Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Yet more sinnercrats
Significant portions of Thason's post mischaracterize my contention with Savage. It is not the encouragement of practices I am considering, it is the compulsion of the facilitation of practices. Note that I never characterized CA and NYC's actions as encouraging sin. Further, I did not say that all Catholics are being compelled to engage in a practice they believe is sinful (as Thason later implies). My examples were intended to show that Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army are being compelled to engage in the facilitation of activities that they believe are sinful (which by their moral system is itself a sin). My thesis has absolutely nothing to do with encouragement of sinful activities, just compelling the virtuous to engage in activities they believe are sinful.
Also note that the sins I am claiming are not the practice of homosexuality nor the use of contraceptives (as Thason also implies), it is the facilitation of those activities. I think the Catholic church has been rather clear in recent months that they view the facilitation of sin as itself a sin (recall the denying of communion to those who enact legislation in favor of abortion). The Salvation Army (SA) has expressed similar sentiments. So from their perspective, Catholic Charities (CC) and the SA are being compelled to commit sins - namely the facilitation of homosexuality and the facilitation of the use of contraceptives.
To further clear up any misconceptions, the thesis of my original post is the following:
After Thason's initial diversion into encouragement and considering sins other than the ones I did1, Thason briefly addressed my thesis. However, there must have been some further misreading as Thason signaled his agreement with what I feel is the linchpin of my thesis when he wrote
Perhaps Thason's feeling that my citation of these two examples "comes dangerously close to being a Straw Man fallacy" is a result of overlooking the fact that the CA Supreme Court and NYC council "labor law and equal protection law" are themselves premised on a set of morals that has been quite recently expanded to include gay rights in the case of NYC and reproductive rights (contraception) in the case of CA. Gay rights is explicitly considered by Savage to be in the domain of the sinful and while not considered in the excerpt, I believe that Savage would consider the Catholic position on contraceptives to be the "virtuous" position with the opposing position naturally being the sinful position.2 With the simple recognition or the moral premise of labor and equal protection laws, it is obvious that the effective result of the situations being considered is the imposition of a sinner set of morals on a number of the virtuous. In light of this I was rather confused that Thason seemed to think that noting that this imposition is justified by "the law" somehow refutes my thesis - in fact the use of the law is demanded by my thesis.
Consider again Savage's point which I am countering - the Virtuecrats made their morals the law of the land and then used the law to impose their morals on the sinners. Savage would have his readers believe that sinners do not and would not use the law to impose their morals on others. This is what I am disagreeing with. Consider again Thason's refutation. As far as the law goes, does equal protection law not infringe upon the morals of the racist? Would this not be an example of the virtuous using the law to compel the sinner to perform a virtue?3 So why would equal protection law be treated differently when used to compel the virtuous to sin?
Perhaps Thason was attempting to differentiate by the targets of the laws as the sinners are not doing this for the benefit of the virtuous (nor would there have to be an Evil conspiracy as Thason supposes as the virtuous are not engaged in a conscious Good conspiracy). But in my thesis, it doesn't matter if the CA and NYC actions are being done for the "benefit" of people other than those being directly infringed upon - it only matters that the law is being used to impose sinner morals on the virtuous. However, even if it did matter, this argument would fall flat upon a cursory comparison.
Consider the anti-smoking bills also passed in NYC (the council is really a bunch of busybodies). This clearly an example of Virtuecrats using the law to impose their morals on the sinners (who would like to smoke where they like, when they like). These laws were not passed for the benefit of the smokers; they were passed for the benefit of the nonsmokers. Much as the NYC and CA ordinances I consider were not passed for the benefit of the virtuous, they were passed for the benefit of the sinners. As an even more interesting parallel, the smoking bans were passed on the basis of "labor laws" - namely enusring safe workplaces.
In summary, I believe I have demonstrated that my citation of the CA and NYC examples is not "dangerously close to being a Straw Man fallacy." I am only uncertain as to why Thason thought so in the first place.
Footnotes
1. Kids: When refuting a strawman argument it is customary to reiterate the strawman argument (Y in Thason's link), reiteate the original point (X in Thason's link), and demonstrate that X is not Y, nor implies Y. Case in point, Thason's encouragement arguement and choice of sins are stawmen. To refute them, I reiterated Thason's arguments (Y), repeated my thesis(X), and demonstrated that I was considering compulsion not encouragement, and made clear that X considers the sins of facilitation.
As a take home assignment, identify the other strawmen in Thason's post (I counted three more), and construct similar refutations.
Also note that most strawmen are created not out of malice or intentional misdirection, but rather as a misunderstanding of the original argument.
2. Abortion, however, is explicitly considered.
3. As covered in the original post, "there are times when I think morals should be written into law. Mostly I restrict these to broadly supported interpersonal morals." This particular example of the racist would be such a case, being both broadly supported and interpersonal. However, it doesn't change the fact a virtuous moral is being imposed on a sinner through the use of law - an example of a virtuecrat.
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Significant portions of Thason's post mischaracterize my contention with Savage. It is not the encouragement of practices I am considering, it is the compulsion of the facilitation of practices. Note that I never characterized CA and NYC's actions as encouraging sin. Further, I did not say that all Catholics are being compelled to engage in a practice they believe is sinful (as Thason later implies). My examples were intended to show that Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army are being compelled to engage in the facilitation of activities that they believe are sinful (which by their moral system is itself a sin). My thesis has absolutely nothing to do with encouragement of sinful activities, just compelling the virtuous to engage in activities they believe are sinful.
