of discourse” on an issue as the socially Something happened to the Overton Window. It has, in acceptable range of public opinions. Overton observed fact, broken. The broader acceptance of the alt-right rep- that the possible positions on an issue range from the un- resents a kind of right-wing radicalism that could not have thinkable to the radical to the acceptable to the sensible to gained conservative-chic until fairly recently (owing strongly the popular, with this gradation appearing on both sides of to the deleterious impact of heavily biased right-wing the political spectrum (see graphic on right). Those ideas television media such as Fox News, web publications such ranging from unacceptable to acceptable fall within the as Breitbart News, and right-wing “talk-back” radio). The conceptual window that now bears Overton’s name. For easiest explanation for their rise is that the Window slipped example, slavery falls so far to the right of today’s Overton right, but this explanation is facile. More than half the coun- Window that “unthinkable” barely seems to cover it. Just try rejects the alt-right for views they find patently unac- raising the question goes beyond the unthinkable into the ceptable (such as “culture reprehensible—a fact in which we could all take comfort is inseparable from race” until the recent rise of the “alt-right” and its flirtation with and “some degree of MORE FREEDOM white nationalism. How did this happen? separation between peo- ples is necessary”). Only The ‘Alt-Right’ and the Fracturing of the Overton Window Unthinkable a complete fracturing of Radical “Alt-right” is an abbreviation for “alternative right.” It grew the Overton Window’s Acceptable out of the hard-line racial supremacist vision of Richard glass could have enabled Sensible Spencer and carries a constituency that Hillary Clinton the rise and flourish of the Popular wasn’t entirely incorrect in calling a “basket of deplorables” alt-right. The last ham- OVERTON Policy (however ill-advised that statement proved to be). The mer-fall that broke the WINDOW views of the alt-right lie distinctly outside of what we have glass came from social Popular come to accept as the boundaries of the Overton Window. media. Sensible They have also gained a remarkable frisson of cool among What caught the world Acceptable largely well-meaning activists who have become reaction- and its pundits com- Radical ary against political correctness, especially as it emanates pletely off guard about Unthinkable from college campuses. This far-larger group of rebels, Donald J. Trump’s cam- projected significantly from Steve Bannon’s media platform paign success is his sheer Breitbart News Network, are easily conflated with the alt- number of utterly disqual- LESS FREEDOM

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 51 ifying pronouncements. In previous campaigns—and in verse, dared creep out, people would denounce it swiftly Clinton’s countercampaign—such blunders would be suf- and viciously. More than that, our institutions—media, em- ficient to end a nominee’s presidential aspirations. Trump’s ployers, government establishment, and academia—would disqualifying offenses, however, deviate by an order of have backed the denunciation to the hilt. There was no way magnitude from ordinary gaffes (to name one, Trump sug- around those institutional voices, and that set of restrictions gested torturing the families of suspected terrorists), and is the very substance of the Overton Window. his base loved him for them. Our sense of decency, which Social media is different. By enabling like-minded moral is also identical to our view through the Overton Window, and ideological groups to find each other and fashion their turns out to have been missing something crucial about own media microcosms, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and political reality. Trump’s indecency had become normative anonymous community forums such as 4chan shattered the to a wide part of the population, and our view through the glass. Like some kind of horrific sociological kaleidoscope, glass prevented us from seeing it. every balkanized group can now take up its own fragment of Overton’s glass and define for itself what makes an opinion acceptable. That means the Window is made not of opinions but of ways we communicate with one another. The opinions those channels of communication permit are “The views of the alt-right lie the view through the glass. distinctly outside of what we have Much of Trump’s pronouncements and actions fell well outside the acceptable, and a shocking quantity of them come to accept as the boundaries fell into the unthinkable. (“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope of the Overton Window.” you’re able to find the thirty thousand e-mails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”) So has much of Trump’s speech independent of his campaign rhetoric. (“I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”) What few of us The Overton Window, recall, represents the set of realized, however obvious it seems in hindsight, is that acceptable political positions and opinions, and Trump’s social media had shattered the Window and scattered the rhetoric and behavior was completely out of line with pieces. Social media democratized information sharing and what we had come to take for granted. Less than a week consumption until the institutional voices became irrele- after the election, writer Damien Owens tweeted a now vant—except as fodder for conspiracy theorists to circulate almost-iconic image of Trump mocking a disabled reporter in their own bubbles. Worse, this is the new normal, and (apparently for his disability) with the phrase, “As long as I finding our reflection in this looking glass is among our live, I will never understand how this alone wasn’t the end most pressing challenges. of it.” Owens was giving us a glimpse through the pre- Social media, for the present and at least the near future, vailing Overton Window, and, despite strong denials that promises that we cannot rely upon a single overarching Trump’s mockery specifically targeted the reporter for his Overton Window that defines the boundaries of political disability, that particular view was sufficiently common to discourse. One result is that we cannot rely upon making earn Owens more than a hundred thousand retweets in a progress by incrementally inching along in one direction or span of a few days. The world hadn’t (and still hasn’t) fully the other. Different groups—as diverse as Black Lives Mat- realized that the Window had been shattered, and the Left, ter, creationists, or the Taiwan independence movement— to speak broadly, is still standing there holding its piece and have their own Windows to look through, and movement in looking through it, dumbstruck and reeling. any one of these implies little about the movements of the others. Our strategies going forward must appreciate this The Frame new aspect of our political reality. The Overton Window presents as a kind of quasi-consen- The alt-right, which had hidden in the unthinkable closet sus among a populace about what is and isn’t acceptable, for at least two generations, took a piece of Overton’s glass radical, fringe, or unthinkable. It’s tempting to think of it as roughly in proportion to its size as a marginalized identity being formed by some kind of averaging of opinion, but group (of which it may be among the largest) and its resent- it is, in fact, formed by access to delivering a message. ment (which is nearly without peer except, possibly, in its It’s framed by the ways we socially police what is and isn’t mirror image on the relentlessly anti-systemic-racist social acceptable to voice. justice Left). For a variety of reasons, with exasperation over This feature of the Overton Window allows us to explain political correctness among them, their contingent proved an apparent paradox. We have believed that our society large enough to seriously threaten decades of leftward was progressing inch by inch toward becoming post-ra- movement of the Overton Window by winning one of the cial, despite knowing fully that closeted racism festered most significant elections in modern history. The result is throughout much of the nation. Society was so structured that we now face at least two competing and mutually that if racism, “acceptable” only within a cloistered uni- incompatible definitions of what is considered acceptable

