The Pope's remarks on condoms have generated a tidal wave of blogging by orthodox Catholics eager to counter the absurd reporting by the secular media.
It is pleasing to see that a consensus quickly formed around the basic meaning of the text: one might call this the 'less evil, not justified' response. This is what I said myself; Fr Joseph Fessio's illustration, of muggers putting pads onto the metal bars they use to club their victims has attained some currency, as has Janet Smith's example of using an unloaded gun to rob a bank.
I've seen it said that the Holy Father was really talking about the mentality of the individual using the condom, rather than the objective moral status of the act. The subjective state of the agent is clearly in the spotlight, but while it is possible the Pope had in mind a subjective improvement without a objective improvement, the most obvious interpretation would involve both. (A subjective improvement without an objective one might happen if the agent took a step towards making his action more morally acceptable in a completely wrong-headed way, a way which did not, in fact, make the act more acceptable. Such as a murderer deciding to ask Odin to take his victims to Valhalla before despatching them.)
The text we have been discussing has presented a moving target, however, as successive things have been revealed about it: first, the problem of the translation of the key term (a male prostitute, in the original German), and then the Vatican Spokeman's claim that the Pope told him it would make no difference if the prostitute were male or female. This kind of thing undermines attempts to defend the Holy Father while increasing the confusion and opportunity for mis-reporting in the secular media.
Insofar as there is a real issue here, it is this: as is well known there is an argument that condoms could be used, not for contraceptive purposes, but to stem the spread of disease, such as AIDS. Since this obviously would not come under the Church's prohibition of contraception, we have to look elsewhere for a reason to condemn it, if we are to do so. A number of reaons have in fact been put forward, but they have not found their way into magisterial statements. The matter is one of open debate, though it has been pretty clear that the rejection of condoms is the 'safer' opinion, the one 'favoured' by the Church. I've discussed it in some detail myself.
In the classic case, the married couple where one party has AIDS, the reasons for condemning condom use are clear and overwhelming. It would be an insane risk for them to have marital relations, even with a condom: taking such a risk would be wrong for each of them. The Church's condemnation of duelling comes to mind: you shouldn't risk your life or health unnecessarily.
Would it be better to use a condom rather than not, in marital relations, in this context? That depends on the second argument, which is that there is a problem with 'condomistic intercourse'. Intercourse using a condom is, according to this argument, is not natural intercourse, because there is a barrier between the parties. It is akin to sodomy.
The argument has been made influentially by important Catholic experts, including William Hay and Luke Gormally. It has a pedigree in the debate before the invention of the contraceptive Pill: since it was common to say that contracepted sex (using a condom) was unnatural, and distorted the marital act, when the Pill came out its supporters said that it had the advantage of not distorting the act in itself in the same way. (It was quickly pointed out that the use of the Pill for contraceptive purposes was intrinsically wrong in itself, of course.)
In the context of this second argument it may make a difference whether the prostitute in the Pope's example was engaged in homosexual acts or ordinary sex. If the former, the second argument wouldn't apply. That's why I said that while the use of a condom might be a step in the right direction for a rent-boy (like padding the iron bar one uses to bludgeon people unconscious), it wouldn't necessarily be so for a female prostitute.
The words of the Vatican Spokesman, Fr Lombardi, suggest that the Pope did not, in fact, use the example of a male prostitute having this kind of argument in mind. If the case of male (understood as homosexual) prostitutes and female ones are equivalent, and in both cases there is a 'step towards moralisation' being made in adopting condoms, then it would seem that there is not a problem with non-contraceptive use of condoms. This is what is exciting some liberals inside and outside the Church.
But we are going far too fast. Let's list the caveats.
1. Even if the second argument against the prophylactic use of condoms is rejected, the first argument remains. It is still obviously true that having sex knowing one has HIV is subjecting one's partner to a significant risk of contracting an incurable deadly disease, even with a condom. Such an act is obviously wrong - for married couples and prostitutes alike.
2. Fr Lombardi's version of the Pope's views is not incompatible with the second argument, for two reasons. First, it may be that, while condomistic sex is worse than non-condomistic sex (inside marriage, and outside marriage), subjecting one's partner to the high risk of contracting AIDS is worse than subjecting one's partner to a lower risk of AIDS. If the difference of moral badness between the latter is of greater import than the difference of moral badness in the former, then we may have made some small progress by moving from high-risk non-condomistic to lower-risk condomistic sex. A parallel might be a murder who uses a knife rather than a hand-grenade: it is a more painful method to kill but has less risk of maiming bystanders.
3. Fr Lombard's version is not incompatible for the second reason that the Pope may simply not have this second argument against condomistic sex in mind. This is an answer to a journalist's question, after all, and it may be that if the Pope were asked 'what about this argument about condomistic sex?' he'd say something different. What this is clearly NOT is a rejection of the argument that condomistic sex is not natural: the Holy Father simply isn't considering the matter.
4. Related to the last point, we are simply miles and miles away from an authoritative statment. We start with a book containing the words of the Holy Father in his capacity as a private theologian. Naturally, this is of interest in understanding the Pope's public acts but it isn't an official commentary on them, still less does it rival them. Then we have to understand that this is an interview: whereas in his book 'Jesus of Nazareth' the Pope laboured over multiple drafts and composed each sentence with care, in this book he speaking entirely off the cuff. While we might imagine that there was some editing this is a completely different type of publication. Finally, we have the words of Fr Lombardi, who has no brief either in moral theology nor as a spokesman for the Pope. No one can speak for the Pope - as Fr Lombardi himself has emphasised. And we are at liberty to disagree with him in any case.
One can understand the temptation, on the part of those who don't like the arguments against the prophylactic use of condoms, to seize on the Pope's remarks (and Fr Lombardi's), but they simply don't do what the liberals need them to do: to make it possible for the Church to allow or promote condoms to combat AIDS. The only uses of condoms the Holy Father has referred to remain immoral. Any tension between his reasoning and the argument about condomistic sex being unnatural remains ambiguous.
Perhaps the Holy See will clarify the Church's teaching. This may well have been delayed, as Fr Tim Finnigan suggests, by the fear of the headlines it would generate. But anyone with an eye to the direction of the debate over the last 40 years (and longer) would be foolish to assume that a clarification would generate headlines like 'Pope softens line on condoms'. Much more likely, in my view, would be headlines like 'Pope hardens line on condoms'. It is probable that a clarification would endorse the argument on condomistic sex, and inconceivable that it would say that that condoms were permissible as a prophylactic for a married couple.
