Category Archives: Liberalism

Banning Books: I thought conservatives loved freedom?

Freedom, Liberalism

More and more conservatives (and liberals too)  in the US and Canada, who used to believe in freedom are demanding the right to control what other people read. In 2022 many of them  worked hard to ban books.  In Indiana Republican lawmakers are pushing a bill to protect students from “harmful materials at libraries.”  In other words, they want to ban books. Recently Republicans members of a School Board in Tennessee  School Board banned Pulitzer prize-wining graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegleman. That book seems to be about t cats and mice, but is really about Nazis and Jews. Guess who are the cats?

Another Pulitzer prize winning writer, Viet Thanh Nguyen  recently wrote an article in the New York Times called, “My Young Mind was Disturbed by a Book. It Changed My Life.”

As Nguyen said, about banning the book Maus,

“Part of a democracy is having the capacity to engage with difficult, or disagreeable, or even dangerous ideas. So about the banning of a book like Maus, number one I feel sorry for the students or children who would be deprived of the opportunity to read a great book! But number 2, I think it also shows a lot of fear on the part of the parents and politicians who are banning books like Maus because what they don’t want to do is have difficult conversations with their children either about art or about the subjects that a book like Maus raises.”

 

Part of the rationale the Tennessee school board had to ban Maus was that the book contained scenes of nudity, profanity, and violence.  People objected to the images in the book that showed bare breasted cats (Jews) who were being assaulted by the Nazi cats.

Well, if you want your children or yourself to learn something about the Holocaust they probably have to learn something about nudity, profanity and violence. They sort of come with the territory.  Should young children be protected from learning about nudity, profanity, and violence?  Should the parents or the school board have the right to ban such a book?

Not in my view. Personally, I have young grandchildren and worry about what they learn when unsupervised on the internet or playing video games and things like that. I wish they had someone to curate what they watched or put it into proper context. That is something a teacher or librarian or parent could and should do.

Maus has been curated by a thinking author. It is not pornography. It does show a naked mouse in a bathtub! Horrors! The proper context for discussing such a book would be with a librarian, or teacher, or parent who can teach the context. The problem really is that children have contact with a lot of violence, profanity and nudity outside the classroom. That is where they are unsupervised and there is no one around often to put those things into context. Parents should be much more concerned about that, though I am not arguing in favor of censoring that either. I am in favor of parents and teachers and librarians helping students to understand what they are doing when they go to the internet or social media.

The American Library Association has called banning Maus a part of “an organized assault on the freedom to read.” The freedom to read is a pretty important freedom. One would have thought that in America, the land of the free, the freedom to read would be sacrosanct. It’s not. In fact, it’s under threat.  There have been more than 300 challenges since the school year began.

I was on the board of the Steinbach Public Library many years ago, and I remember we had some challenges too. I was proud that our little board in a very conservative town filled with evangelicals dealt with most of the complaints we received quite well.  Instead of banning books we worked on a statement of intellectual freedom of which I was quite proud. We were armed for the next challenge, which never came while I was on the board. Darn!

Christiane had a problem when she was the chair of the Parent Teacher Association at a local school when a parent objected to a Judy Blume book in the school library even though she had not read it, because she did not like the cover because it suggested to her in some bizarre manner, witchcraft, which she presumed to be wicked. Chris read the book and found it was an excellent book and thankfully, the book was not eliminated from the school library. When I was on the Library board one of our policies would be that we would not consider a complaint about a book by a person unless the person said he or she had read the book.

Freedom can be tricky. I don’t believe in absolute freedom like the members of the mandates convoy. Freedoms can conflict. Nuance is needed to balance one against the other to determine what limits on the freedom are tolerable and what limits are not.

 

Banning or censoring a book should be the last resort (if at all).  We need to protect children and we must help them to read wisely. Banning books is a crude instrument.

