Does secularism mean atheism?

Secularism has been in the news a lot recently. It all started about three weeks ago with the High Court’s ruling that it is illegal for local councils to hold prayers at their meetings. Then came the research commissioned by Richard Dawkins suggesting that only a small minority of those self-described as Christians actually practise the religion, and that most Christians hold secular beliefs. The implication was clear: Britain should no longer be seen as a Christian country. Meanwhile, the Conservative minister Sayeeda Warsi expressed her fear that a “militant secularisation is taking over our societies”, and suggesting that “It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes”. The row has rumbled on, with even the Queen appearing to intervene, defending the role of religion in pubic life.

The disputes of the past few weeks have generally been framed as a question of whether Britain is or should be a secular country. The trouble is that very few people have bothered to define what they mean by ‘secular’, and inevitably this has led to people talking at cross purposes. At the most general level, we can define secularism as the belief that the state ought to be neutral between different religions (and, indeed, the irreligious).

Notice that on this definition, secularism need not mean the expulsion of religion from the public sphere – it only rules out partiality towards any religion in particular. So, for example, it would be fine according to this definition to have Anglican prayers before meetings, as long as Catholics or Muslims or anybody else is also free to have their prayers at the same forum. Public holidays would have to respect the holy days of all faiths. Faith schools would be permitted, as long as all faiths (and none) were represented. Church leaders could sit in the House of Lords, but only alongside rabbis and imams. However, this religion-embracing secularism is usually rejected in favour of a view that the state should equally neglect all religions.

Another useful distinction that tends to be elided in the debate is between secularism as a view about public reason and as a view about institutional neutrality. The first is essentially a claim about legitimate arguments. It is the idea that in a plural democracy people ought not to ground their arguments in sectarian religious worldviews. The second is more about public policies. It is the notion that institutions ought not to favour any one religion – for example, by hanging its symbols outside their offices or promoting it in their schools. Again much of the confusion seems to have resulted from assuming that the two views are necessarily linked. As I understand it, cases like the Bideford court case are more about symbolic institutional favouritism than about the role of public debate. Agreeing with the High Court decision does not therefore mean playing down the role of religious perspectives in public debate, as many seem to have assumed.

From this understanding of secularism, it should be clear it is not necessarily hostile to religion. If I am correct in interpreting the debate as primarily about the institutional privilege of the Church of England, then many members of that church can agree that it is wrong that their religion should enjoy such a prominent position without in any way compromising their faith. They might think it is unfair to presume that their religion is more important or deserving of respect than other religions. They might think the very topic of religion is inappropriate in contexts like public buildings or council meetings.

Given my belief that religious people can be secular, you can imagine my frustration at the fact that Richard Dawkins seems to have been appointed as the spokesman of British secularism. This inevitably narrows the constituency of secularism, as many religious people are likely to see atheism and secularism as inextricably linked, and so will assume that neither is relevant to them.

Richard Dawkins’ project, I think he would accept, is to wipe out religion. But this is a very different project to the secular one, which is to remove the dominance of one religion in one sphere of life. Now atheists may see secularism as a first step in undermining religion – by taking away its institutional authority, they might believe it will be weakened, discredited, or lose a platform to spread its message. But we need not take this view, and the idea that it is the only grounds for adopting secularism is a pernicious one.

G.J. Holyoake, who invented the term ‘secularism’, and was a founding member of the National Secular Society (which originally raised the issue this time around by pursuing the legal case against Bideford Town Council), recognised this distinction. He was adamant that secularism “neither affirms or denies the theistic premises of religion”. And yet Holyoake’s conception of secularism regularly lapses into rejection of religion and the proposal of secularism as an alternative and mutually exclusive belief system. For example, he suggests that “for the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the providence of science”. Instead of what he calls “futile prayer”, to be secular is to believe in “self-help and the employment of all the resources of manliness and industry”. It is not clear how a religious person could accept this conception of secularism without abandoning their faith. And indeed, Holyoake at one point suggests that secularism “was addressed, not to Christians, but to those who rejected Christianity, or who were indifferent to it, and were outside it”

Now none of this in itself undermines religious secularism. Holyoake’s assaults on religion are in principle separate from his belief in disestablishing the position of the church. And yet these origins are bound to unsettle those who suspect secularism is just atheism in disguise. Perhaps secularism will never win their trust until it gains prominent religious support.