52 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org political discourse. That is, the culture war has gone from movements as examples. Some grumbling conservatives cold to hot, and the opposing armies look through extraor- have put up opposition as the Window slid away from dinarily different lenses at the battlefield, America’s moral protecting their time-honored institutions such as slavery, landscape. men’s-only voting, company towns, segregation, and the Former President Barack Obama—along with many big gay closet. In the words of David French, writing for the of those who voted for Clinton, who outnumber Trump’s National Review in December 2015, “The leftward pressure despite the Electoral College results—has been quick to on the Overton Window has been relentless, with con- remind us that we’re still the same nation that we were be- servatives reduced to applying herculean effort to simply fore the election, and that nation is the one that has been maintain the cultural and political status quo.” dragging the Overton Window cautiously but steadily left- That French recognized the effort to stay the Overton ward for most of its history. That history tells us much about Window as “herculean” should have been a clearer warn- the nature of moral progress and allows us to unravel why ing than it was. It immediately should have reminded us it broke in the first place, not merely laying blame at the about the whispered voices that we all knew kept them- feet of a technological advancement that has become as selves just out of earshot of polite society. These are ones essential as it is irrevocable. that test the waters with racist jokes that are played off as mere humor in front of unsympathetic audiences. They are Before the Glass Shattered people who still refer to the American Civil War as the “War The Overton Window is a rather atypical political abstrac- of Northern Aggression.” They are people who have felt an tion in that it carries with it some sense of wide-ranging increasingly urgent pressure that society’s general leftward consensus about its movements. Commentators on the drift is leaving them behind. There have been people ach- left, such as Peter Beinart and Charles Blow, and critics on ing for a way to crack the glass to ease the strain. the right, such as David French and Rory Sutherland, have observed that the Overton Window has historically drifted to the left on many social, political, and economic issues. In many regards, the right has come left—and not always kicking and screaming. Even as many Americans maintain “Only a complete fracturing of their love affair with contemporary fiscal conservatism and the Overton Window’s glass could minimal government, they are showing a marked tendency have enabled the rise and flourish of to slide leftward socially (same-sex marriage and adoption rights, marijuana legalization, gender identity and bath- the alt-right. The last hammer-fall rooms, women in combat, marital rape). This combination that broke the glass came from of attitudes has ushered in a new enthusiasm for Ameri- social media.” can-style political libertarianism. If we look at the previous century or two, most people would agree that these leftward shifts have been largely for the good; most of us wouldn’t go back even if we could. Economically, we rejected slavery, caveat emptor, and the The Moral Arc: The Liberals’ Fragment of Overton’s Glass crushing working conditions of the early Industrial Revo- But back to our opening question: Isn’t it obvious that lution and replaced them with emancipation, a forty-hour slavery should have ended? Of course it is, because slavery workweek, and litanies of workers’ rights. Socially, we’ve is a morally reprehensible practice that must be brutally rejected bigotry and religious favoritism and replaced them enforced and robs the liberty, livelihood, and humanity of with pluralism and secularism. Politically, we’ve effectively many to favor the economic gain of a few. No great cosmic done away with monarchies, frowned upon dictators, and truth had to change in order to realize the moral imperative championed classically liberal constitutional democracies of abolition. On the contrary, few moral questions have equipped with progressive social-insurance programs. So been easier to resolve. It required little more than our ev- much of our contemporary society is appalled by recent er-improving recognition of the realities of human flourish- attacks on the Voting Rights Act, purposeful attempts to ing and, thus, the necessity of reducing unnecessary human disenfranchise minority voters, and the application of re- suffering (propelled in part by technological progress that ligious-liberty protections to rationalize bigotry that one enhanced productivity and reduced exploitation of human can’t help but see how far we’ve come from Dred Scott capital). In other words, the Overton Window slid to the left and Jim Crow. The movement has been leftward, and it of slavery as we encountered philosophical and technolog- exemplifies what we mean by social and political progress. ical conditions that allowed us to recognize greater moral Excitable progressives use this leftward movement of depth. On the issue of slavery, a leftward movement of the the Overton Window to rally their charges. The Window, in Overton Window definitively amounts to moral progress. their view, only moves by people stepping outside of it and Other considerable, if less blatant, moral improvements dragging it to the left. They cite abolitionists, suffragettes, have also followed leftward movements of the Overton and giants of the civil-rights, labor-rights, and gay-rights Windows. We are better off because feudalism is obsolete.

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 53 Constitutional democracy is, to paraphrase Churchill, the Pinker (2011), carry the themes that history marks a clear best/worst form of government we’ve devised. The recog- arc toward the more moral and that much of this progress nition and expansion of universal human rights raised the rode on the back of scientific development. The use of the standard of living for a vast proportion of citizens in the word progress to describe the successes of science and West by enabling access to the once-revolutionary dream technology should be completely uncontroversial, and the of unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- same can be said of the moral advances they enabled. Sci- piness. (Students of history will recognize that we derive our ence, however, progresses by asking questions and teasing modern cultural and political connotations of “right” and out the answers, not by making demands, and technology “left” from these ideals. When they were taken up by the enables progress by providing greater freedom, not by French Revolution, following the American example from a restricting it. As the Left grew more comfortable and confi- decade earlier, the revolutionaries stood to the left of the dent in its progress, it lost sight of these fundamental truths. president of the National Assembly, while supporters of Louis XVI took to the right.) In the modern era, social safety Moving Leftward Isn’t Identical to Progress nets attached to successful capitalist economies alleviated Progress has proved nearly synonymous with a leftward more poverty and unnecessary human suffering than any movement of the Overton Window, but let progressive other effort in history. The cultural and political status quo cheers be tempered to sobriety by one word: nearly. Mov- could be maintained only by herculean effort because most ing our views ever leftward is not a workable definition of people didn’t want it (though clearly, some people do, and progress, and not only because it is banal in its ideological perhaps there are more than our look through the glass lets charge. There is, for example, such a thing as being too far us think). to the left, as the devastating excesses of twentieth-century political experimentation proved at the cost of unfathom- able numbers of human lives. State socialism cannot be esteemed by any reasonable metric to be better than feu- dalism or the abuses of its Gilded-Age corporate clone, and “Social media democratized Trotskyism may actually be worse. The Right, including the alt-right, has not forgotten these abuses, even though their information sharing and consumption own misconduct is similar. until the institutional voices became The abuses of the Left in the twentieth century are not irrelevant—except as fodder for limited to policies but also extend to greed in ambition. Progressive leftists, as a rule, tend to want their progress conspiracy theorists to circulate in yesterday, thank you very much, and see anything short of their own bubbles. Worse, this is that as an abject moral failure. To wit, only progressives dare the new normal, and finding our the anachronistic arrogance of judging the past—seeing Thomas Jefferson, for example, purely through the lens of reflection in this looking glass is his slave ownership—and they dare it incessantly. To return among our most pressing challenges.” to that telling word, that French called the Right’s effort to maintain the status quo “herculean” suggests at least that the Window may be moving too quickly, even if it is headed in the proper direction. Isn’t it obvious? The greatest political triumphs of The Right has also, apparently, had enough of an ev- human history—democracy, classical liberalism, the aboli- er-harder tug to the left from emboldened Obama-era tion of slavery, women’s suffrage and social equality, social progressives. Three years ago, for instance, hardly any safety nets paid for by progressive tax structures, utilities, Americans seriously thought about transgendered people; the emergence of the middle class protected by consumer now their rights define one of the most heated sociopolitical protection and labor laws, global humanitarianism, and battlegrounds. One impact of this progressive voracious- universal human rights—share two consistent themes: clear ness has been accelerating partisan polarization, which is moral progress and a leftward movement of the Overton currently rampant, and the nation’s loss of the benefits of Window. What we rightfully call “progress” has been nearly governmental teamwork has already nearly been disastrous. synonymous throughout human history with a leftward mi- Rather than making the intellectually lazy mistake of gration of the Overton Window. equating progress with a steady leftward trend, we should It’s worth noting how we’ve progressed—and how we recognize that there is some variety of optimal configura- haven’t. Many of these advances have followed technolog- tions that define our political landscape. (Such a view is ical improvements that are the fruits of yet another leftward little more than a corollary to the widely missed theme of shift—science. Science replaced the pontification of insti- cognitive neuroscientist Sam Harris’s controversial 2010 tutionalized authority with the egalitarian and meritocratic book, The Moral Landscape.) Should the Overton Window system of demonstration by evidence. Two recent books, go too far left, that would be roughly the same kind of The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer (2015) and The Better error as letting it linger too far to the right, and most of Angels of Our Nature by cognitive psychologist Steven our political squabbling—when not about details, favors,