The Uncertainty Principle

Abortion, Ethics, Liberalism, Skeptical Philosophy

 

When we recognize that there is uncertainty in a debate, such as the debate about whether or not abortions should be banned or prohibited, we should realize some fundamentally important things. In this respect I have learned a lot from the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. This is the principle that he stood for:

“In the sphere of practical politics, this intellectual attitude has important consequences. In the first place, it is not worth while to inflict a comparatively certain present evil for the sake of a comparatively doubtful future good. If the theology of former times was entirely correct, it was worthwhile burning a number of people at the stake in order that survivors might go to heaven, but if it was doubtful whether heretics would go to hell, the argument for persecution was not valid. If it is certain that Marx’s eschatology is true, and that as soon private capitalism is abolished we shall all be happy ever after, then it is right to pursue this end by means of dictatorships, concentration camps, and world wars; but if the end is doubtful or the means not sure to achieve it, present misery becomes an irresistible argument against such drastic methods. If it were certain without Jews the world would be a paradise, there could be no valid objection to Auschwitz; but if it is much more probable that the world resulting from such methods would be a hell, we can allow free play to our natural humanitarian revulsion against cruelty.”

 

The Russell principle, if I may call it that, is that it is wrong to inflict a certain harm to achieve a dubious good. The more uncertain the future goal one is trying to achieve the less must be the harm one employs to obtain it. It is permitted to inflict violence to avoid a certain greater harm, but it makes no sense to inflict a certain harm to avoid an uncertain future harm unless that future harm is much worse than the means. It has to be so much worse that the risk of inflicting unnecessary harms is justified in order to avoid such a catastrophic harm.

This requires a rational analysis of the probabilities. The more dubious the future goal the more gentle must be the means employed to obtain it. The problem with the modern utopians is that they inflict a certain substantial present harm to achieve not just a dubious future goal, but an impossible goal! As a result, since banning abortion inflicts a certain harm on the mother by removing her ability to choose abortion, we are not entitled to do that because we might be wrong. Perhaps the foetus is not a human life until birth when it is severed form the mother. Then it would be wrong to punish the mother.

 

I have explained why I think it is not rational to claim certainty in the abortion debate. Some think abortions are evil because they required the killing of a human being. Others think abortions are justified because the life at stake is the mother and she should be the one to decide what she should or should not do with it. The mother has autonomy to decides.

John Locke, the first of the great British empiricists, that Russell saw as his mentors, held that our knowledge is always uncertain and this fact should always be taken into consideration when we contemplate any action. When we are uncertain of being right or wrong we should take what Russell called the “liberal creed.” That is the philosophy of live and let live. We should not be fanatical. As Russell said, “The genuine Liberal does not say ‘this is true’, he says ‘I am inclined to think that under present circumstances this opinion is probably the best.” For example, he believed in democracy but even there he insisted on taking a limited and undogmatic view of democracy, because he might be wrong. He would advocate the same approach for the abortion question.

That was why Russell was more concerned with procedure than outcomes, when it came to political thinking. He urged the adoption of a political approach rather than a political dogma. Russell put it this way,

“The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way in which opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology.”

 

Russell argued in favor of neither dogma nor absolute scepticism. He thought his views were somewhere between the two opposing positions. He called his political views Liberalism born from empiricism. The most important premise of that point of view is that all ‘knowledge’ is to some degree doubtful. Some of course more doubtful than others.

That is a perfect summary of my own political philosophy that I have drawn from Bertrand Russell, Albert Camus, John Gray, Michael Oakeshott and other political thinkers. Russell pointed out that if one could be certain that heretics would go to hell where they would suffer eternal torment, it made sense to burn heretics so that they would not lead others astray. If on the other hand it was doubtful that heretics would go to hell then persecution of them would not be justified. Doubt leads directly to toleration; certainty to persecution. If you know that you are fighting for God’s camp, any measures, no matter how awful are justified. As Bob Dylan put it, “you don’t count the dead with God on your side.” As Albert Camus said in his brilliant book, The Rebel, we must “refuse to be a god.”

I accept this approach. Since it is doubtful whether or not abortions result in the death of a human being, we should be modest in our actions—because we might be wrong. Inflicting certain harm on the mother is not justified until we can be certain we are right and that the harm we inflict is less than the harm we avert as a result of the imposition of the harm. Our duty is to choose the course of action which will inflict the least harm and promote the greatest good.

 

Vaccine Mandates are Morally Permitted

Epidemics/Pandemics, Freedom, Human rights, Liberalism

Vaccine Mandates are Morally Permitted

 

Mill’s principle says that the only reasonable limit on freedom is the prevention of harms to others. What is the harm in refusing to take vaccines?

