The following article is intended to be thought-provoking satire. I was forced to put this disclaimer at the top, because I discovered, unfortunately too late, that it is almost impossible to parody a lot of what goes on and is believed in today's society.
A popular, though inaccurate, interpretation of Godwin's law is that one should refrain from comparing your opponent to Nazis, because this action is so insulting that meaningful debate will be killed off. I want to ask whether this is really true, and whether the Nazis were really as bad as they are portrayed in our media.
One famous Nazi policy was to kill physically handicapped people. Before we react against this, we must remember that the killing of handicapped people can hardly be called barbaric if the Royal Society of Gynaecologist's (UK) is suggesting that we be allowed do the same thing if they are newly born children. Their arguments for this are pretty sound -- in the words of John Harris, a member of the government's Human Genetics Commission and professor of bioethics at Manchester University: "We can terminate for serious foetal abnormality up to term but cannot kill a newborn. What do people think has happened in the passage down the birth canal to make it okay to kill the foetus at one end of the birth canal but not at the other?". It makes sense in other ways too — for cases where it is easier to detect the condition after birth, it is safer for both the mother and child if the procedure is done after birth, and it's less wasteful as it avoids misdiagnoses.
Actually, the Nazis were more consistent and logical than we are. Our aim, quite rightly, is to eliminate suffering, so we compassionately end the lives of people who are either going to suffer a lot, or cause lots of suffering in other people's lives. We should not be half-hearted about this effort, but follow the noble lead set by the Nazis.
Then there is the issue of how the Nazis segregated the Jews from the rest of society. Racial separation is well known in many parts of the world, and in many cases is not seen to be harmful or undesirable — see the attitude of many of these people regarding their traditional segregated high school proms for example. It is quite natural for people to prefer society that they are comfortable with. In the case of Nazi Germany, the majority of that society did not feel comfortable around Jews, and one can safely imagine that the Jews of this period were not that fond of the Germans. So no-one would have objected to this segregation, which actually promoted a peaceful society by keeping the warring factions at a safe distance from each other.
Some people may still object that when it came to the Final Solution, the Nazis went too far. However, the people of Germany were exercising their democratic rights — Hitler was, after all, democratically elected. Since morality is defined by consensus, it is outrageous for us to condemn this nation for its actions. Also, we should remember that their action in removing Jews from their society once and for all is really just a logical parallel to removing other undesirables such as handicapped people. While we obviously neither share nor applaud these anti-Semitic views (because we have found that, far from being a social pestilence, Jewish people can in fact make a very valuable contribution to society), we must respect the right of a democratic nation to come to its own conclusions about ethics — who are we to enforce our own scruples on others?
In the past, we have suffered a great deal from people imposing their moral opinions on other people, and thankfully many nations are now outlawing this kind of behaviour. For instance, Britain has recently passed a bill making it illegal to refuse services on the basis of sexual orientation. One ramification of this, that certain Christian groups are complaining about, is that private individuals who let out rooms in their houses for Bed and Breakfast (a common practice in the UK) will no longer be able to refuse a double room to a homosexual couple. Similarly, religious adoption agencies will no longer be allowed to refuse their services or discriminate against homosexual couples. In both cases this is, of course, a great step forward in the right direction — we ought to be very intolerant of these groups who would seek to force their moral views on other people, even if until very recently their views have been considered the norm or even enshrined in law. In the same way, we need to learn to refrain from passing judgement and condemning peoples of the past, such as the Nazis, who didn't happen to have identical ethics to our changing standards.
Finally, I want to say something about debates that invoke Nazis not as direct insults, but in 'slippery slope' arguments that take the form "if we do this now, very soon we will be doing X, just like the Nazis (or other bad people)". While these may seem either very powerful or insulting, history has shown that such arguments are actually empty. For example, when abortion law was changed in the UK in the 1960's, I have no doubt that one of the arguments against abortion was that it would lead to selectively terminating people with severe handicaps or disabilities, or even to the killing of infants after birth — certainly I have heard both such arguments within my own lifetime, and the idea that anyone would approve of post-natal terminations sounded ridiculous at the time. But today, we know that it is perfectly reasonable to cull foetuses for these reasons, including post-natal infants, according to the sensible arguments of the Royal Society mentioned above.