Also note that the sins I am claiming are not the practice of homosexuality nor the use of contraceptives (as Thason also implies), it is the facilitation of those activities. I think the Catholic church has been rather clear in recent months that they view the facilitation of sin as itself a sin (recall the denying of communion to those who enact legislation in favor of abortion). The Salvation Army (SA) has expressed similar sentiments. So from their perspective, Catholic Charities (CC) and the SA are being compelled to commit sins - namely the facilitation of homosexuality and the facilitation of the use of contraceptives.
To further clear up any misconceptions, the thesis of my original post is the following:
All systems of morals seek to impose their morals on others. In this, I believe sinners are no different from the virtuous. For various reasons, sinners have not previously had the opportunity to impose their morals on the virtuous. However, now they are beginning to attain positions of power. Therefore sinners can be expected to use this (legal) power to impose their morals on the virtuous.I posited that this would first occur in places where the sinners are most powerful, namely NY and CA. To support my thesis, I then cited two examples from those locations as evidence that the process has already begun.
After Thason's initial diversion into encouragement and considering sins other than the ones I did1, Thason briefly addressed my thesis. However, there must have been some further misreading as Thason signaled his agreement with what I feel is the linchpin of my thesis when he wrote
Now sure, the religious organizations in question are being compelled to support behavior that they may find morally wrong.I would only differ from that statement by not including "may". But based on this statement and my apparently necessary clarification of which sins are being considered, I think it is rather clear that these religious organizations are being compelled to engage in actions they believe are sinful.
Perhaps Thason's feeling that my citation of these two examples "comes dangerously close to being a Straw Man fallacy" is a result of overlooking the fact that the CA Supreme Court and NYC council "labor law and equal protection law" are themselves premised on a set of morals that has been quite recently expanded to include gay rights in the case of NYC and reproductive rights (contraception) in the case of CA. Gay rights is explicitly considered by Savage to be in the domain of the sinful and while not considered in the excerpt, I believe that Savage would consider the Catholic position on contraceptives to be the "virtuous" position with the opposing position naturally being the sinful position.2 With the simple recognition or the moral premise of labor and equal protection laws, it is obvious that the effective result of the situations being considered is the imposition of a sinner set of morals on a number of the virtuous. In light of this I was rather confused that Thason seemed to think that noting that this imposition is justified by "the law" somehow refutes my thesis - in fact the use of the law is demanded by my thesis.
Consider again Savage's point which I am countering - the Virtuecrats made their morals the law of the land and then used the law to impose their morals on the sinners. Savage would have his readers believe that sinners do not and would not use the law to impose their morals on others. This is what I am disagreeing with. Consider again Thason's refutation. As far as the law goes, does equal protection law not infringe upon the morals of the racist? Would this not be an example of the virtuous using the law to compel the sinner to perform a virtue?3 So why would equal protection law be treated differently when used to compel the virtuous to sin?
Perhaps Thason was attempting to differentiate by the targets of the laws as the sinners are not doing this for the benefit of the virtuous (nor would there have to be an Evil conspiracy as Thason supposes as the virtuous are not engaged in a conscious Good conspiracy). But in my thesis, it doesn't matter if the CA and NYC actions are being done for the "benefit" of people other than those being directly infringed upon - it only matters that the law is being used to impose sinner morals on the virtuous. However, even if it did matter, this argument would fall flat upon a cursory comparison.
Consider the anti-smoking bills also passed in NYC (the council is really a bunch of busybodies). This clearly an example of Virtuecrats using the law to impose their morals on the sinners (who would like to smoke where they like, when they like). These laws were not passed for the benefit of the smokers; they were passed for the benefit of the nonsmokers. Much as the NYC and CA ordinances I consider were not passed for the benefit of the virtuous, they were passed for the benefit of the sinners. As an even more interesting parallel, the smoking bans were passed on the basis of "labor laws" - namely enusring safe workplaces.
In summary, I believe I have demonstrated that my citation of the CA and NYC examples is not "dangerously close to being a Straw Man fallacy." I am only uncertain as to why Thason thought so in the first place.
Footnotes
1. Kids: When refuting a strawman argument it is customary to reiterate the strawman argument (Y in Thason's link), reiteate the original point (X in Thason's link), and demonstrate that X is not Y, nor implies Y. Case in point, Thason's encouragement arguement and choice of sins are stawmen. To refute them, I reiterated Thason's arguments (Y), repeated my thesis(X), and demonstrated that I was considering compulsion not encouragement, and made clear that X considers the sins of facilitation.
As a take home assignment, identify the other strawmen in Thason's post (I counted three more), and construct similar refutations.
Also note that most strawmen are created not out of malice or intentional misdirection, but rather as a misunderstanding of the original argument.
2. Abortion, however, is explicitly considered.
3. As covered in the original post, "there are times when I think morals should be written into law. Mostly I restrict these to broadly supported interpersonal morals." This particular example of the racist would be such a case, being both broadly supported and interpersonal. However, it doesn't change the fact a virtuous moral is being imposed on a sinner through the use of law - an example of a virtuecrat.
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