Postscript: John Smeaton has an interesting selection of Church statements condemning contraception outside marriage, which is an important side issue. Even in immoral sexual relations, it makes it worse to use contraceptives. Furthermore, the Holy Office said in 1854 that sex with a condom is intrinsically evil, without reference to a contraceptive intention.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Pope on Condoms: from the Anscombe Bioethics Centre
The Pope on AIDS and condoms
What the Pope said:
Peter Seewald: On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican's policy on Aids once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all Aids victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church's traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church's own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.
Pope Benedict: The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on Aids. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim.
Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many Aids victims, especially children with Aids.
I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering.
In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.
As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work.
This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man's being.
There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.
That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.
Peter Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?
Pope Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.
(From The Light of the World London: CTS, 2010, pages 117-119]
Commentary from the Anscombe Bioethics Centre:
This is a significant and thoughtful passage, but one could be misrepresented or misunderstood. Hence it is important to be clear about what Pope Benedict is saying and what he is not saying.
1) The first thing the Pope says is that the fundamental response of the Church to the HIV crisis should be to guide, to support and to accompany the victims - and “she is second to none in treating so many AIDS victims, especially children with AIDS.” [Indeed in 2001 it was estimated approximately 25% of all AIDS care worldwide was provided by Catholic organisations]. Unfortunately this key message of the Pope may well be lost in what follows but an attempt should be made to repeat it, at least to those more sympathetic in the media who may report it.
2) Secondly, in relation to condoms and AIDS prevention the Pope reiterates that, “we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms”. To make the point he considers “the so-called ABC Theory”. While the Western media have never taken abstinence or fidelity seriously in the approach to AIDS, the predominant approach of secular AIDS education programmes in Africa and elsewhere is A-B-C: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom so that condom is the third line of defence (or as the Pope says, as “a last resort”) not the starting point. Furthermore, a fixation with condoms can also lead to the “banalization of sexuality” against which the Pope urges a “humanization of sexuality”.
3) Thirdly, (and this is what has been the focus of media attention) the use of a condom could be “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility”. This is indeed a dramatic statement because it is the first time that a Pope has said something positive, albeit in a very qualified sense, about the decision to use a condom to prevent infection. The example he uses is deliberate – a male prostitute, one whose activity is far from the Church’s teaching and is far from a humanized sexuality, and whose actions are already non-procreative. In this case the decision to use a condom could be a “first step” in a moral development – recognising responsibility for others and for oneself – taking care of others and of oneself. What should be clear is that this first step should not be the last step: that someone in this degrading and dangerous situation needs to find a different way of living altogether. But nevertheless, the decision to try to limit the danger of infection (for oneself and for others) can be a first step in a positive moral development.
Note what is not being said here. The Pope is not saying that the use of condoms is in itself moral or virtuous. Nor is he saying that their use can be “justified” on pragmatic grounds as a policy of AIDS prevention. He explicitly denies both of these moves. The use of condoms is “not… a real or moral solution”. Hence the Pope is not endorsing the arguments of some moral theologians that the use of condoms to prevent infection is objectively justified as a ‘lesser evil’ or by ‘double effect’. Rather, the Pope assumes that the use of condoms in not objectively good but that it might nevertheless represent for some person a subjective and partial move towards the good, “a first step” (the Pope repeats the phrase “ein erster Schritt”) on the way towards greater moral understanding. The Pope is thus considering an individual and thinking of his moral development. He is not suggesting that such an act might be objectively morally justifiable.
How significant is this statement? It is the first time that a Pope has said something positive, albeit in a very qualified sense, about the decision to use a condom to prevent infection. It is also a remarkable statement in terms of its tone and for what is not said. The Pope does not say that condoms are ineffective or that they are likely to make things worse. Indeed he says they are sometimes used with “the intention of reducing the risk of infection” which gives the impression that, in an individual case, they may actually reduce the risk. He is clear that condoms on their own are not the “solution”, and that “much more needs to be done”. But he does not deny that condoms might reduce infection rates in some circumstances. He even states that they might represent a subjectively positive moral step in some individual cases, if it is just a first step on a longer moral journey.
It is very likely that this statement by the Pope will be represented as a change of Vatican policy towards condoms and HIV. However, the Pope is not here addressing the question of institutional policy but is addressing a question of moral theology. He is asking whether in some cases the decision to use a condom might be a positive moral step. Some theologians may well argue that this paves the way for a new Vatican policy of at least tolerating the distribution of condoms: which it may to some extent. But this is more than the Pope explicitly says and to move too quickly to further possible implications is to risk losing the significance of what the Pope is actually saying.
A fixation with the policy on condoms is precisely what the Pope wants us to move on from. No such policy can be a “solution” if it is not part of a broader humanization. Nevertheless, what the Pope has done, without denying any part of traditional teaching is to call attention to a case of someone for whom the decision to use a condom is “a first step in the direction of a moralization”. Thus in some cases the decision to use a condom could be positive, at least in a subjective and partial way. But the Pope has said this in the hope of redirecting people away from fixation on condoms. This is why he calls it “a first step” a step that calls for further steps, towards faithfulness and the humanization of sexuality, that is towards the ‘A’ and the ‘B’ of ‘A-B-C’.
Pope Benedict starts by calling attention to the need for solidarity and accompaniment with victims and to the tremendous work the Church is doing in this regard. People may not hear this point, but it is perhaps more likely to be heard in the context of this passage because of the tone of the passage as a whole. As the Pope made an impression in his visit to Britain as much by his tone as by his words, so the tone of these words will also give an impression.
Dr David Albert Jones
Anscombe Bioethics Centre, 21 November 2010
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
What the Pope said:
Peter Seewald: On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican's policy on Aids once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all Aids victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church's traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church's own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.
Pope Benedict: The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on Aids. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim.
Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many Aids victims, especially children with Aids.
I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering.
In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.
As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work.
This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man's being.
There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.
That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.
Peter Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?
Pope Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.
(From The Light of the World London: CTS, 2010, pages 117-119]
Commentary from the Anscombe Bioethics Centre:
This is a significant and thoughtful passage, but one could be misrepresented or misunderstood. Hence it is important to be clear about what Pope Benedict is saying and what he is not saying.