Again, when genetic screening for cystic fibrosis and other diseases was introduced, some people complained that this might lead to screening against the mere possibility of a disease. In this article from 1992 about screening and ethics, it states that the guidelines from 1970's handled the ethical problems by stating that "screening was appropriate if the genetic disorder was serious, the test was accurate, and a therapy or intervention was available". The article lists some of the ethically dubious possibilities envisioned, such as: "Women carrying foetuses with genetic abnormalities may be encouraged to abort".
In Britain, aborting because of genetic abnormalities such as cystic fibrosis is old news. Last week, plans for screening against a gene that gives a high risk of breast cancer were announced, which is clearly quite a different matter. The screening is done not against the mother eggs, against the foetuses, and not for the purpose of therapy, but early abortion (i.e. in the context of IVF, as I understand it). Clearly, all but the most heartless of people have applauded this humane step. The very fact that these 'slippery slope' arguments were used in the first place, and the way that people responded to them at the time, shows us that these arguments were thought to be powerful, and the possibilities they threatened were thought to be genuine evils. But in both cases, and surely many others, we now know better. For this reason, we are right to ignore all slippery slope arguments. Eventually, time and the progress of ethics will show that the original moral objections were misguided.
So, to conclude, I am actually in favour of the principle that we shouldn't use the example of Nazis when debating ethics and so, but for different reasons than those commonly cited. The first reason is that when we use the Nazis in this way, we are perpetuating a slur on the reputation of the Nazis that they simply do not deserve — they were a compassionate people, and even if there are some areas where we think they did not act very wisely, or where we would have acted very differently, we are stepping way out of line if we condemn them for their different ethical standards. A second reason stems from the first — it can hardly be either an insult or an argument to make comparisons to such a people, and so the Nazis are somewhat irrelevant to our ethical debates. We should find some other genuinely evil group of people as a reference point, and then pronounce a ban on making comparisons to them instead. And thirdly, all slippery slope arguments can be seen, ultimately, to be vacuous, as society will adjust its understanding of morality and we will come to realise that what we had been afraid of isn't so bad after all.
I already know what the reaction to this essay will be. Half the readers, the Christian fundamentalists, will rant on about this being an example of the disastrous effect of moral relativism, and that in fact Western society is already a long way down the slope to becoming one of the most horrific societies this world has ever known, and the only reason I don't realise it is because I am so desensitised. They will go on to threaten the judgement of God (or George Bush) and other silly things. The other half, the more reasonable half, will complain that this is old news.
Comments §
I mean: You must realise that "consistency taken to its extreme" is the definition of fundamentalism and pure evil. It's both "arbitrary absolute justice without compassion" and a lassez-faire attitude to differences between cultures.
But your essay and its final paragraph seem to say different things, so perhaps you're just being bitter.
Also, it's strange that you refer to Nazis as a people.
A secondary point is that we are, in fact, become more and more brutal as a society, confirming *exactly* the slippery slope arguments that have been made in the past.
I was hoping I wouldn't have to spell it out.
It's ironic that, if our society adopted your values, then a majority of people like me could have you terminated as someone who doesn't fit into our society.
As for the role of reason in ethics, in the end we have no choice. If you take scripture (Bible, Koran, whatever) as your moral guide, you still need to use reason to interpret it; for example, nobody agrees it is really right to actually carry out the various stonings suggested in the bible. The theist can of course argue that God instills the moral standards inside us, and that the use of reason is limited to merely the comparing the sacred texts with our internal God-given moral standards. However, if that were the case, it would be difficult to understand (among other things) why for so long so few Christians (or for that matter, non-Christians, since the moral law is presumably written on every soul) noticed that slavery and suppression of women was wrong. Our gradual progression toward better ethics and morality (interrupted by frequent regressions and stagnations) is one of the many things in this universe that is better understood in the context of a godless metaphysics.