The way I see it there are a number of  harms that are avoided by compelling others to take vaccines they do not want to take. One of them is that refusal to take vaccines gives the deadly virus that causes Covid-19 an increased opportunity to spread that it should not have. The longer the virus is allowed to circulate the more people can get infected, and seriously ill, or even die. The more people get vaccinated the better the chance is that the virus will be stopped in its tracks. Scientists have persuaded me that widespread vaccination is our best chance at stopping the virus. People who resist the vaccines are helping the virus to spread and infect others. This is a serious harm to others.

There is significant evidence that the virus can be spread by the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated. If it were equally possible for either group to spread the virus there would be no reason for us to impose vaccines on others, on that  basis since it would not make a difference to others.  The chance of others  catching Covid-19 would then be no higher or lower than   Then a vaccine mandate would not justified on this basis at least.  So far as I have learned the spread is greater by the unvaccinated so I think the case is still strong that imposing a vaccine on others against their will is permissible to avoid the greater harm to others.

As well, the longer the virus is allowed to circulate unchecked the greater the chances that the virus will evolve and develop new variants that are even more dangerous than the ones we have now. This can endanger not just us in the vicinity but actually people around the world. We are seeing this right now around the world with the spread of the new virus Omicron. We also saw it earlier with the evolution of the Delta variant. New variants might be available to evade the vaccines again putting other people at great risk of harm.

These are serious harms that people who refused to get vaccinated without a sound medical exemption are inflicting on others, so, in my opinion, the majority has the right to compel people to take the vaccine. I think the case for vaccine mandates is a strong one.

Limits on Freedom

Epidemics/Pandemics, Ethics, Freedom, Liberalism

 

John Stuart Mill pointed out, more than 150 years ago, that much of what makes life good is dependent upon controlling or limiting interference by other people. This is really the basis of liberalism. This limitation is critical to the enjoyment of life. Some limits are absolutely necessary, while others are not.  His book On Liberty tries to define those limits. It is worth reading. I recently re-read it after many years.

In essence the problem, as Mill defined it, is that even in a democracy we must be able to resist the imposition of duties by the majority in some cases, though not all. For example, no one would argue that it is wrong to prohibit murder or assaults. Would the imposition of a vaccination mandate by the majority as represented by its elected  government fit into the category of permitted or non-permitted infringements of freedom? That is the question I am trying to answer in a meandering fashion. Mill sought a principle that would assist people in determining into which category an example or proposed example of government interference would fit.  I think that is a worthy goal.

This is the principle that Mill proposed:

“That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forebear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him,  but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amendable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

 

That is the reasonable limit on a person’s freedom.

Mill also reminds that this does not mean one can do whatever one chooses to do no matter what the consequences.  Famously, others have said, ‘your freedom to swing your hand stops at my nose’. They really mean at anyone else’s nose. Mill put it more elegantly this way: “The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our good in our way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”

 Mill accepts only 1 important qualification, that this principle is only for the benefit of “human beings in the maturity of their faculties.” Children cannot claim the benefits of this principle, in Mill’s view, and must abide by instructions imposed on them by their parents, and to some extent even others.

With some qualifications that I won’t get into here, I accept this principle. How does this principle apply to the question at hand? How does it apply to the case of whether or not it is permitted for society to say we demand everyone to be vaccinated unless there is a good  reason for not doing so?

Clearly, on the basis of these principles, we should be allowed to take the vaccine or not, as we choose, so long as we do not harm others by our choice. I agree with that. Does refraining from taking the vaccine harm others? On its face, the vaccine is designed to protect ourselves from the most harmful effects of Covid-19. But this does not resolve the matter. Our choice can affect others. In other words, if the evidence establishes that my refusal to take the vaccine affects others that is significant, and if the harm caused is great enough could warrant an imposition that compels me to take the vaccine to some extent at least.