1) The first thing the Pope says is that the fundamental response of the Church to the HIV crisis should be to guide, to support and to accompany the victims - and “she is second to none in treating so many AIDS victims, especially children with AIDS.” [Indeed in 2001 it was estimated approximately 25% of all AIDS care worldwide was provided by Catholic organisations]. Unfortunately this key message of the Pope may well be lost in what follows but an attempt should be made to repeat it, at least to those more sympathetic in the media who may report it.
2) Secondly, in relation to condoms and AIDS prevention the Pope reiterates that, “we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms”. To make the point he considers “the so-called ABC Theory”. While the Western media have never taken abstinence or fidelity seriously in the approach to AIDS, the predominant approach of secular AIDS education programmes in Africa and elsewhere is A-B-C: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom so that condom is the third line of defence (or as the Pope says, as “a last resort”) not the starting point. Furthermore, a fixation with condoms can also lead to the “banalization of sexuality” against which the Pope urges a “humanization of sexuality”.
3) Thirdly, (and this is what has been the focus of media attention) the use of a condom could be “a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility”. This is indeed a dramatic statement because it is the first time that a Pope has said something positive, albeit in a very qualified sense, about the decision to use a condom to prevent infection. The example he uses is deliberate – a male prostitute, one whose activity is far from the Church’s teaching and is far from a humanized sexuality, and whose actions are already non-procreative. In this case the decision to use a condom could be a “first step” in a moral development – recognising responsibility for others and for oneself – taking care of others and of oneself. What should be clear is that this first step should not be the last step: that someone in this degrading and dangerous situation needs to find a different way of living altogether. But nevertheless, the decision to try to limit the danger of infection (for oneself and for others) can be a first step in a positive moral development.
Note what is not being said here. The Pope is not saying that the use of condoms is in itself moral or virtuous. Nor is he saying that their use can be “justified” on pragmatic grounds as a policy of AIDS prevention. He explicitly denies both of these moves. The use of condoms is “not… a real or moral solution”. Hence the Pope is not endorsing the arguments of some moral theologians that the use of condoms to prevent infection is objectively justified as a ‘lesser evil’ or by ‘double effect’. Rather, the Pope assumes that the use of condoms in not objectively good but that it might nevertheless represent for some person a subjective and partial move towards the good, “a first step” (the Pope repeats the phrase “ein erster Schritt”) on the way towards greater moral understanding. The Pope is thus considering an individual and thinking of his moral development. He is not suggesting that such an act might be objectively morally justifiable.
How significant is this statement? It is the first time that a Pope has said something positive, albeit in a very qualified sense, about the decision to use a condom to prevent infection. It is also a remarkable statement in terms of its tone and for what is not said. The Pope does not say that condoms are ineffective or that they are likely to make things worse. Indeed he says they are sometimes used with “the intention of reducing the risk of infection” which gives the impression that, in an individual case, they may actually reduce the risk. He is clear that condoms on their own are not the “solution”, and that “much more needs to be done”. But he does not deny that condoms might reduce infection rates in some circumstances. He even states that they might represent a subjectively positive moral step in some individual cases, if it is just a first step on a longer moral journey.
It is very likely that this statement by the Pope will be represented as a change of Vatican policy towards condoms and HIV. However, the Pope is not here addressing the question of institutional policy but is addressing a question of moral theology. He is asking whether in some cases the decision to use a condom might be a positive moral step. Some theologians may well argue that this paves the way for a new Vatican policy of at least tolerating the distribution of condoms: which it may to some extent. But this is more than the Pope explicitly says and to move too quickly to further possible implications is to risk losing the significance of what the Pope is actually saying.
A fixation with the policy on condoms is precisely what the Pope wants us to move on from. No such policy can be a “solution” if it is not part of a broader humanization. Nevertheless, what the Pope has done, without denying any part of traditional teaching is to call attention to a case of someone for whom the decision to use a condom is “a first step in the direction of a moralization”. Thus in some cases the decision to use a condom could be positive, at least in a subjective and partial way. But the Pope has said this in the hope of redirecting people away from fixation on condoms. This is why he calls it “a first step” a step that calls for further steps, towards faithfulness and the humanization of sexuality, that is towards the ‘A’ and the ‘B’ of ‘A-B-C’.
Pope Benedict starts by calling attention to the need for solidarity and accompaniment with victims and to the tremendous work the Church is doing in this regard. People may not hear this point, but it is perhaps more likely to be heard in the context of this passage because of the tone of the passage as a whole. As the Pope made an impression in his visit to Britain as much by his tone as by his words, so the tone of these words will also give an impression.
Dr David Albert Jones
Anscombe Bioethics Centre, 21 November 2010
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Sunday, August 15, 2010
I told you so!
This week, we read the following news item:
Judge Walker's ruling overturned Prop. 8, an amendment to California's constitution approved by voters in November 2008 that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.
It has now dawned on people that barriers to individuals pursuing their conception of the good are maintained not only by an oppressive state, but by employers and school teachers: including the Church as an employer and including Catholic teachers in Catholic schools. It has also dawned on people that a general atmosphere created by the expression of certain attitudes can be a barrier: notably racist and homophobic attitudes. It is beginning to dawn on people that the expression of the Church's teaching, by the Pope or by an ordinary Catholic in the street, creates just such an atmosphere, in which some people feel intimidated from pursuing their conception of the good (and doing so in accordance with the universally accepted conception of justice).
Catholics need to wake up to this kind of argument. It cannot be opposed by appeals to the separation of Church and State, or the rights of individuals to pursue their own conceptions of the good. These arguments cannot vindicate conceptions of the good which oppress others.
Instead Catholics needs to take a step back and provide some arguments that their conception of the good does NOT oppress anyone. The only way to do this is by pointing out that the way liberals choose their conceptions of the good is based on a superficial and unsatisfying materialism, and that the Catholic vision of the world is actually TRUE.
We have to stop trying to live alongside the secularists, and start trying to convert them.
Judge Walker's ruling overturned Prop. 8, an amendment to California's constitution approved by voters in November 2008 that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman.
Walker's written decision listed as its 77th finding of fact: 'Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.'
In a list of supporting citations, the ruling quoted a 2003 document issued by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), 'Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons.'
'Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts as 'a serious depravity,'' is the first CDF phrase quoted in Judge Walker's decision.
The document was signed in 2003 by the CDF's prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who was elected to the papacy in 2005.