Morality in the form of rules is archaic. If you need to lookup "though shalt not kill" in a book, you've already missed the principle. And, the principle is not to eliminate suffering, as you say. If you wanted to speak in the context of principles, such a principle should be to minimize suffering. But we can do better than that. Try these three principles instead: the principle of doing no harm; the principle of defensive harm (i.e. take an action if it is reasonably expected that not taking the action will result in equal or greater harm) and finally the betterment of others. In the context of these three principles, the result is that once the baby is born, there is no reasonable context in which the mother can claim to be harmed. Society in the UK as it exists today is not reasonably harmed by the betterment of this newly born baby. Hence, the Nazis and John Harris are wrong in their conclusions of how to treat their fellow human beings. Religious folks tend to lose sight of these principles because they believe morality to be a list of rules found in the Vedas, the Koran, the Tanakh, the teachings of Buddha and so on (oops, and the Bible). Sure, these texts make for lively reading, but they support a messy, sometimes self-serving and agenda based morality. We can all find religious text based arguments that will support just about any "moral" behaviour we personally admire. Conversely, we can all find religious text based arguments that will condemn any "moral" behaviour we personally dislike. For example, using the Tanakh, Bible, Koran, and or Vedas, support or condemn killing of a fellow human being. Even using just one of these texts, you know there are a myriad of conclusions, ranging from "never kill" to "sometimes kill" to "kill anybody who is....". If you doubt this, take a closer look at the factions, denominations, sects and divisions that flourish under a single religious banner. Northern Ireland's Protestants and Catholics or Iraq's Sunnis and Shias spring readily to mind. Then, look at the variance among differing religions -- all equally adhering to a version of their god's rule book.
Continued in next comment...
Rationalism is a limited tool. That's why religious adherents like to attack it. Eventually, reason can be used instead. By reason, I mean in the context of 400 years of common law decisions, where the legal fiction "reasonable person" is used to answer questions of appropriate behaviour in society. Morality, under these principles, is a matter of refinement and improvement, not decay. Just ask any woman or black person. Or, do you support slavery and female subjugation? There are arguments supporting both in most religious texts, including the Bible. Things aren't perfect, but progress is being made.
With regards to infanticide, it was precisely because the disabled child *could* continue to harm the mother and the family that killing it was being suggested. It is easy to see how the child could cause harm in all kinds of ways. Even if the child is adopted, *someone* has to look after it, and all of us have to pay taxes if we are not directly involved.
I agree that if you need to look up "Thou shalt not kill", then you are in a pretty bad way. This means that the Royal Society and members of government committee's that I quoted *are* in a pretty bad way, and they are far from being either unique or irrelevant. My point? This is where morality without rules has got us.
With regard to your 3 principles, the flaws in your argument are:
1) your principles are arbitrary, and people are free to disagree with them simply as a matter of personal opinion.
2) more importantly, they depend on a *pre-existing* value system. Who defines what is 'harm' or 'good', what is 'betterment', and what is greater or lesser harm? These are all defined relative to current ideas of morality and society.
So, for example, I could argue that we should nuke the entire planet, on the basis that the harm that would result from not doing so (the ongoing suffering of billions of people, and billions more in the future, including the eventual inevitable death of every single one of them, which is often very painful both emotionally and physically) would be worse than the harm caused by temporary pain of a quick death -- probably very quick if we used all our nuclear weapons at once. I could argue that all such people are 'better' off dead than alive, because then there is no possibility of suffering.
In short, all teleological ethics systems presuppose a value system that they cannot provide.
Finally, just because people abuse religious texts, in the same way that people argue over and abuse political texts (such as the constitution of the USA etc), doesn't mean that correct interpretation of these texts is not possible.