Tyranny of the Majority

Epidemics/Pandemics, Freedom, Human rights, Liberalism

 

John Stuart Mill also recognized that just because society made  decisions (such as to impose vaccine sanctions or not) in a democratic manner would not give the decision the right to override the essential liberties. There should be limits on the power of society through the ruler, even if a democratic ruler, over members of society—i.e. individuals. That is exactly what liberty means. Certain immunities or “political liberties or rights” would be so important that it would be regarded as a breach of the duty in the ruler” if he infringed them, even if that rule consisted of a democratic ruler, such as Parliament. As Mill said, “The limitation, therefore, of the power of government over individuals loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community.” Even democratic governments must abide by these limitations.

 

Mill recognized that the people, or a majority of the people, in some cases might want to oppress an individual or a part of a group.  Just like liberty is not absolute, so the power of the ruler/authority must therefore be limited or constrained as well and cannot be absolute. Some people forget this important aspect of Mill’s thought. Some people think that provided a decision is made by the majority they can do whatever they want. Mill denies this.  There must be limits even on the power of the majority.  In fact, Mill had a powerful expression for this—i.e. “the tyranny of the majority.” Mill said, “ ‘the tyranny of the majority’ is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.” So, just because the majority of the people think they should impose the obligation on an individual to get vaccinated does not of itself make that decision just.

Mill waxed eloquent on this subject:

“Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling…There is limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism.”

 

Really what Mill is arguing in favour of is what we now call a liberal or constitutional democracy. That means a democracy that is subject to the human rights of the individuals. A democratic society cannot do anything it wants to do. There must be reasonable limits on that power and Mill helps us to understand what those limits are.

John Stuart Mill on Liberty

Epidemics/Pandemics, Freedom, Human rights, Liberalism

 

I think we can gain a better understanding of the issue of mandates by looking at what English philosopher John Stuart Mill said in the 19th century. In my opinion he has helped to shed light on many important social issues by his careful analysis of liberty.

John Stuart Mill set out well the rationale for allowing individuals to be free (autonomous) to decide for themselves what medical treatments to take or not take.

He asked a preliminary question to set out the issue clearly.  He asked,

“What, then, is the rightful limit to the sovereignty of the individual over himself? Where does the authority of society begin?  How much of human life should be assigned to individuality, and now much to society?”

 

That is precisely the question raised by the mandate issue. Should the individual be allowed to decide for himself or herself whether or not to take the vaccines or can society legitimately make the decision instead? Note that unlike many modern people who deny that the state has the right to impose virtually any restrictions on them, let alone vaccines, Mill recognized that there were restrictions on freedom and he wanted to understand what those limits were.

Mill said, in trying to answer this question, the following:

“Each will receive its proper share, if each has that which more particularly concerns it. To individuality should belong that part of life in which it is chiefly the individual that is interested; to society, the part which chiefly interests society.”

 

If society is of greater interest in the answer to the question then the individual, then it ought to be allowed to make the decision. If the individual is more interested in the question  then he or she should be permitted to decide.

Mill did not say society had no right to get involved in the personal affairs of individuals. For example, Mill said “Human beings owe to each other help to distinguish the better from the worse, and encouragement to choose the former and avoid the latter.” As a pertinent example, in society there is no objection to trying to persuade individuals to take a vaccine if society has evidence that this course of action would be good for the individual and society. Society has the right to do that.  But does it have the right to go further and impose an obligation to take one of the vaccines?  According to Mill,

“But neither one person nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years, that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. He is the person most interested in his own well-being; the interest which any other person, except cases of strong personal attachment , can have in it, is trifling, compared with that which he himself has; the interest which society has in him individually (except as to his conduct to others) is fractional, and all together indirect; while with respect to his own feelings and circumstances , the most ordinary man or woman has means of knowledge immeasurably surpassing those that can be possessed by any one else. (emphasis added)”

 

Please note the vitally important qualification which I have highlighted.  Therefore, Mill concludes, with regard to what concerns only himself, society has no right to override the individual’s decisions. Mill said,

“in this department, therefore, of human affairs, Individuality has its proper  field of action…Considerations to aid his judgment, exhortations to strengthen his will, may be offered to him, even obtruded on him, by others: but he himself is the final judge.  All errors which he is likely to commit against advice and warning are outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem his good.”

 

On this basis, individuals would be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not to take a Covid-19 vaccine, provided his actions do not affect others.  That then becomes the central question: do they affect others and to what extent?