Some time ago I argued on this blog:It has now dawned on people that barriers to individuals pursuing their conception of the good are maintained not only by an oppressive state, but by employers and school teachers: including the Church as an employer and including Catholic teachers in Catholic schools. It has also dawned on people that a general atmosphere created by the expression of certain attitudes can be a barrier: notably racist and homophobic attitudes. It is beginning to dawn on people that the expression of the Church's teaching, by the Pope or by an ordinary Catholic in the street, creates just such an atmosphere, in which some people feel intimidated from pursuing their conception of the good (and doing so in accordance with the universally accepted conception of justice).
Catholics need to wake up to this kind of argument. It cannot be opposed by appeals to the separation of Church and State, or the rights of individuals to pursue their own conceptions of the good. These arguments cannot vindicate conceptions of the good which oppress others.
Instead Catholics needs to take a step back and provide some arguments that their conception of the good does NOT oppress anyone. The only way to do this is by pointing out that the way liberals choose their conceptions of the good is based on a superficial and unsatisfying materialism, and that the Catholic vision of the world is actually TRUE.
We have to stop trying to live alongside the secularists, and start trying to convert them.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Why Catholic Apologetics doesn't work
The crescendo of condemnation of the Church on her teachings on sexuality, especially as they impinge on public policy (civil partnerships, adoption, sex education) has led many Catholics to long for an effective apologetics, and effective apologists. It is true that apologetics is no longer taught: it was once the continuation of catechesis. But talented and forceful Catholic apologists do exist, and they make zero impact on the public debate. There are of course problems of coordination (who is pushed forward as a spokesman at the critical juncture) and media bias (how, if at all, they are reported), but the more fundamental problem is with their arguments. Vis-a-vis the secular humanists of modern Britain (and more widely), they don’t work.
Standard modern Catholic apologetics is based on two flawed arguments, which are frequently presented. First, that, on homosexuality, the Church condemns the sin (or the ‘lifestyle’) but not the sinner; second, that the separation of Church and State should guarantee religious freedom (and hence the freedom of Catholic parents and schools to teach what they like, of Catholic charities to have the employment policies they like, and so on).
The first does not work both superficially and more fundamentally. Superficially it is a con: of course the Church condemns sinners, as sinners. Liberals within the Church may prefer to forget this, but the Church’s enemies are not going to allow them to. One could adduce hundreds of such condemnations from the Church’s Scriptures and Magisterium. Naturally, the Church loves the sinner as a creature of God, and searches, weeping, in the desert for the lost sheep. But she condemns him too, and requires of him repentance and penance.
But this is a matter of words: there is a more fundamental problem. The Church’s position is characterised as holding that homosexuality is a sin, which is nonsense, or that the Church condemns people because of their sexual orientation, which is more nonsense. Acts and vices and agents are condemned; a natural inclination is none of these. The Church condemns ‘homosexual acts’ as they are called (sodomy), as sins; a voluntarily acquired habit of performing such acts, as a vice; and the people who perform them, as sinners. But when this is clarified the secular humanist won’t be satisfied, for he will say that sexual self-expression is a fundamental right, and that a homosexual inclination is essential to a person’s identity.
It is because the secularist believes these two claims that, by his own lights, the Church really does condemn people because of their sexual orientation. For, by the secularist’s argument the Church arbitrarily picks out one group of people, those with a homosexual inclination, and tells them they may not seek sexual fulfilment: she casts them as second-class citizens, to face either a half-life of impossible self denial, or moral condemnation. And really, the first option is itself a kind of moral condemnation, because the Church is condemning their only route to sexual self-expression. Saying that the Church condemns homosexuality is a convenient short-hand for this argument.
There is an interesting connection between this and the Church and State question, which will emerge below.
I heard with my own ears Cardinal Pell, when he came to Oxford, repeating the oft-made claim that the separation of Church and State should act to ‘protect the Church’. Those engaging with Pell in the public debate in Australia, as in Britain, will find this a very puzzling claim.
What the separation of Church and State, aka ‘State neutrality’, means is that the State withholds from using religious arguments and claims in justifying public policy, in order to avoid privileging one religion over another. Since the state has to use some basis for policy decisions (as I have discussed here), it uses a conception of rationality and an associated conception of justice which are supposed to be uncontroversial: common ground. The conception of justice protects us from criminals and guarantees contracts, so we can all get on with pursuing the good life as we understand it.
J.S. Mill, one of the pioneers of this approach, used the terms ‘public’ and ‘private’ to describe the two spheres, with their different kinds of justification and claims. These terms are still widely used, but they are misleading, because things only count as ‘private’ if they don’t infringe the principles of justice. So domestic violence is not immune from state interference. The same goes when we label something ‘religious’ or ‘the Church’: it is only immune from state interference if it is just. Clerical paedophilia or embezzlement are matters for the police, and human sacrifice would be as well.
And here’s the rub. If you examine the supposedly uncontroversial conceptions of justice and rationality, you will find that they are contrary to the Faith. The dominant theory of rationality since the Enlightenment centres on the idea that desires give people reasons for action, and rational action is action based on a weighing up of reasons. When the Church tells us that some desires are the result of Original Sin, and that we should desire things which we don’t currently desire, not only does it sound odd but we are not even supposed to be discussing it: we are all supposed to have accepted the Enlightenment conception of rationality as the basis upon which to discuss everything else.
Similarly with justice, for the secularist the ideology of ‘equality’ is, as David Cameron so memorably puts it, ‘a bottom-line, full essential’. It follows closely from a conception of justice based on Enlightenment rationality, of allowing each person to pursue his own desires without interference. When a ‘gay school pupil’ is taught the Faith in a Catholic school, or a Catholic parish declines to employ a catechist with an immoral lifestyle, these are barriers—not insuperable ones, but still illegitimate ones—to those people joyfully pursuing their desires. They are therefore are infringements of justice. The religious or private context, on this argument, can and should lend no protection from prosecution.
Look at it this way. The freedom the Church enjoys under a regime of ‘state neutrality’ is exactly the same as the freedom she is attempting to deny the pupil and the catechist: the freedom each individual has to pursue his own conception of the good. This is what the secularists mean when they say the Church is demanding special privileges, a ‘carve out’ from the law, and denying to others what she enjoys for herself.