You are right, I covered lots of grounds, because I wasn't intending to make pronouncements on all these various subjects at all, many of which are complex. My point was a more general one. I guess I was also trying to shock, but that doesn't appear possible anymore.
This is getting interesting.
Your first paragraph is missing an important ingredient that is stressed in my first comment: the reasonable person. In present day UK society, it is reasonable to care for a handicapped child. Society in the UK is able to undertake this betterment with very little relative cost. The same can't be said of some more disadvantaged societies, like Malawi for example. In such a society, it might be impossible (i.e it could harm society or the parent more) to care for such an infant. That's a sad fact, but reason must be applied in both cases. That's the difference between principle based decision making (i.e. you have to do a little thinking) versus rule based dogmatic thinking (i.e. this is an absolute rule because god said so).
As for the arbitrariness of the three principles, I don't know of any system of morality that isn't arbitrary. All religious based morality is arbitrary: try to prove that the Sikh's morality is less arbitrary than the Christians? Or that Jewish morality is less arbitrary than the Muslim's. Or that Buddhist morality is less arbitrary than the Hindu's. Because the world is populated by multiple religions and denominations and sects, all with equal claim to validity, you can't profess that by selecting one of these paradigms you've trumped the arbitrariness.
Again, it is what is reasonable that defines harm and betterment. Each human life is equally precious on this earth -- unfortunately some religions attempt to refute this. But, once you've got the foundation that human lives are to be valued, it is trivial to know whether you are reasonably harming someone, reasonably bettering them, etc. If you kick me in the shin, I am being harmed. But if you kick me in the shin to stop me from kicking you in the knew, you've practice reasonable defensive harm. If you run to catch up with me and give me the apple I forgot on the counter, you've practiced betterment of others. There isn't a lot of complexity in these principles. They're just kinda boring, really.
Continued in next update.
Following from this preciousness is the simple fact that most of us, in spite of the suffering, are quite thankful for this brief existence we are granted. If god granted this life then we'd better practice those three principles because there is no telling which religion(s), if any, god condones. Furthermore, if god can't abide by reason and these three principles, life on earth is our best chance at heaven. So, no matter what god's nature is, these three principles are theistically reasonable
If god didn't grant this life, then it is a genuine miracle of chance that we are each given a flicker of existence. As such, the principles become even more important: there is no balm or recompense or forgiveness. We must strive not to limit our fellow human's existence. We must strive to make our own life the best it can be without doing harm.
With these clarifications, nuking doesn't reasonably fit into this picture.
Correct interpretation of religious texts may be possible, but it is impossible to know which interpretation is correct. It takes a lot of confidence to say "yes, I know exactly which interpretation (among hundreds of denominations and sects in existence) of which religious text (among dozens) is god's own". If god has eyebrows, I wonder if they would be raised by our theistic hubris.
I appreciate your attempt at shocking. You're right it has recently become a well worn technique and its leverage is diminished.
I'm a big fan of taking things to their logical conclusion, which I guess makes me a fundamentalist - I don't have a problem with the label. If an idea taken to it's logical conclusion is bad, then the idea itself is bad - it's not just being taken too far.
While agree with the principle of the slippery slope argument. However it's easy to use fallaciously and easy to break. The argument stops whenever one can argue there is a step change somewhere along the way. In the case of abortion, for example, arguments could be made that a step change happens at birth, or at the age when a child becomes viable outside the womb, or when it can first feel pain, or at the point where the dividing cells cease to be identical, or at implantation. Or even at an age such as 18 when the child is considered resonsible.
I am of course going to be entirely vague as to my own views on that, merely to state that an argument exists whether I agree with it or not, and that the slippery slope argument needs to disprove all of the arguments about step changes.
I don't think that "reasonable person" helps. What is a "reasonable person"? I doubt just you and I would agree on that. Would you argue that there is a consensus or majority agreement? These change over time, and hence the implication is that right is simply defined as what the majority sees as such at the time - which legitimises a large number of historic genocides.