54 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org trivialities, and shows of tribal virtue—can be conceived of Perhaps it cannot be repaired, and our political discourse as an ongoing argument about the ideal form for Overton moving forward has to account for this new reality. A fun- Windows through which we examine the contours of polit- damental difficulty awaits, however, because people see ical topography. others holding opinions fully outside of their own Overton The view that society must forever “progress” should Windows as morally reprehensible and beyond discussion. be seen with as little ideological bias as we can muster. Social activism and political agendas must adjust accord- The only way that’s possible is to equip ourselves with a ingly, because it seems that old tactics for moving public sensible appreciation of what it means to get somewhere attitudes one way or the other merely move divided groups worth going in our moral landscape. In a sermon at the further apart from one another, and further from conversa- Temple Israel of Hollywood on February 25, 1965, echoing tion, cooperation, and compromise. The difficult question a sentiment of the abolitionist Theodore Parker from 1853, that remains is how we should deal with those who refuse Martin Luther King Jr. noted, as he often did, that “The arc to embrace these core civic virtues, whatever their political of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” orientations. We certainly cannot continue to cheat the The justice King spoke of was certainly to the left of the Right by branding them yesterday’s trash, too deplorable society to which he preached, but justice makes for a better to sit down at the Adult Table. target than marching blindly ever leftward. Justice, to King, Whatever we do, it must be done even under these new surely included liberties that both the Left and the Right conditions that fractured it in the first place—social-media hold dear, including the freedom for all people to act upon dominance as a means of disseminating information. But their talents, pursue their dreams, and engage with the there is reason for hope. It has been done before, following economy unimpeded. Thus, determining what makes a just other advances that democratized information: the printing society is remarkably difficult. At a minimum, however, the press, newspaper, radio, and television among them. Each kind of justice King called for must be based upon Enlight- of these steps caused upheaval—such as the Protestant enment values such as impartial treatment by institutions Reformation—and ultimately centered the Window a bit and a fair distribution of the benefits of society, together further along its zigzagging path toward justice. Our pres- with greater measures of freedom and opportunity. Achiev- ent zag from the course, fueled by right-wing cable, talk ing these standards often requires leftward movements of radio, and social media, may well prove to have the same cultural and political attitudes, but it also means rejecting effect over time. ambitions of the Left that reverse the roles of impartiality and fairness. The Last Appeal: Open Discourse If progress is defined as a general leftward trend, we’ll We do not yet have an inerrant means for determining be sure to overshoot the goal eventually, and on the way what is moral. In that lack lies uncertainty, but we are not we’ll disable the critical conversations and compromises left in ignorance. The moral arc does bend toward justice, that define productive political discourse in a successful de- because human beings are—despite any amount of cyn- mocracy. Indeed, the quip that “reality has a liberal bias,” icism—good at learning from mistakes. Even raising the which originally rolled off Stephen Colbert’s lips after dodg- question of whether slavery should have ended is genu- ing the tongue in his cheek, is more likely to initiate conflict inely reprehensible, and we should all be glad to live in a than cooperation. In any just society, a cooperative polit- more just, more egalitarian society thanks to that tectonic ical environment in which we address our societal needs leftward shift. through the profitable but messy give-and-take of mutually The implication is that we can determine and agree beneficial compromise must be a top priority. This state of upon some moral truths; we do have a functioning method affairs is only possible when one’s political opponents can for determining whose glass gives a clearer view and whose be viewed as sharing the same range of acceptable opin- is distorted. Slavery was considered fully acceptable for ions—that is, through the same Overton Window. centuries, when human moral understanding was distorted History has proved this analysis overly simplistic, how- for reasons that we clearly understand now. The method for ever, by revealing that we do not have just one Overton progress is open discourse, and as long as we maintain Window through whose movements we can define progress channels of civil dialogue that put a premium on honesty, or regress. The recent election of Trump to the presidency listening, and compromise, we can continue to bend the of the United States and the successful “Brexit” referendum moral arc toward justice. If we commit ourselves, we can in the United Kingdom force us to look more deeply at the maintain the moral trajectory even as we deal with our realities of our new à la carte media environment. We have newly shattered Overton Window. changed how we connect and communicate, and so we’ve entered a new era that demands new strategies. Until very recently, there was little reason to question the underlying structure of the Overton Window, but in Peter Boghossian is an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University this new age of hyper-democratized information exchange, and an affiliated faculty member at Oregon Health Science University in the Division the Overton Window needs new consideration. Perhaps of General Internal Medicine. James A. Lindsay holds a PhD in mathematics and is we need to repair it before we hope to rely upon its view the author of four books, including Life in Light of Death and Everybody Is Wrong for moral clarity and the future movements of our society. About God (Pitchstone, 2016 and 2015).

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 55 The Brain Science of Political Deception and the 2016 Election

Gleb Tsipursky

ow did Donald J. Trump win the U.S. presidency These findings are similar to those of other prominent despite his many misleading statements and outright news media and fact-check outlets, yet according to an Hdeceptions? Couldn’t people see through them? As ABC News/Washington Post poll, most voters on the eve an expert in brain science, I want to share why his followers of the election perceived Trump as more trustworthy than fell for his lies and what can be done to address this phe- Clinton. This false perception came because the Trump nomenon in the future. campaign built on previous Republican criticism of Clinton, First, let’s get our facts straight. On November 9, the much of it misleading but some of it accurate, that success- day after the election, Politifact.com, a well-known non-par- fully manipulated many voters into believing that Clinton tisan website, rated only about 4 percent of candidate was less honest than Trump, in spite of evidence to the Trump’s statements as fully “True” but over 50 percent as contrary. The Trump campaign did so through the illusory either completely “False” or “Pants on Fire”—ridiculously­ truth effect, a thinking error that occurs when false state- false. The rest fell in the middle. By comparison, 25 percent ments are repeated many times and we begin to see them of Hillary Clinton’s statements were rated as fully “True” and as true. In other words, just because something is stated only 12 percent as either “False” or “Pants on Fire.” several times, we perceive it as more accurate. The Washington Post, one of the most reputable news- You may have noticed the last two sentences in the papers in the country, wrote that “There’s never been a previous paragraph had the same meaning. The second presidential candidate like Donald Trump—someone so sentence didn’t provide any new information, but it did cavalier about the facts and so unwilling to ever admit error, cause you to believe my claim more than you did when you even in the face of overwhelming evidence.” In their rulings read the first sentence. on statements made by Trump, this paper’s editors gave 64 percent of them “Four Pinocchios,” their worst rating. By The Biology of Truth vs. Comfort contrast, statements by other politicians tend to get that Why should the human brain be structured so that mere worst of all ratings 10 to 20 percent of the time. repetition, without any added evidence, causes us to believe a claim more strongly? The more often we are ex- posed to a statement, the more comfortable we are with it. The fundamental error most people make is mistaking statements that make them feel comfortable for true state- ments. Our brains cause us to believe something is true be- cause we feel it is true, regardless of the evidence—a phe- nomenon known as “emotional reasoning.” This strange phenomenon can be easily explained if we understand some basic biology behind how our brains work. When we hear a statement, what first fires in the brain, in a few milliseconds, is our autopilot system of thinking. It is composed of our emotions and intuitions. Also known as “System 1,” the autopilot system is what the Nobel Prize-winning scientist Daniel Kahneman identified as one of two systems of thinking in his 2011 Thinking, Fast and Slow. It is the more ancient system of our brain. It protected

56 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org us in the ancestral environment against dangerous threats media. The Russian propaganda machine has also used such as saber-toothed tigers by making us feel badly about social media to manufacture fake news stories favorable to them and drew us toward what we needed to survive (food Trump and critical of Clinton, according to reports by the and shelter) by making us feel good about them. The hu- Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence mans who survived learned to heed the autopilot system’s Agency. guidance, and we are the children of these humans. Additionally, Trump’s attacks on mainstream media and Unfortunately, the autopilot system is not well-calibrated fact-checkers before the election—and even after the elec- for the modern environment. When we hear statements tion—undercut the credibility of news-source outlets. As a that go against our current beliefs, our autopilot system result, trust in the media among Republicans dropped to perceives them as threats and causes us to feel badly about an all-time low of 14 percent in a September 2016 Gallup them. By contrast, statements that align with our existing poll, a drop of over 200 percent from 2015. Fact-checking beliefs cause us to feel good, and we want to believe is even less credible among Republicans, with 88 percent them. So if we just go with our gut reactions, we will always expressing distrust in a September 2016 Rasmussen Re- choose statements that align with our current beliefs. ports poll.