It has taken the British debate a long time to catch up with the implications of these Enlightenment assumptions: the French caught up with them in the Revolution. It has now dawned on people that barriers to individuals pursuing their conception of the good are maintained not only by an oppressive state, but by employers and school teachers: including the Church as an employer and including Catholic teachers in Catholic schools. It has also dawned on people that a general atmosphere created by the expression of certain attitudes can be a barrier: notably racist and homophobic attitudes. It is beginning to dawn on people that the expression of the Church's teaching, by the Pope or by an ordinary Catholic in the street, creates just such an atmosphere, in which some people feel intimidated from pursuing their conception of the good (and doing so in accordance with the universally accepted conception of justice).
Until the intellectual leadership of the Catholic Church—bishops, spokesmen, apologists, bloggers, teachers—understand the terms of the debate, we are going to get nowhere with our apologetics. In the meantime we are going to hemmed in more and more in our proclamation of the Gospel and our charitable work.
An effective apologetics has to address the issues over which the secularists disagree with the Church, and not concede the assumptions which make their position correct and the Catholic position incoherent. The issues we need to press are these: the hedonism at the basis of modern political calculations is sterile and unsatisfying; and the state should not be neutral between value claims—something which is not even possible—but accept the correct values. This approach does not guarantee success, but we will at least be engaging in a useful debate, and not ‘beating the air.’
Standard modern Catholic apologetics is based on two flawed arguments, which are frequently presented. First, that, on homosexuality, the Church condemns the sin (or the ‘lifestyle’) but not the sinner; second, that the separation of Church and State should guarantee religious freedom (and hence the freedom of Catholic parents and schools to teach what they like, of Catholic charities to have the employment policies they like, and so on).
The first does not work both superficially and more fundamentally. Superficially it is a con: of course the Church condemns sinners, as sinners. Liberals within the Church may prefer to forget this, but the Church’s enemies are not going to allow them to. One could adduce hundreds of such condemnations from the Church’s Scriptures and Magisterium. Naturally, the Church loves the sinner as a creature of God, and searches, weeping, in the desert for the lost sheep. But she condemns him too, and requires of him repentance and penance.
But this is a matter of words: there is a more fundamental problem. The Church’s position is characterised as holding that homosexuality is a sin, which is nonsense, or that the Church condemns people because of their sexual orientation, which is more nonsense. Acts and vices and agents are condemned; a natural inclination is none of these. The Church condemns ‘homosexual acts’ as they are called (sodomy), as sins; a voluntarily acquired habit of performing such acts, as a vice; and the people who perform them, as sinners. But when this is clarified the secular humanist won’t be satisfied, for he will say that sexual self-expression is a fundamental right, and that a homosexual inclination is essential to a person’s identity.
It is because the secularist believes these two claims that, by his own lights, the Church really does condemn people because of their sexual orientation. For, by the secularist’s argument the Church arbitrarily picks out one group of people, those with a homosexual inclination, and tells them they may not seek sexual fulfilment: she casts them as second-class citizens, to face either a half-life of impossible self denial, or moral condemnation. And really, the first option is itself a kind of moral condemnation, because the Church is condemning their only route to sexual self-expression. Saying that the Church condemns homosexuality is a convenient short-hand for this argument.
There is an interesting connection between this and the Church and State question, which will emerge below.
I heard with my own ears Cardinal Pell, when he came to Oxford, repeating the oft-made claim that the separation of Church and State should act to ‘protect the Church’. Those engaging with Pell in the public debate in Australia, as in Britain, will find this a very puzzling claim.
What the separation of Church and State, aka ‘State neutrality’, means is that the State withholds from using religious arguments and claims in justifying public policy, in order to avoid privileging one religion over another. Since the state has to use some basis for policy decisions (as I have discussed here), it uses a conception of rationality and an associated conception of justice which are supposed to be uncontroversial: common ground. The conception of justice protects us from criminals and guarantees contracts, so we can all get on with pursuing the good life as we understand it.
J.S. Mill, one of the pioneers of this approach, used the terms ‘public’ and ‘private’ to describe the two spheres, with their different kinds of justification and claims. These terms are still widely used, but they are misleading, because things only count as ‘private’ if they don’t infringe the principles of justice. So domestic violence is not immune from state interference. The same goes when we label something ‘religious’ or ‘the Church’: it is only immune from state interference if it is just. Clerical paedophilia or embezzlement are matters for the police, and human sacrifice would be as well.
And here’s the rub. If you examine the supposedly uncontroversial conceptions of justice and rationality, you will find that they are contrary to the Faith. The dominant theory of rationality since the Enlightenment centres on the idea that desires give people reasons for action, and rational action is action based on a weighing up of reasons. When the Church tells us that some desires are the result of Original Sin, and that we should desire things which we don’t currently desire, not only does it sound odd but we are not even supposed to be discussing it: we are all supposed to have accepted the Enlightenment conception of rationality as the basis upon which to discuss everything else.
Similarly with justice, for the secularist the ideology of ‘equality’ is, as David Cameron so memorably puts it, ‘a bottom-line, full essential’. It follows closely from a conception of justice based on Enlightenment rationality, of allowing each person to pursue his own desires without interference. When a ‘gay school pupil’ is taught the Faith in a Catholic school, or a Catholic parish declines to employ a catechist with an immoral lifestyle, these are barriers—not insuperable ones, but still illegitimate ones—to those people joyfully pursuing their desires. They are therefore are infringements of justice. The religious or private context, on this argument, can and should lend no protection from prosecution.
Look at it this way. The freedom the Church enjoys under a regime of ‘state neutrality’ is exactly the same as the freedom she is attempting to deny the pupil and the catechist: the freedom each individual has to pursue his own conception of the good. This is what the secularists mean when they say the Church is demanding special privileges, a ‘carve out’ from the law, and denying to others what she enjoys for herself.
It has taken the British debate a long time to catch up with the implications of these Enlightenment assumptions: the French caught up with them in the Revolution. It has now dawned on people that barriers to individuals pursuing their conception of the good are maintained not only by an oppressive state, but by employers and school teachers: including the Church as an employer and including Catholic teachers in Catholic schools. It has also dawned on people that a general atmosphere created by the expression of certain attitudes can be a barrier: notably racist and homophobic attitudes. It is beginning to dawn on people that the expression of the Church's teaching, by the Pope or by an ordinary Catholic in the street, creates just such an atmosphere, in which some people feel intimidated from pursuing their conception of the good (and doing so in accordance with the universally accepted conception of justice).
Until the intellectual leadership of the Catholic Church—bishops, spokesmen, apologists, bloggers, teachers—understand the terms of the debate, we are going to get nowhere with our apologetics. In the meantime we are going to hemmed in more and more in our proclamation of the Gospel and our charitable work.