You argue that morality tends to improve over time, but I disagree. In some respects I agree that it has in the last few decades, but in others it has got worse. I think your argument is a subjective one. Morality has evolved to the point where it is now, and hence judged by today's standards, by definition it has tended to improve over time. The same argument would continue to be true if we all decided that reading and writing were wrong and rape was okay. It just shows that judging morality according to popular perception is meaningless.
I get the impression from your arguments that you at least partially accept that logically any system of morality is arbitrary. You seem to admit as much in your second para, the one about religions. And yet it seems clear also that you can't accept this, as shown by your belief in your three rules.
I think your argument that a faith based morality is arbitrary is fallacious because it is circular. Your argument that they are "all with equal claim to validity" implies that validity is determined by what people think. If there were a One True God and Faith out there, then it has the claim to validity that it is True - even if no human being has any idea of this. That shouldn't be hard to accept - there was still gravity before Newton. And this One True God might or might not agree with your three golden rules.
I still believe that any system of morality outside of God is not only arbitrary but illogical. Every such system I have come across (not a robust argument, but show me a counterexample) has started with a tacit assumption that moral value rests innately in certain things (e.g. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) with no justification.
And yet I have met very few people with the courage to accept this conclusion and reject the concept of morality completely. The fact is, rightly or wrongly, almost everyone believes that there is such a thing as right and wrong, that some actions at least have a moral value.
All systems of morality originating with people are inherently arbitrary. The only logically consistent way to accept the concept of morality is if you believe that it comes from outside, and over and above, humanity.
lol
Soviet Union over 20 million, The U.S. killed 12 million Indians, but all I ever hear is 6 million jews. Genocide, hatred, ethnic cleansing has been going on since the dawn of man. If we should have cared, why didn't we step in 1942 instead of 1939? And the Jews are still being killed from countries surrounding by Isreal today, and you don't see us helping to much. People who say nazis are the worst thing in the universe really don't know what they're saying. Nazis were pretty bad ass, and yes they killed civilians and 6 million other people, but they did it in style, wearing like over 10 different camo smocks.
But, it's true that we shouldn't fault the Nazis for everything. But not because they were better than-recorded, as suggested here, but because the German people were more complacent and culpable than is often said. It is nice that an "inhuman", and banished organization can absorb all that evil, like carbon. But, it's not true.
And, it's not remotely true that, "In the case of Nazi Germany, the majority of that society did not feel comfortable around Jews, and one can safely imagine that the Jews of this period were not that fond of the Germans." The German National Anthem had been written by a Jewish-German! German Jews were secular, and often didn't practice. Many had little regard for their background. It's relevance grew because of the war, even if "faith" may have diminished for some.
Yes, I agree, it is sort of silly...if you can kill the fetus, in the birth canal, then what is the big difference if the fetus is just outside? Because there is no clear answer, this is disturbing...because it would be logical, as argued to extend this potentiality. Personally, I think that is the reason. It is arbitrary, but as mammals we "know", we sense that there is something wrong with killing something that just gurgled with life, even if it is missing an arm.
The trouble with the argument about how the compassionate elimination of the disabled would do them, and society, good is that there are quite a few "irrational" people out there, often with generous laps that long to pull some retarded, cross-eyed person onto their laps and love them like they are the most wonderful teddy bear ever. Suffering is our best teacher. Disability is a part of suffering.
The mere thought that we should respect the Nazis right to democratic rule is fatuous, but serves the point of reminding how this is evoked all the time. Sadaam Hussein was "overwhelmingly" elected. Yeah, right. And even if he was?
There are universal human rights, and even people who flaunt them, pretend that they abide by them...because they are that obvious. I don't mean sexuality, at this time, but most of them are rather clear. The fact that countries/dicatators who don't observe them, still pretend to observe them suggests that they are fairly universally held.