The Role of Changing News Sources Until recently, people got all their news from mainstream media, which meant they were often exposed to infor- mation that they didn’t like because it did not fit their “How did Donald J. Trump win the beliefs. Newsroom budget cuts and the consolidation of U.S. presidency despite his many media ownership over the last decade have resulted in mainstream media becoming increasingly less diverse. misleading statements and outright Moreover, according to a 2016 survey by the Pew Research deceptions? Couldn’t people see Center, many people are increasingly getting their news through them?” mainly or only from their own personalized social media sources; this tends to exclude information that differs from their own beliefs. This reinforces their beliefs and makes it seem that everyone shares the same beliefs as their own. This trend is occurring because of the traditional strong All this combined to create unprecedented reliance trust in friends as reliable sources of recommendations, on and sharing of fake news by Trump’s supporters on according to the 2015 Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising social media. A new study by the Center for Media and Report. Our brains tend to spread the trust that we asso- Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University used ciate with friends to other sources of information that we Politifact to find that Republicans have tended to make see on social media. This thinking error is known as the many more false statements than Democrats since the rise “halo effect”: our assessment of one element of a larger of the Tea Party. Lacking trust in the mainstream media whole as positive transfers to other elements. We can see and relying on social media instead, a large segment of this in research showing that people’s trust in social-media Trump’s base indiscriminately shared whatever made them influencers has grown over time nearly to the level of trust feel good, regardless of whether it was true. Indeed, one in their friends, as shown by a 2016 joint study by Twitter fake-news writer, in an interview with the Washington Post, and the analytics firm Annalect. said of Trump supporters: “His followers don’t fact-check Even more concerning, a 2016 study from Stanford anything—they’ll post everything, believe anything.” No University demonstrated that over 80 percent of students, wonder Trump’s supporters mostly believe his statements, who are generally experienced social-media users, could according to polling. By contrast, another creator of fake not distinguish a news story shared by a friend from a spon- news, in an interview with National Public Radio, described sored advertisement. In a particularly scary finding, many how he “tried to write fake news for liberals—but they just of the study’s participants thought a news story was true never take the bait” due to their practicing fact-checking based on irrelevant factors such as the size of the photo, and debunking. as opposed to rational factors such as the credibility of the news source outlet. The Remedy The Trump team knew that many people have difficulty This fact-checking and debunking illustrates that the situa- distinguishing sponsored stories from real news stories, and tion, while dismal, is not hopeless. Such truth-oriented be- that’s why they were at the forefront of targeting voters with haviors rely on our other thinking system, the “intentional sponsored advertorials on social media. In some cases, they system” or “System 2,” as shown by Chip and Dan Heath used this tactic to motivate their own supporters; in others, in their 2013’s Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life they used it as a voter-suppression tactic against Clinton and Work. The intentional system is deliberate and reflec- supporters. The Trump campaign’s Republican allies cre- tive. It takes effort to use, but it can catch and override the ated fake news stories that got millions of shares on social thinking errors committed by System 1 so that we do not

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 57 adopt the belief that something is true because we feel it is make the world more dangerous. Those concerned with true, regardless of the evidence. liberty and independence would be moved by emotional Many liberals associate positive emotions with empirical language targeted toward protecting themselves against facts and reason, which is why their intentional system is being used and manipulated. For those focused on family triggered into fact-checking news stories. Trump voters values, we may speak about trust being abused. mostly did not have such positive emotions regarding find- These are strong terms that have deep emotional reso- ing the truth and believed in Trump’s authenticity on a gut nance. Many may be uncomfortable with using such tactics level regardless of the facts. This difference is not well rec- of emotional appeals. We have to remember the end goal ognized by the mainstream media, who treat their audience of helping people orient toward the truth. This is a case where ends do justify the means. We need to be emotional to help people become more rational—to make sure that while truth lost the battle, it will win the war. “Our brains cause us to believe some- Further Reading thing is true because we it is Cabane, Olivia F. The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and feel Science of Personal Magnetism. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2012. true, regardless of the evidence—a Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: HarperCollins, 1984. phenomenon known as ‘emotional Goleman, Daniel. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relation- ships. New York: Bantam Dell, 2006. reasoning.’” Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. New York: Random House, 2013. Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. as rational thinkers and present information in a language Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Uni- that during the election communicated well to liberals but versity of Chicago Press, 1980. not to Trump voters. LeDoux, Joseph. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. New York: Touchstone, 1996. To get more conservatives to activate their intentional Rosenberg, Marshall B. Nonviolent Communication. A Language of Life. systems when evaluating political discourse, we need to 3rd ed. Encinitas, Calif.: PuddleDancer Press, 2015. speak to emotions and intuitions—the autopilot system, Tsipursky, Gleb. From Post-Truth to Post-Lies: The Psychology of Political Persuasion. Forthcoming. in other words. We have to get folks to associate positive Watts, Duncan J. Everything Is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer. New emotions with seeking the truth first and foremost, before York: Crown Business, 2011. anything else. To do so, we should understand where people are coming from and what they care about, validate their emo- Gleb Tsipursky runs the Rational Politics project at Intentional Insights, a nonprofit tions and concerns, and only then show, using emotional devoted to promoting rational thinking and wise decision-making in politics and other language, the harm that people suffer when they believe in areas of life. He researches decision-making and emotional and social intelligence in lies. For instance, for those who care about safety and secu- business and politics as a professor at Ohio State. He is also a speaker, consultant, rity, we can highlight how it’s important for them to defend and the author of the forthcoming book Pro-Truth Politics; Fighting Post-Truth themselves against being swindled into taking actions that Politics and Alternative Facts with Behavioral Science.

58 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org DOERR'S WAY

Betsy DeVos and Blaming Blaine Edd Doerr

write this column shortly after the vate, denominational or other non- 1966. Dominated by the interests seek- confirmation, by the narrowest of public preelementary, elementary, ing tax support for church-run private margins, of Betsy DeVos as Secretary or secondary school. No payment, schools, it sought to replace Article I credit, tax benefit, exemption or of Education. Although many con- deductions, tuition voucher, sub- XI, Section 3 of the state constitution, cerns were expressed about her qual- sidy, grant or loan of public monies which prohibited any direct or indirect ifications for the post, one relates to or property shall be provided, di- tax aid to such private schools. That her support for private-school vouch- rectly or indirectly, to support the section of the state constitution had ers in her home state of Michigan. Let’s attendance of any student or the been added by a constitutional con- review that history. employment of any person at any such nonpublic school or at any lo- vention in 1894 by a vote of 108 to 73. “Why Michigan Doesn’t Have cation or institution where instruc- After a months-long, hard-fought School Vouchers and Probably Never tion is offered in whole or in part campaign, the state’s voters defeated Will,” blared the headline on an ar- to such nonpublic school students. the proposed new constitution by 72 ticle in a leading education journal After proponents of the amend- percent to 28 percent, mainly because on January 4. Something called the ment had gathered more than 320,000 of the attempted Article XI, Section 3 “Blaine Amendment” in that state’s signatures to place it on the ballot, substitution. The details are spelled constitution stands in the way, it as- Attorney General Frank Kelley tried out in my 1968 book, The Conspiracy serted. “Blaine Amendment” is school- to block it, but the Michigan Court of That Failed, and confirmed by James voucher–advocate code for provisions Appeals ordered it back on the ballot. Cooney in his 1984 book The Ameri- in three-fourths of state constitutions The campaign raged until the elec- can Pope: The Life and Times of Fran- intended to bar support for sectarian tion in November 1970. I remember cis Cardinal Spellman. We might note private schools with public funds (but campaigning for it, from Detroit to here that between 1965 and 2014, more on that later). the Upper Peninsula (the details were there have been twenty-eight state The article was wrong. Here is what reported in Church & State magazine, referenda on various forms of tax aid really happened. Michigan educators, of which I had been named managing for private schools, from Massachu- civil libertarians, and other defend- editor in September 1970). When the setts to California and from Florida to ers of public education and religious ballots were counted, the amendment Alaska, with voter opposition averag- liberty got tired of trying to fend off had won by 57 percent to 43 percent. ing two to one. Also, the 2015 Gallup/ attempts by state lawmakers to divert In 1978, pro-voucher forces sought PDK education poll registered oppo- public funds to church-run and other to repeal the 1970 amendment, but sition to these plans at 57 percent to private schools. So in early 1970, they the effort was crushed at the ballot box 31 percent. launched an effort to amend the state by 74 percent to 26 percent. Another Now let’s look at that label “Blaine constitution to greatly strengthen the repeal effort was launched in 2000, this Amendment.” Right after the Civil then-existing ban. I know because I time bolstered by nearly $13 million War, the Fourteenth Amendment was was one of the people who helped from Betsy DeVos and her wealthy added to the Constitution to, among draft the amendment. Here’s the family. Their campaign was defeated other things, extend the Bill of Rights amendment in its final form: by Michigan voters by 69 percent to to cover state governments. However, Article VIII, Section 2. No public 31 percent. in 1873 the Supreme Court in the monies or property shall be ap- Before taking up the so-called Slaughter-House Cases largely gutted propriated or paid or any public Blaine Amendment, let’s look at the this meaning, a misstep it did not credit utilized, by the legislature or any other political subdivision 1966–1967 battle in New York State, begin to remedy until the twentieth or agency of the state directly or similar to the one in Michigan. A state century. So, in 1876 President Ulysses indirectly to aid or maintain any pri- constitutional convention was called in S. Grant recommended amending the