An effective apologetics has to address the issues over which the secularists disagree with the Church, and not concede the assumptions which make their position correct and the Catholic position incoherent. The issues we need to press are these: the hedonism at the basis of modern political calculations is sterile and unsatisfying; and the state should not be neutral between value claims—something which is not even possible—but accept the correct values. This approach does not guarantee success, but we will at least be engaging in a useful debate, and not ‘beating the air.’
Thursday, May 07, 2009
Intention in Cardiff
I recently gave a talk on euthanasia to the studen Pro-Life Society in Cardiff University. This gave rise to a question from a graduate student, by email, as follows (in part). His questions are in blue, my replies in bold.
I'm not sure what distinction you are trying to draw here. It is wrong to intend death, by action or omission. It is permissible to act or omit to act with the intention of easing pain; if this shortens life that it will be permissible if that is a proportionate evil to the good you are trying to bring about. In other words if the patient is going to die soon anyway, and the suffering is very great, and the only drugs which will ease the pain will shorten the life, you can intend the easing of pain knowing that your actions will shorten the life. This is no more 'murder' than building a road on which you know people will die - despite the fact that in these cases we are talking about actions, not omissions.
I agree that intent is vitally important but I think it only applies more broadly than to killing/not killing. With the example of the child slipping in the bath. Would it have not been wrong if the intent was primarily to gain the inheritance, with an undesirable side effect being the child dying? I think yes! You phrased this scenario as wanting to let the child drown so that you could claim the inheritance. But is there a difference between the two as I have worded them?
The point of the example is that the person looking after the child needs the child to die if he is to inherit the money. The death of the child is intended, therefore, as a means to inheriting. We intend means in exactly the same way as we intend ends.
You also gave the example of not jumping into the river to save your rival, because it would spoil your shoes. This was okay despite knowing that not jumping would cause his death because his death was not your primary intent even though it might be your desire. But on the other hand not jumping in because you desired his death was wrong.
I fail to see the difference. In both cases you have knowingly chosen not to act to save his life. The intension does not justify the end. If saving his life was right, then you have done wrong. Either you have valued shoes which are not sacred above a life which is. Or you have wished a man to die for your own benefit.
The 'end', saving ones shoes, does not really need to be justified: it is not wrong. I didn't say that it would be permissible not to jump in, out of concern for one's shoes, only that it would be possible. It would be wrong because it would infringe one's obligation of aid to someone in danger of death. It would not be wrong becuase the bystander intended the death - ex hypothesi he didn't.
If I intend to buy a cheap pair of shoes and as a result of that demand a child is forced to attempt to supply my 'need' in a sweatshop and as a result of industrial accidents/poor conditions dies am I then responsible?... given that I already know that children are dying in sweatshops.
I was not intending death but I still think the knowledge of the means makes me somewhat culpable. (I bought a £10 pair of shoes yesterday, and am feeling a bit guilty)
You may be complicit in a bad situation: in technical language, you might be involved in material cooperation with evil. But you don't intend the evil, which makes it less bad. Obviously it is worse if you are buying the shoes in order that the child dies.
So, can I turn off a machine, for the patients 'good', be that the prevention of suffering or etc. when I know this bring about immediate death? I can only be innocent if somehow I believe that their death will not be, 'bad'. Indeed that allowing the inevitable to hasten nearer is somehow 'good' and in their best interest, on balance, given the discomfort of being in a coma, having a feed tube in place, etc. If their death can then be described as good how can it be wrong to desire it for a patient. If it is not wrong to desire it. Why should it be wrong to act in the patients 'good' or best interest to allow it to happen. Not to make it happen but allow it to happen.
Another way of putting this is: the doctor stops the treatment when the treatment is no longer doing the patient any real good. I agree.
I think there is a clear difference between injecting potassium, which is fatal (and largely untraceable) and not giving antibiotics/more chemotherapy/IV food&fluids. In the first, you are taking the ending of a person's life into your own hands. In the second you are deciding not to artificially prolong their life.
In medicine we artificially prolong life all the time. This is not wrong, in many causes it is good. This is good but I don't think it is always good or an obligation.
I had not heard that the intent to allow a person to die being described as wrong before. I ... struggle to see how intent to kill and intent to allow to die can be the same thing.
..But I really struggle to see the deference between intent and the expected side effects and how one can then be said to be morally responsible for one and not the other.
Well, how do you express the difference? This has proved, in the philosophical literature, to be extremely hard. If it is ok to 'permit' death (while intending it) and wrong to 'kill' (while intending), it will be easy to find ways to bring about people's death by omission, and not by action. The morally important difference, as is recognised by the law, is what you intended. If you intended the injection to kill, you have murdered the victim. If you intended to cure, or ease pain, then the death was either an accident or a side effect.
You are responsible for forseen side effects, however, under the principle of proportionality.
I'm not sure what distinction you are trying to draw here. It is wrong to intend death, by action or omission. It is permissible to act or omit to act with the intention of easing pain; if this shortens life that it will be permissible if that is a proportionate evil to the good you are trying to bring about. In other words if the patient is going to die soon anyway, and the suffering is very great, and the only drugs which will ease the pain will shorten the life, you can intend the easing of pain knowing that your actions will shorten the life. This is no more 'murder' than building a road on which you know people will die - despite the fact that in these cases we are talking about actions, not omissions.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Discrimination in hiring: the Christian colleges in America
The American Philosophical Association is undergoing a rancourous debate about a proposal to prevent various Protestant universites from advertising in the APA's paper, 'Jobs for Philosophers'. The argument is that since these universities ask their staff to live in accord with Christian norms, which exclude sex outside marriage, they discriminate against homosexuals. This kind of argument is becoming common.
A very helpful response has been put together by Mark Murphy, a Catholic philosopher at Georgetown University. It is interesting to note the leading role taken by Catholics to defend the right of institutions to follow a practice that no Catholic institution, as far as I know, would dream of adopting. These Protestant colleges, moreover, would as cheerfully have excluded Catholics as homosexuals a generation ago. But that, as they say, is not the point.
Dr Murphy's letter can be seen in full here; here's an interesting extract on the nature of discrimination.