The Scriptures are full of moral relativism. Only nervous, narrow-thinking Christians, and the people who despise them most, think it is any other way. I think this is just an argument that exists for mutual-hatred, and who knows how often it is sanely considered? Moral relativism my ass. The record shows that people of conscience break laws all the time to help those who are being mistreated. Slaves, victims of genocide, etc. The reality that institutionalized religion is one of the greatest props to systems of abuse, doesn't mean that it is the heart of genuinue spirituality, or the text itself (depending). Who do you think Jesus attacked?
"We should find some other genuinely evil group of people as a reference point, and then pronounce a ban on making comparisons to them instead. And thirdly, all slippery slope arguments can be seen, ultimately, to be vacuous, as society will adjust its understanding of morality and we will come to realise that what we had been afraid of isn't so bad after all."
--Then, you want the nature of evil to be more exciting than it is. Because Hitler was a vegetarian, what he did to the Jews is only one expression of the man. Well, this is probably true, but it doesn't make <i>that</i> less evil. And what if it is not evil? Because there is no evil. Then, call it bad.
It isn't "so bad" to those who can dictate and control. To anyone else, their opinion isn't relevant, so don't ask them. That is the logic.
I don't think our ethics are slipping. I think they are becoming better and more rigorous. But, our desire for beauty and some dimension of desirability will cause us to "design" babies because that is arriving. And that is some of the Nazi logic, even if it was a tamer part. They were creating a Teutonic hierarchy, a "master race", and we are just creating handbags and calling them babies. I'm not sure it is very, very different in the end. The second just ignores phrenology and what not.
Anyway, I am not sure you are serious. If you are even half-serious, read Zweig's "World of Yesterday".
I also agree that our views of ethics and morality have changed, just as our view of the world has changed and that these changing views may or may not be beneficial.
However, I do not agree with your angle or direction when you call your use of this example "irony," although that may very well have been your intention. As I believe that your portrayal of the Nazi's policy to euthenise "undesirable traits" does have some merit in the harsh realities of life.
Whether, I personally agree with such a practice of not. I do believe, that our use of modern medical science to prolong the lives of people who have, what would otherwise be, naturally death incurring diseases, illnesses and/or genetic disorders, does humankind no evolutionary favours. By allowing persons with genetically inheiritable defects to procreate we negate the benefits of any evolutionary advantages that nature may have provided the rest of us, or not, by allowing unsustainable genes in our genes pool and by allowing the resultant offspring to consume resorces best left for the "fittest" in terms of survival.
I would, with this view in mind, take more than the position of devils advocate and suggest that if we do not take measures, on a global scale, nature and evolution will do it for us. Probably, through mass starvations, possibly through the mechanisms of war, brought about by the remnants of our tribalistic instincts. I say, it is time we cull our unviably ill and time we segregate our selves through means of "personal selection" in order to genetically improve our selves and ready our species, or resultant sub-species, for better survival in an eventual inevitable time of "hardship" as unspecific as that is.
The one immutable fact that evolution precisely predicts is that having an immense and immensely intermingled population such as our globalised world is today is a sure path to homogenous genetics and little genetic variation. Add to that our modern practice of allowing the spawning of genetically harmful traits amoungst the population and all of our evolutionarily aquired intellect will be for not as we will have doomed our own species.
As our population globally reaches 10 billion people, possibly, within the next two generations. I believe, these realities and over-demand of global resources even without some sort of precipatating catastrophic event will lead more people to start thinking about ways that "we" can better survive. Let me stress, by "we" I mean, specifically, my progeny, and so will everyone else, because ultimately that is our(humanity's) true driving force. I would call it "The Universal Law of Sex and Procreation" and it will eventually come crashing down on us whether we want it to or not!
I got tired of all the people who didn't understand that this post is satire, as explained in my first comment, and I got tired of all the people who genuinely think that Nazi's weren't that bad! They kind of prove my point, but I'm closing for comments anyway.