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 59 Constitution to bar any and all tax aid public schools, long in motion, Catho- my home in Maryland to a conference to church-run schools. The amend- lic-school enrollment declined sharply, in Washington. Suddenly, I was aware ment was introduced by Senator from 5.5 million in 1965 to two million of an elephant standing on my chest James G. Blaine (R–Maine). It passed today. President Richard M. Nixon, who and that it was growing heavier. I was the House overwhelmingly but fell favored vouchers, had two Catholic having a heart attack and did not know slightly short of the required two-thirds universities study that enrollment de- how long I would remain conscious. So in the Senate. In recent years, interests cline; they concluded that it was due I headed for the nearest hospital, Holy seeking tax support for church-run to changing parental preferences and Cross, in Silver Spring. I pulled up to and other private schools have taken not economics. However, court-ordered the emergency entrance, staggered to calling all state constitutional barri- desegregation of public schools in the in, told the nurse at the desk that I was ers to funding of religious institutions 1960s led to the founding of Protestant having a heart attack, and immediately “Blaine Amendments.” schools and the invention of school passed out. I was a patient there for The constitutions of both Alaska vouchers by Milton Friedman. three weeks. Let me also note that I and Hawaii—the two states admitted So here we are in early 2017 with was born in a Catholic hospital. to the Union after World War II— a president who never attended or My point is that, generally speak- contain provisions barring tax aid to sent his own children to public schools ing, Catholic hospitals are pretty much church-run schools. Voters in Alaska picking as Education Secretary Betsy like all others. But—and this is a big (1976) and Hawaii (2014) voted to re- DeVos, who also never attended or “but”—there are several areas in which tain those bans. sent her children to public schools or Catholic hospitals are seriously defi- had any experience as a teacher or cient. They threaten good health care administrator but who has a long re- with regard to reproductive matters cord of working and financing efforts such as abortion, contraception, steril- to undermine public education and to ization, and pregnancies that threaten “It seems that divert public funds to private schools. At women’s lives and health. This is of the DeVos is a good two her Senate hearing, she demonstrated highest importance because one-sixth a profound ignorance of public-school of hospital beds in the United States centuries past her matters. are in Catholic hospitals; because expiration date.” Shortly after the election, I reread many secular hospitals are linked to the 1792 book A Vindication of the Catholic health-care systems and fol- Rights of Woman by pioneer fem- low the medically restrictive rules im- inist Mary Wollstonecraft, who was posed by Catholic Church leaders, born exactly two hundred years be- who are not qualified to make medical fore DeVos. Wollstonecraft, who, un- decisions; because between 2001 and 2016, Catholic-owned or affiliated hos- But that’s not the whole story. Until like DeVos, had actual experience as pitals increased by 22 percent; and be- well into the nineteenth century, the a teacher, advocated tax-supported cause they received $27 billion in net United States was overwhelmingly public schools in which boys and girls, revenue from Medicaid and Medicare, Protestant, and public schools allowed rich and poor, could be educated to- thanks to the taxpayers. “nondenominational” prayer and Bible gether. It seems that DeVos is a good This is all spelled out and well doc- reading. This was largely opposed by two centuries past her expiration date. Relevant to all this is the fact that umented in Catholics for Choice’s new the surge of Irish Catholic immigration. since 2008 some thirty-five states thirty-four–page book, Is Your Health Good people on both sides of the have cut per capita funding for public Care Compromised? How the Catholic religious divide well remembered the schools by about 7 percent. Note also Directives Make for Unhealthy Choices. centuries of religious wars and conflicts that the 2015 Kaiser Family Foun- Washington-based Catholics for that followed the Reformation, but the dation poll found that 75 percent of Choice has been on the front lines de- regressive leadership of the Catholic Americans regard public-school fund- fending reproductive choice since Church in Rome during the nineteenth ing as very important, compared to 1973. century only fanned the flames. Mean- 77 percent who consider Medicare while, Catholic leadership in the United funding as very important. States promoted parochial schools and sought public funding for them, which was blocked by both state constitutions Do Catholic Hospitals and majority public opinion. Matters were somewhat resolved Compromise Your in the early 1960s, when the Supreme Health Care? Edd Doerr is the president of Americans for Religious Court outlawed public-school religious Liberty and a former president of the American devotions. In the wake of those rulings It was a bitterly cold winter morning Humanist Association. He is a columnist and senior and the gradual secularizing of the forty years ago as I was driving from editor of Free Inquiry.

60 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org GOD ON TRIAL

Why Does God Have to Be Worshipped? Does the Answer Provide Insight into the Existence of God?

Sheldon F. Gottlieb

doubt that there is a rational individ- essayist stated: at least limit worshipful behavior to all ual who has never thought about the We worship God because he is animal species? Certainly this almighty Ifundamental religious tenet of the God. Period. Our extravagant love god could have endowed the great need to worship “God.” If God has all and extreme submission to the apes, if not some of the other large the great attributes humans ascribe to Holy One flows out of the reality mammalian species, with some spe- that God loved us first. It is highly him, then why does this omnipotent, cies-appropriate behavioral attribute appropriate to thank God for all the omniscient, omnipresent—et cetera— things he has done for us. How- entity have to be worshipped? ever, true worship is shallow if it I tried Googling “the need for God is solely an acknowledgement of to be worshipped.” I was inundated God’s wealth. . . . In other words, with a huge number of references; as our worship must be toward the I read some of them, I was confronted one who is worthy and not because God is wealthy and able to meet “If God has all the great with religiously oriented language that our needs and answer our prayers. I am not sure I understood—yet I con- We must focus our practice of wor- attributes humans sider myself as having a good, if not ship on the worthiness of God and ascribe to him, then excellent, command of the English not his wealthiness. why does this omnip- language. Another source stated: “The pur- However, before I could even begin pose of our worship is to glorify, honor, otent, omniscient, to answer the question or understand praise, exalt, and please God. Our omnipresent—et cet- what was being said in response, I re- worship must show our adoration and era—entity have to be alized I had to first understand what is loyalty to God for His grace in pro- meant by worship. My Merriam-Web- viding us with the way to escape the worshipped?” ster dictionary (1988) provides several bondage of sin, so we can have the definitions. The definition I am select- salvation He so much wants to give ing is the second one, and it is also us. The nature of the worship God the one that seems most apropos for demands is the prostration of our souls this essay: “reverence offered a divine before Him in humble and contrite that could (would) indicate worship. In being or supernatural power.” One of submission.” the Hebrew Scriptures, the word wor- the Googled essays said: “Worship is Two related questions bothered ship connotes bowing before: that is, to honor with extravagant love and me. First, according to biblical scrip- a person bending forward so that his extreme submission.” The reference ture, this almighty god created all or her forehead touches the ground. cited was Webster 1828—apparently forms of life. Why would he limit Presumably such behavior is an ex- referring to Noah Webster’s intellec- worshipful behavior just to humans pression of humility and recognition of tual masterpiece. Further along, the and not include all species of life or the superiority of the one who is being