First, there are reasons to believe that these institutions are not engaging in discrimination based on sexual orientation. The policy lacks a definition of discrimination. We suggest that it is plausible that satisfaction of any of the following conditions is sufficient to constitute discrimination, but satisfaction of at least one of them is necessary: (a) intentional targeting for burdening of the protected class; (b) burdening that is motivated by animus against the protected class; (c) burdening of the protected class that is disproportionate and not adequately justified. But none of these is satisfied in the case of the sexual conduct requirements at these Christian colleges. (If there is an alternative understanding of 'discrimination' not here considered under which these schools do discriminate, we ask that the defenders of the original petition bring it forward and defend its acceptability.)
(a) Those with a particular sexual orientation are not targeted. Employment is conditioned on one’s willingness to refrain from sexual conduct outside of traditional marriage; it is compatible with the satisfaction of this condition that one be of any sexual orientation, and no particular sexual orientation would be sufficient to meet the condition.
(b) There is no institutional animus toward those who are homosexually oriented; or, to put it more guardedly, no evidence at all of institutional animus toward those homosexually oriented has been brought forward. The norms of sexual conduct of the institutions in question are broad, reaching to various sorts of sexual conduct, both homosexual and heterosexual, and appear to be generally enforced as written. (If defenders of the original petition have evidence that these institutions' policies are being enforced in a way that provides evidence of institutional animus, we urge that they put it forward.)
(c) What will generate most contention is whether there is unjustified disproportionate burdening. Defenders of these schools’ policies will note that adherence to their policies on sexual conduct is justified by the job description, which is to contribute to the living of a Christian life in a specific sort of educational community. This way of life does in fact place different burdens on people; no doubt those who are homosexually oriented are burdened in a way that those heterosexually oriented are not. But we think that it is important that in the context of US discrimination law, and even in the context of the APA’s own norms, there is some deference given to the religious character of the institution — that these are schools that adopt the requirements for the conduct of their communal life from what they take to be divine revelation, and it is explicitly allowed by the APA policy for schools to make adherence to the faith statements of these schools, statements that include moral claims about the ordering of individual lives and communities, a condition of employment. When we add to this the fact that one's adherence to a certain faith affects what one counts as a 'burden' and what personal and social meaning those burdens have, it is, at best, an extraordinarily contentious claim to hold that these schools discriminate in the sense of placing a disproportionate burden without adequate justification. To put it another way: for the APA to defend the claim that there is unjustifiable burdening, the APA will have to endorse officially a certain disputed view on the ethics of marriage and human sexuality, and commit itself to the falsity of any view, secular or religious, that disagrees.
A very helpful response has been put together by Mark Murphy, a Catholic philosopher at Georgetown University. It is interesting to note the leading role taken by Catholics to defend the right of institutions to follow a practice that no Catholic institution, as far as I know, would dream of adopting. These Protestant colleges, moreover, would as cheerfully have excluded Catholics as homosexuals a generation ago. But that, as they say, is not the point.
Dr Murphy's letter can be seen in full here; here's an interesting extract on the nature of discrimination.
First, there are reasons to believe that these institutions are not engaging in discrimination based on sexual orientation. The policy lacks a definition of discrimination. We suggest that it is plausible that satisfaction of any of the following conditions is sufficient to constitute discrimination, but satisfaction of at least one of them is necessary: (a) intentional targeting for burdening of the protected class; (b) burdening that is motivated by animus against the protected class; (c) burdening of the protected class that is disproportionate and not adequately justified. But none of these is satisfied in the case of the sexual conduct requirements at these Christian colleges. (If there is an alternative understanding of 'discrimination' not here considered under which these schools do discriminate, we ask that the defenders of the original petition bring it forward and defend its acceptability.)
(a) Those with a particular sexual orientation are not targeted. Employment is conditioned on one’s willingness to refrain from sexual conduct outside of traditional marriage; it is compatible with the satisfaction of this condition that one be of any sexual orientation, and no particular sexual orientation would be sufficient to meet the condition.
(b) There is no institutional animus toward those who are homosexually oriented; or, to put it more guardedly, no evidence at all of institutional animus toward those homosexually oriented has been brought forward. The norms of sexual conduct of the institutions in question are broad, reaching to various sorts of sexual conduct, both homosexual and heterosexual, and appear to be generally enforced as written. (If defenders of the original petition have evidence that these institutions' policies are being enforced in a way that provides evidence of institutional animus, we urge that they put it forward.)
(c) What will generate most contention is whether there is unjustified disproportionate burdening. Defenders of these schools’ policies will note that adherence to their policies on sexual conduct is justified by the job description, which is to contribute to the living of a Christian life in a specific sort of educational community. This way of life does in fact place different burdens on people; no doubt those who are homosexually oriented are burdened in a way that those heterosexually oriented are not. But we think that it is important that in the context of US discrimination law, and even in the context of the APA’s own norms, there is some deference given to the religious character of the institution — that these are schools that adopt the requirements for the conduct of their communal life from what they take to be divine revelation, and it is explicitly allowed by the APA policy for schools to make adherence to the faith statements of these schools, statements that include moral claims about the ordering of individual lives and communities, a condition of employment. When we add to this the fact that one's adherence to a certain faith affects what one counts as a 'burden' and what personal and social meaning those burdens have, it is, at best, an extraordinarily contentious claim to hold that these schools discriminate in the sense of placing a disproportionate burden without adequate justification. To put it another way: for the APA to defend the claim that there is unjustifiable burdening, the APA will have to endorse officially a certain disputed view on the ethics of marriage and human sexuality, and commit itself to the falsity of any view, secular or religious, that disagrees.
The Pope on AIDS and condoms
My attention has been drawn to a very interesting article on Alligator online by Michael Webb, which goes into some detail about the research on the effectiveness of condoms. The Pope's claim that condoms 'make things worse' with the AIDS epidemic in Africa has overwhelming plausibility to those who have watched the failure of contraception to reduce so-called 'unwanted pregnancies', and, for that matter, ordinary sexually-transmitted diseases, in the West. If fire-hosing condoms at people doesn't reduce pregancies, it is not going to work with AIDS either. In fact we actually see an increase of pregnancies, and abortions, where contraceptives have been pushed at people; a similarly tragic consequence, one may infer, is likely to happen with AIDS. The fact that the advocates of condoms refuse to accept that this is happening, and insist the situation would be even worse without the condoms, just shows the blind attachment to ideology when you face ostracism and redundancy for dissent.
Why condoms might be counterproductive as preventers of pregnancies and AIDS is, intuitively, that promoting contraception promotes a culture of promiscuity, and the culture of promiscuity is actually not very friendly to putting those rubber things on just at the moment life is getting interesting. Webb, however, uncovers some very interesting research which not only supports the casual empiricism against condoms but gives a slightly different (though not conflicting) explanation, that of 'risk compensation'. When you make an activity safer, people performing the activity will take more risks with it: see 'The Pope was right' on the Cornell Society.