Back in 1859 when Mill wrote On Liberty, he realized that It would be “a vital question of the future,” what the nature and limits of the power  which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual.” On that point he was indubitably right as the current debate over the propriety of a vaccine mandate makes clear.

 

 

Autonomy: A society of adults

Epidemics/Pandemics, Liberalism

 

One of the things Chris and I like about the Phoenix area of Arizona is the University of Arizona. In particular we found it is nice to be close to a major university. The university had a wonderful array of activities from plays to concerts and above all world class professors and speakers. All open to the public and usually at no cost to us. I am amazed at how many of them we got to hear.  One of those very interesting speakers was Dierdre McCloskey. We heard her speak in 2020.

Deirdre McCloskey is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics and of History, and Professor Emerita of English and of Communication, adjunct in classics and philosophy, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Educated at Harvard as an economist she has written 24 books and numerous articles. This is how she describes herself: a “literary, quantitative, postmodern, free-market, progressive-Episcopalian, ex-marxoid, Midwestern woman from Boston who was once a man. Not ‘conservative’! I’m a Christian classical liberal.” I did not agree with everything she said, but everything was very interesting. She was a very interesting speaker.

She talked to us about innovation. According to McCloskey, “liberty is the theory of adult.  At first that seemed like a strange description.  Eventually I think I caught on. Adults are free. Youngsters are not. Adults have the right to infringe on the rights of young people in their care for their own good and protection, but only while they are in need of such interference. At some stage, minors get to be treated like adults and then have the same freedoms as adults. According to McCloskey, “Liberalism is the theory of the society of adults.” Other theories, such as socialism, treat adults as children. They assume we, or the government, know what’s best for you. She wants a society where adults make their own decisions.  So do I, subject to the qualifications.

McCloskey argues for a very strong autonomy. We should be able to make all decisions about our own welfare on our own terms without interference from others. No one should tell us what to do in other words. That is autonomy. I quite agree that autonomy is a very important social value, but like all values it is not absolute. In some circumstances the public’s right to ensure that its members are given reasonable security and that actions of its citizens won’t harm them unnecessarily. Each of us has a right to live in a healthy and safe society.  Again, like all values, this right must be balanced against other rights as well. I shall try to clarify a test that can help us establish whether or not a particular infringement of a right is justified or not. To do that. I want to turn in my next post to the classic liberal philosopher of all time—namely John Stuart Mill.

An Ethical Approach to Vaccine Passports

Epidemics/Pandemics, Ethics, Freedom, Liberalism

 

Would it be fair to opening up society in a time of pandemic only to those with Passports (or other documents) that could satisfy us that allowing people who have had one of the vaccines for Covid-19 or had the “benefit” of having contracted the disease and developed sufficient antibodies? In either case, presumably it is safe to let these people wander around, more of less freely, while we continue to curtail the freedoms of those who don’t have such a passport.

First, it is clear, that current health restrictions in Canada are fundamentally restrictive and a substantial interference with our freedom of movement and freedom to gather as we see fit. Clearly this violates a constitutional right, as I have argued in an earlier blog post. Ordinarily such prohibitions could not be justified in a free and democratic society. But these are special circumstances? Are they special enough to provide the justification?

I think a good place to start my answer to this very interesting question is the classic book On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill. Mill recognized in 1859 that people had the right to fear “the tyranny of the majority” which, he said, “is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.” In other words, Mill argued there are limits on what a majority is entitled to do. As he said,

“There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.”

To Mill as to many lovers of freedom, all that makes life valuable requires there to be reasonable limits or restraints on the actions of other people, either directly or through their elected representatives. Mills posed a clear answer to what he considered those reasonable limits. Mill said that there was one very simple principle that provided an answer to what are the reasonable limits. He elegantly put it this way:

“…the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forebear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting upon him any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desirable to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one for which he is amenable is to society is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

This is the fundamental principle of classic  liberalism. The principle is often called the principle of autonomy. In simplified terms, this means that everyone should be free to do whatever he or she wants, without hindrance, unless the exercise of that freedom will harm others.

With some limitations, not relevant to this discussion I accept that principle. How is to be applied to the question at hand. To do that we must look at the facts, as best we can, for as Professor Schafer said, good facts produce good ethics.

In my next blog posting I shall show how this principle applies to the Covid-19 Passport.