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 61 worshipped; certainly an almighty god possibly have an ego so fragile that twenty-first century, one could have could devise some appropriate wor- he has to be reminded how great he hoped that there would be an ac- shipful gesture for other species. is and have humans bow and scrape knowledgment that political behavior Second, why would this god re- before his holy presence. Then again, is secular, not religious. quire an elaborate building in which this god has informed us that he has It is interesting that religion must to do the worshipping and a clerical one other great human frailty: he is have been aware of the phenome- hierarchy to tell worshippers when jealous. In Exodus 20:3, this almighty non of the Stockholm Syndrome and and how to worship, as well as how god commands that “you shall have learned how to use it for its own ben- to conduct a worship service? Didn’t no other gods before me.” efit. For well over a thousand years, this god instruct humans (Micah 6:8) The more I read online, the more I the purveyors of religion, in the name that all the Lord requires of us is to became convinced that my long-held of the almighty, taught that failure to act justly, to love mercifully, and to conclusion that when talking about worship could lead to vengeful death. walk humbly with it? Micah does not worshipping God, religious people— Worshippers, fearful of the power of the almighty (as conveyed to them by mention anything else. Micah doesn’t particularly clergy—are in reality talking power-hungry clergy), worshipped and demand worship, adoring, exalting, about worshipping human beings. confused the reaction to continuing to and praising behavior from humans. Years later, I came across a brilliant live as love when in reality they were Micah, from his observations of human observation attributed to Frank Wede- fearful. Therefore, people attempted behavior, concluded that humans can kind that beautifully clarified and artic- ulated my thoughts: “God made man to appease God through worship, in his own image, and man returned glorification, honoring, praising, and the favor.” All I can think of is that the exalting, all the while demonstrating behavior surrounding worship is what adoration and loyalty for providing humans, especially kings and royalty, humans with the means of escaping since ancient times, demanded for death, or in the case of Christianity, themselves. Many societies required what the clergy labeled as sin by being “saved.” that their leaders be considered gods. As one studies the history of re- Many societies built great structures to ligion, especially the Abrahamic re- bury and honor their royalty. Even into ligions, one finds that the trappings the mid–twentieth century, the Japa- “Surely, this almighty of what is considered religious are nese emperor was considered a god. god cannot possibly nothing more than a bunch of hu- After World War II, General Douglas man-made rules to satisfy the egos— have an ego so frag- MacArthur had to deal very sensitively and the wants and urges—of those with that issue on behalf of the U.S. ile that he has to be in leadership positions. Human traits government. reminded how great were transferred to gods, which man- Yet remnants of these ancient be- he is and have humans dated and legitimized control over haviors exist in modern times and are people living in a time where very little bow and scrape before deeply embedded in our culture. The was known about the physical, chemi- his holy presence.” British, among others, still support cal, and biological nature of the world and pay obeisance to royalty. Even in in which they lived. Hence, supersti- American society, one which in its birth tion could run rampant in a controlled fought against royalty, one finds too environment. Despite the exponential many people who still prefer to adore growth of knowledge about the phys- and grovel before “royalty,” however ical world, ignorance and superstition defined. still exist and greatly affect human In my life, as I grew intellectually, attitudes and behaviors. behave justly and with mercy at all I became offended when in the mov- Thus, if the concept of a god and times and in all places. They don’t ies or real life the passage of secular the need for worshipping him derive need to be herded into gilded tem- power or other secular concerns in- from basic anthropomorphic ego-sat- ples or churches with stained-glass volved the clergy. Even as late as 2004, isfying drives, then it would be logical windows at specific times or be led by in the movie The Princess Diaries 2: to conclude that God is an artificial robed beings carrying golden goblets Royal Engagement, the passage of construct and does not exist. and covering their heads with jeweled the royal crown from the queen (Julie tiaras or hats and making secret signs Andrews) to the princess (Anne Hatha- or displaying secret symbols that pre- way) is mediated by a clergyman. How Sheldon F. Gottlieb is a retired physiologist and sumably are required to assure that degrading and offensive! It is nothing professor of biological sciences. He is the author the worship appeases a Holy One. but a remnant of the debunked con- of The Naked Mind (Best Publishing Company, Surely, this almighty god cannot cept of the divine right of kings. In the 2003).

62 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org REVIEWS

Another Step Forward for

Freethought Literature Tom Flynn

ne index of the freethought tradition’s marginalization Ois that most of the literature about it arises from within the move- Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made ment. For example, there are five Their Way in a Godly Nation, by Leigh Eric Schmidt major biographies of nineteenth-cen- (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2017, tury agnostic orator Robert Green In- ISBN 9780691168647). 337 pp. Hardcover, $35.00. gersoll. All were written by admirers; by any objective standard, their tone is cloyingly sycophantic. The best gen- eral reference works in the field were edited or authored by insiders: Gor- don Stein (The Encyclopedia of Un- belief, 1985); Bill Cooke (Dictionary of Atheism, Skepticism, and Humanism, 2006); and, casting modesty to the wind, yours truly (The New Encyclo- my review in FI, April/May 2016.) organized freethought than many pedia of Unbelief, 2007). I could go Still, the slightly arcane domain of would expect today, and a biogra- further, but the idea should be clear: movement history remained an insid- phy of Ida C. Craddock, one of the for decades, American freethought er’s preserve. Two of the best recent cultural radicals driven to suicide by seemed a backwater, a field about works were by Susan Jacoby, her decency crusader Anthony Comstock. which few not already involved in it gold-standard Freethinkers: A History of So Schmidt already knew his way would take the trouble to write. American Secularism (2004) and 2014’s around the broad historical-cultural With the turn of the twenty-first engaging The Great Agnostic: Robert landscape upon which the Golden century, that was starting to change; Ingersoll and American Freethought, Age of Freethought unfolded. both major biographies of atheist fire- an appreciation of Ingersoll whose Schmidt tells us that he focuses on brand Madalyn Murray O’Hair—Jon scope was purposely too narrow to the late nineteenth century as “the Rappoport’s Madalyn Murray O’Hair include it among the biographies men- epoch in which the village atheist as (1998) and Anne Rowe Seaman’s tioned above—a good thing, because a recognizable American personage America’s Most Hated Woman: The I don’t think Jacoby knows how to be took definite shape. It offers a pointil- Life and Gruesome Death of Madalyn sycophantic. list group portrait, looking closely at a Murray O’Hair (2005)—were written With Village Atheists, Leigh Eric small handful of figures, all of whom not by atheist insiders but by inde- Schmidt (a scholar without move- exemplify critical aspects of American pendent journalists. Social scientists ment ties) and his publisher Princeton secularist experience.” The more you in growing numbers have chronicled University Press have put forward a know about the relevant history, the unbelief from the outside since their vivid history of unbelief, and I deem better you can appreciate just how field belatedly recognized irreligion it an unqualified success. Schmidt is aptly Schmidt selected his subjects: as a subject worthy of research in its a professor at the John C. Danforth own right. (The first general work on Center on Religion and Politics at • ex-minister-turned-atheist lecturer unbelief written by a social scientist Washington University, St. Louis. His Samuel Porter Putnam (1838–1896); and published by a mainstream pub- previous books include a history of • Watson Heston (1846–1905), the lisher, Stephen LeDrew’s The Evolution American spiritualism, which in the self-taught cartoonist for The Truth of Atheism (2015), had deep flaws; see nineteenth century leaned closer to Seeker and other publications who