Everything we do is based on an assessment of benefit and risk. We have a certain appetite for risk (as they say in finance), and if something becomes safer, we'll tend to go for the extra benefits associated with taking on another slice of risk. This is really not controversial; the only question, in making things safer in any given situation, is whether the risk compensation will end up making the situation worse over all. It will depend on how much safer people are made to feel, and what the opportunities for greater risk-taking might be.
People in countries afflicted by AIDS are still willing to engage in promiscuous sex: hence AIDS continues to spread. Whatever the (perceived) risk they are running is, that is a level of risk they are happy to live with. If you give them condoms and they wear them 50% of the time, thinking that makes them 50% safer, they would rationally double their number of partners to get back up to the old level of risk. The reward of doing this, of course, is fantastic: twice as many partners! There may, of course, be other factors.
So much for the principle. But this is exactly what many researchers have found. Over to Michael Webb:
Webb points out that the studies making this point are fairly limited in number: no surprise there, since this is not a conclusion the AIDS industry wants to hear. He also points out that there is agreement accross the debate that IF condoms were used 'consistently and correctly', and IF behaviour didn't change, then condoms would help with AIDS: true, but irrelevant.
More interstingly, Webb makes the odd conclusion that 'the Pope should not make claims that can be interpreted as being scientific.' This is odd because he adds that the Pope's remarks were interpreted as making a claim not supported by the evidence. But the body of Webb's article has shown that it is perfectly scientifically respectable to hold that view; it may not be the view of the WHO but there is plenty of evidence for it, and the WHO is not infallible.
A deeper reason for Webb's criticism of the Pope, however, is that the Pope's position is, or ought to be, really a matter of moral teaching: against promiscuity, and against contraception. Webb seems to think that if this was made clearer, criticism of the Pope would have less traction.
It is true that the Pope's position is driven by moral concerns, and the moral teaching of the Church. But it is because voicing this moral teaching has been condemned as tantamount to mass murder - as Jon Snow gently put it, the Pope is responsible for 'millions of deaths' - that it become necessary to look into the claims being made about the effectiveness of condoms.
Catholic reseachers and all people of good will can and must refute the lies which are used to justify crimes. The Nazi genocide was unjustifiable, but people were persuaded to go along with it on the basis of grotesque lies about the Jews. The Church has had to contend with 'black legends' in every age; the work of the Bollandists on Church history is an example of her response. It is true that even if they were successful, condoms would not be justified, but the Pope in concerned to influence opinion and policy, and the lies must be opposed.
The idea that Catholics should leave the 'facts' in the hands of their opponents to distort at will only has to be stated to be rejected.
Why condoms might be counterproductive as preventers of pregnancies and AIDS is, intuitively, that promoting contraception promotes a culture of promiscuity, and the culture of promiscuity is actually not very friendly to putting those rubber things on just at the moment life is getting interesting. Webb, however, uncovers some very interesting research which not only supports the casual empiricism against condoms but gives a slightly different (though not conflicting) explanation, that of 'risk compensation'. When you make an activity safer, people performing the activity will take more risks with it: see 'The Pope was right' on the Cornell Society.
Everything we do is based on an assessment of benefit and risk. We have a certain appetite for risk (as they say in finance), and if something becomes safer, we'll tend to go for the extra benefits associated with taking on another slice of risk. This is really not controversial; the only question, in making things safer in any given situation, is whether the risk compensation will end up making the situation worse over all. It will depend on how much safer people are made to feel, and what the opportunities for greater risk-taking might be.
People in countries afflicted by AIDS are still willing to engage in promiscuous sex: hence AIDS continues to spread. Whatever the (perceived) risk they are running is, that is a level of risk they are happy to live with. If you give them condoms and they wear them 50% of the time, thinking that makes them 50% safer, they would rationally double their number of partners to get back up to the old level of risk. The reward of doing this, of course, is fantastic: twice as many partners! There may, of course, be other factors.
So much for the principle. But this is exactly what many researchers have found. Over to Michael Webb:
Dr Edward Green, Director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at Harvard. “The best evidence we have”, he says, “supports the Pope’s comments. There is a consistent association shown by our best studies between greater availability and use of condoms and higher (not lower) HIV infection rates.” He told me:
In epidemics that are population wide, where most HIV is found in the general population, for whatever reason we can't get people to use condoms consistently, and when they use them at all, that seems to have the effect of disinhibiting people's behaviours so they end up taking greater sexual risks and cancelling whatever risk reduction they have gotten from the technology they're using.
Webb points out that the studies making this point are fairly limited in number: no surprise there, since this is not a conclusion the AIDS industry wants to hear. He also points out that there is agreement accross the debate that IF condoms were used 'consistently and correctly', and IF behaviour didn't change, then condoms would help with AIDS: true, but irrelevant.
More interstingly, Webb makes the odd conclusion that 'the Pope should not make claims that can be interpreted as being scientific.' This is odd because he adds that the Pope's remarks were interpreted as making a claim not supported by the evidence. But the body of Webb's article has shown that it is perfectly scientifically respectable to hold that view; it may not be the view of the WHO but there is plenty of evidence for it, and the WHO is not infallible.
A deeper reason for Webb's criticism of the Pope, however, is that the Pope's position is, or ought to be, really a matter of moral teaching: against promiscuity, and against contraception. Webb seems to think that if this was made clearer, criticism of the Pope would have less traction.
It is true that the Pope's position is driven by moral concerns, and the moral teaching of the Church. But it is because voicing this moral teaching has been condemned as tantamount to mass murder - as Jon Snow gently put it, the Pope is responsible for 'millions of deaths' - that it become necessary to look into the claims being made about the effectiveness of condoms.
Catholic reseachers and all people of good will can and must refute the lies which are used to justify crimes. The Nazi genocide was unjustifiable, but people were persuaded to go along with it on the basis of grotesque lies about the Jews. The Church has had to contend with 'black legends' in every age; the work of the Bollandists on Church history is an example of her response. It is true that even if they were successful, condoms would not be justified, but the Pope in concerned to influence opinion and policy, and the lies must be opposed.
The idea that Catholics should leave the 'facts' in the hands of their opponents to distort at will only has to be stated to be rejected.
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