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 63 shaped the movement’s Golden-Age social context in which freethought America” (FI, February/March 2017). iconography; activism unfolded. Each richly detailed With the scrutiny of outsiders • Charles B. Reynolds (1832–1896), a account yields a vignette that helps comes the risk of unflattering judg- former Adventist minister who con- build a vibrant and, so far as I can ments. To my mind, Schmidt makes ducted freethought “revival meet- tell, deeply accurate portrait of our a bit too much of the “incivility” of ings,” sometimes in an actual tent; movement’s development. Schmidt Watson Heston’s admittedly rough- he was tried for blasphemy in New closes the book with an epilogue that edged cartoons and of Ingersoll’s lim- Jersey and defended by Ingersoll traces prominent activists for strict itations as an attorney, but that is a himself; and church-state separation in the early to small quibble. With Village Atheists, the field of • Elmina Drake Slenker (1827–1908), mid–twentieth century, “from Charles freethought history has stimulated a a Quaker-turned-atheist arrested for Lee Smith to Vashti McCollum, from major assessment by an independent obscenity when she broadened her Joseph Lewis to Roy Torcaso.” It’s scholar. It is another sign of our move- focus to birth control and marriage the best capsule history of twenti- reform. ment’s penetration of the mainstream eth-century U.S. church-state activ- and a dynamic work of history in the Schmidt provides a masterful ism I have ever read, a big reason bargain. Highly recommended. extended profile of each of his “village why a condensed version of that epi- atheists,” displaying bold command logue appeared as “Going Their Own of both historical detail and the larger Way: Village Atheists in a Changing Tom Flynn is the editor of Free Inquiry.

POEM Neversend post to my everlasting salvation

Robin Lee Jordan

Dear now-I-lay-me-downs, Dear tight-white shoes, Dear if-I-dies,

I’ve nothing to do with nuns but there they are at the bottom of the stairs. One eclipses the other like the cross itself, giant hands hanging blackly. I never knew they grew this tall.

The nuns are staring at me from the other side of the street; it is night. They linger at the yellowed lip of a light, something stuffed into their fat sleeves.

The consideration of a wave. Below us, warships that won’t sink.

It is dark; they could be lovers. I want to tell them I’ve nothing to do with them. Pull each other by the belts into the shadows, I want to say, become just another black mass remembering some deep ache on the sidewalk beside the dog-torn garbage.

Or are they smoking? And maybe I’m on fire, dying a horrible death; I am a walking flame maybe, and they need to light their cigarettes.

I glance up even though there has never been a moon here. Skirts clenched now around knob-knees they’re clambering up the stairs like schoolyard girls giddy from having gotten away with something that probably doesn’t really matter.

This much is clear: every time I peel open a nun’s gown I’ll see those stolen goods, those fabulous muscles, those awkward- shaped moonless hearts.

Cerro Alegre, Valparaíso, Chile

Robin Lee Jordan’s creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry have been published in various publications, including the Buffalo News, alice blue review, H_NGM_N, Puerto del Sol, and Paper Darts. She received her MFA in poetry from Oregon State University and is the coordinator of Just Buffalo Writing Center, a free, creative writing center for teens. She also runs the community art project (B)uffalo (A)rt (D)ispensary, a coin-operated, mini-art exchange that repurposes toy vending machines.

64 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org REVIEWS

Bait and Switch Robert M. Price

espite the title, Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower, Dthis book is classified by the publisher on the dust jacket as “Reli- gion-Spiritual,” and it is. One wonders Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower: just how “Secular” Tom Krattenmaker Finding Answers in Jesus for Those Who is. The author is a religion columnist Don’t Believe, by Tom Krattenmaker (New for USA Today as well as communica- York: Convergent, 2016, ISBN 978-1-101- tions director for Yale University Divin- 90642-2) 245 pp. Hardcover, $25.00. ity School. He begins the book by de- nying the claims of the religious that without belief in God one is reduced to a dreary life without values or meaning. But very quickly he changes course and pretty much admits the charge is true after all and that, there- fore, one would be well-advised to seek meaning and guidance from the program Paul van Buren outlined in White-bread pseudo-rock and wispy biblical Jesus (or anything else that his fascinating 1963 book The Secular devotional choruses are the order of gets you through the dark night of the Meaning of the Gospel. Krattenmaker the day. Such churches even offer soul—he is not narrow-minded). thinks he is not a Christian, but I say in-house sports leagues, cafes, and Krattenmaker is agnostic. He does he is. He makes it obvious that he is, stores. not believe in God, an afterlife, or to borrow Schleiermacher’s phrase, an And their preaching is essentially Gospel historicity. It’s just that he “agnostic pietist.” It is evident on liter- secular. Though pastor and congre- finds great and compelling wisdom in ally every page that he has absorbed gation share traditional evangelical the Jesus character portrayed in the the temperament of the “hip young beliefs, these are largely taken for Gospels—whether he actually did or evangelical pastors” he brags about granted. Sermons deal with secular said any of these things or not. Fair befriending and dialoguing with. He concerns such as parenting, finances, enough. I have been there. I recall, began by observing them and then and pop psychology. When Scripture years ago, listening to the temporar- trying to be open with people he had passages are cited, they are often ily Christian Bob Dylan on Saturday once dismissed as laughable stereo- mere garnish. Omit them, and they Night Live singing (if you can call it types. He wanted to break down bar- would not be missed. Megachurch that) “Ya Gotta Serve Somebody” and riers to communication and common pastors soft-pedal the theology; thinking that whatever Jesus really humanity. In the process he “went Krattenmaker jettisons it, but the was, if he was, the fact is that his char- native.” It is hard to remember that result is much the same. acter in the Gospels issues a challenge one is not reading Joel Osteen. The book is homiletical, preachy to the reader to take up one’s cross Krattenmaker is but a hair’s breadth in the modern hip style: inspirational, and follow in the way of discipleship removed from the pastors of today’s motivational, conversational. If the he exemplifies. This, I think, is the megachurches. They, too, are sec- author did not warn you he was not kind of thing Yale theologian Hans Frei ularized in that they seek to attract a conventional believer, you would was driving at, though he never quite people turned off to the churches they never guess it. Each chapter is a ser- arrived there, in his great book The attended in their early years. These mon that makes some at least glanc- Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (1974): churches abandon all the trappings ing reference to a Gospel passage patching oneself into a chosen narra- of traditional churches. They are huge or two, but the connection seems tive even if it is “only” a narrative. auditoriums entered through lobbies to me pretty tenuous. Krattenmaker That is what Krattenmaker does in that belong in a bank or a hotel. seizes on some feature of the text and this book. As such, Confessions of a This is not your father’s church. No riffs on it pretty freely. Is he trying to Secular Jesus Follower would seem hymns or hymnals are in evidence, convey insights he picked up from the a perfect fulfillment of the theoretical only song sheets and “praise bands.” Gospels, or is he merely garnishing his

secularhumanism.org April / May 2017 Free Inquiry 65 homilies with them? Again, if the editor as a secularist, so does any Unitarian Robert M. Price, PhD, is an independent scholar in theol- had chopped every occurrence of the minister. ogy. As a follower, he has explored in turn fundamentalist, name “Jesus” and every Gospel quote, You will certainly find much helpful traditional, and liberal Christianity. He has also been a pas- you wouldn’t miss a thing. Krattenmaker and thought-provoking food for thought tor and taught at the university level. An author as well, his sounds just like a megachurch pastor or here, but I must admit the book makes books include Beyond Born Again: Toward Evangelical a liberal Christian pastor. If he counts my skin crawl. Maturity (Wildside Press, 2008. For many, mere atheism (the absence of belief in gods and the supernatural) or agnosticism (the view that such questions cannot be answered) aren’t enough. It’s liberating to recognize Continued from p. 19 that supernatural beings are human creations … that there’s no such thing as “spirit” or LETTERS “transcendence”… that people are undesigned, unintended, and responsible for themselves. But what’s next? few odd activities I managed to uals, beautiful music, interesting ing Matthew 7:7–8) that “For First, there are two places stave off the gloom. But when stories (mythology), complicated everyone that asketh receiveth,” (pages 38 and 44) where Atheism and agnosticism are silent on larger questions of values and meaning. the library closed for remodeling, theories (theology), child indoctri- it is clear from Isaiah that you do President Harry Truman is re- If Meaning in life is not ordained from on high, what small-m meanings can we work out I felt doomed, even to the point nation, the sunk-cost fallacy, and “receiveth,” you just don’t know ported to have met with Joseph among ourselves? If eternal life is an illusion, how can we make the most of our only lives? of suffering anxiety attacks. The old-fashioned brazen lying are exactly what it is that you have re- Stalin in Yalta. Truman never essays you published have given all further means, with the single ceived. True believers.think that met Stalin at Yalta. The meeting As social beings sharing a godless world, how should we coexist? me new insights into the cause of ultimate aim of preventing unem- their prayers will be answered, that the author refers to was in my depression and a path to the ployment for religious leaders. and when seemingly they are not, Potsdam, outside Berlin, in July For the questions that remain unanswered after we’ve cleared our minds of gods and souls they think it is due to their lack of 1945. Second, concerning the way out. In summary, the mattering in- secular humanism. Bob Arnold stinct doesn’t give rise to counter- understanding as to the details. figure of half a million American and spirits, many atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and freethinkers turn to Carlsbad, California intuitive ideas that are both coun- Ken McCaffrey soldiers allegedly saved by the terfactual and taken seriously; it Brattleboro, Vermont bombs (table on page 38), in fact, the actual number claimed was is part of the large bag of useful Secular. “Pertaining to the world or things not spiritual or sacred.” In “The Mattering Instinct,” Andy tricks religions use to keep ped- larger. When Truman returned Norman explains religion as an dling their ineffectual nonsense. The particular irrationality from Potsdam, the first bomb had answer to this instinct. However, Jan Willem Nienhuys brought up in the article is the already been dropped, and in his Humanism. “Any system of thought or action concerned with the interests or ideals of Pascal Boyer and Scott Atran tell Waalre, Netherlands disproportion between powerful news conference in New York, he people … the intellectual and cultural movement … characterized by an emphasis on us that the core of each religion conviction, tantamount to abso- asserted that fully a million sol- is a simple idea that is so coun- lute certainty, and the lack of evi- diers had been saved. That figure human interests rather than … religion.” terintuitive that it sticks in the Taking God to Task dence for the involvement of God was also used in a 1947 article — Webster’s Dictionary mind. People love fantasy and in people’s daily lives or even the over Henry L. Stimson’s signa- make-believe; science is full of Re: “It’s Time to Hold God very existence of God. Isn’t the ture, but written by several oth- counterintuitive ideas about the Accountable,”Mark Cagnetta very existence of suffering proof ers, to quiet growing objections Secular humanism is a comprehensive, nonreligious life stance incorporating: very small, large, far away, and (FI, February/March 2017). My that there is no almighty, merciful to the use of the bomb. Nobody long ago. The religious counterin- neighbor, now deceased, was a god? seems to have questioned the A naturalistic philosophy tuitive ideas, often about invisible gung-ho evangelistic Christian The ridiculous attempts to allegation that more than twice people or the living dead or both, who had braces on both of his exonerate God from responsi- as many American soldiers would are counterfactual, unlike sci- lower legs. His shin bones had bility for human sinning and suf- have been lost in the land inva- A cosmic outlook rooted in science, and ence. There is simply no decent been crushed many years earlier fering demonstrate the logical sion of Japan as had been killed in an accident where he worked weakness represented by the in the entire rest of World War II proof for them. Moreover, these consequentialist ethical system ideas are taken seriously by the at a small filling station repair incompatibility of an omnipotent on all fronts! In recent years, in A in which acts are judged not by their conformance faithful, unlike Donald Duck and shop. A car on the hydraulic lift and infallible god and the moral fact, some politicians have multi- to preselected norms but by their consequences for men and women in the world. magic shows. The believers do somehow rolled free as the lift infirmity of people. I believe that plied that figure even further. Any so because the shamans, priests, lowered to the ground, pinning the main reward of faith for the figure significantly larger than the and ministers use many different him against the wall and crushing faithful and the main reason that military’s own estimates of twen- ways, not just one, to stay in busi- his legs. Many times he indicated it is impervious to logical doubts ty-five to forty thousand are pure Secular humanism incorporates the Enlightenment principle of individualism, which ness. Appealing to instincts such that he saw God at work in this is the illusion of immortality. flights of fancy. celebrates emancipating the individual from traditional controls by family, church, and Aviv Sover Mention is made of Japan’s as the tribal instinct, the matter- as his boss, somewhat shorter state, increasingly empowering each of us to set the terms of his or her own life. ing instinct, the agent detection than he, often stood in the same Albuquerque, New Mexico own atom-bomb project being instinct, the “follow the leader” spot. If his boss had been there unsuccessful. In fact, while it is instinct, and instinctive fear of that day, the car would have only in recent years that we have The Council for Secular Humanism is North America’s leading organization for nonreligious crushed his knees and he would learned that Japan even had death or contagion are just a few The United States and the people who seek to live value-rich lives. Free InquIry is its magazine. of these methods. Using force never have walked again. When such a project, its actual fate is and terror to ensure loyalty to I asked my neighbor why God Atom Bomb still unknown. The reason is that in the closing days of the Pacific the group also works outside of hadn’t prevented the car from While I completely agree with Welcome! War, Japan did conduct a test— religion. One of the best tricks of rolling off the lift he replied, “We George Zebrowski’s “Damned but because the location was in To learn more, visit http://www.secularhumanism.org organized religions is the fable never know just how God works Truths” (FI, February/March a cave on the coast that is now that they themselves are the to enlighten us.” 2017) regarding the use of atomic within North Korea, it is impossi- source of knowledge of good Isaiah 55:8 says, “My bombs by the United States ble to learn the result. and evil to the point of making thoughts are not your thoughts during the war against Japan, the flock believe that religion— and your ways are not my ways, the article needs some correc- any religion—is all about good- declares Yahweh.” Contrary to tions and amplification of several Dan Karlan ness. Holy books, impressive rit- Cagnetta when he writes (quot- points. Pocatello, Idaho

66 Free Inquiry April / May 2017 secularhumanism.org A program of the Center for Inquiry, Inc. For many, mere atheism (the absence of belief in gods and the supernatural) or agnosticism (the view that such questions cannot be answered) aren’t enough. It’s liberating to recognize that supernatural beings are human creations … that there’s no such thing as “spirit” or “transcendence”… that people are undesigned, unintended, and responsible for themselves. But what’s next?

Atheism and agnosticism are silent on larger questions of values and meaning. If Meaning in life is not ordained from on high, what small-m meanings can we work out among ourselves? If eternal life is an illusion, how can we make the most of our only lives? As social beings sharing a godless world, how should we coexist?

For the questions that remain unanswered after we’ve cleared our minds of gods and souls and spirits, many atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and freethinkers turn to secular humanism.

Secular. “Pertaining to the world or things not spiritual or sacred.”

Humanism. “Any system of thought or action concerned with the interests or ideals of people … the intellectual and cultural movement … characterized by an emphasis on human interests rather than … religion.” — Webster’s Dictionary

Secular humanism is a comprehensive, nonreligious life stance incorporating:

A naturalistic philosophy

A cosmic outlook rooted in science, and

A consequentialist ethical system in which acts are judged not by their conformance to preselected norms but by their consequences for men and women in the world.

Secular humanism incorporates the Enlightenment principle of individualism, which celebrates emancipating the individual from traditional controls by family, church, and state, increasingly empowering each of us to set the terms of his or her own life.

The Council for Secular Humanism is North America’s leading organization for nonreligious people who seek to live value-rich lives. Free InquIry is its magazine.

Welcome! To learn more, visit http://www.secularhumanism.org

A program of the Center for Inquiry, Inc.