Kant, Singer and Digital Piracy

Jacob Williamson observes that a strong argument against digital piracy evokes the Kantian claim that it is wrong to act in a way that you wouldn’t want to be universalised. At the same time, Peter Singer offers a consequentialist account of the ethics of piracy, suggesting that individual acts of piracy are not morally culpable, but create a collective action problem that ought to be resolved through measures like a public lending right for the internet. This seems to be an excellent illustration of one of the major fault lines between consequentialism and Kantianism, and that our views on that dispute may be highly salient to the moral evaluation of piracy.

A couple of caveats. First, this is far from the only frame through which to view the question of digital piracy. Other plausible arguments may draw on ideas of fair recognition of desert, or the importance of respecting property rights (as in a libertarian theory). Second, the version of Kantianism discussed here is only one possible interpretation, and not necessarily the most defensible. While Kant’s ‘formula of the universal law’ (FUL) is most relevant here, it has been suggested that this principle is less significant and helpful to understanding his ethical theory than other principles.

Kant’s FUL states that we are to “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”. In other words, morally permissible acts must be universalisable – we would not mind if everybody acted in this way.[1] The intuition captured by this principle is reflected by the familiar admonition ‘What if everybody did that?’ The central point is that morality requires us to live up to the same standards we expect of others. If we act in a way that we would not be happy for everyone else to emulate, then we are acting as if we are special and superior to others, and this is immoral.

The logic of the FUL is most persuasive in cases like internet piracy, where it is quite clear that everybody adopting a certain course of action would be disastrous, even if individuals can do it without few ill effects. If nobody bought books, CDs, TV licenses and subscriptions, then there would be no reward for those producing these goods, and they would disappear. Thus the pirates are free riding on the contributions of those paying, violating moral equality. They are acting as if they are special and above the rules.

The consequentialist accepts that collective action problems can occur, and condemns individual acts insofar as they contribute to collective action problems. However, they will insist that universalisation is only appropriate where it is likely that many people will follow my lead. The consequentialist objects that it might be terrible if everybody left for work at 7.30 – there would be awful traffic jams, and almost everybody would start work late and grumpy - but this doesn’t mean that leaving for work at that time is morally impermissible. The act of leaving for work at 7.30 might not be universalisable, but this is irrelevant, because excessive numbers of people are unlikely to perform this act together.

This line of response only works when piracy is relatively small scale, and does minimal damage to the media industry. Yet when many people are performing the same act, which we would not want universalised, the consequentialist has to take a different tack.

For the consequentialist, all that matters is the direct causal responsibility that each individual bears for the emergence of the collective action problem. The pertinent question is what would happen if I chose not to commit piracy. As Singer observes, the consequences are often minimal. (Though for an interesting discussion of additive harms and consequentialism, see Shelly Kagan)

From a consequentialist perspective, digital piracy is only bad because it undermines the media industry, but each individual act of piracy makes little impact on the media industry. It would be very good for me to have access to the pirated material, but in many cases it would do nobody else any good for me to forgo it – piracy will continue or not whatever I do – so there is no sense in choosing not to pirate.

Does making this claim violate moral equality and assert my superiority, as rejection of the universalisation principle would seem to suggest? There is no double standard because piracy is not immoral for anybody. At the very least, it is not immoral for anybody in a position similar to mine. (It is possible that those who are particularly influential might have more significant actions and ought not to participate in piracy. But even so, there is still no double standard: if I were in their positions it would be as wrong for me to pirate as it is for them).

The Kantian position seems to require us to take a stand in the full knowledge it will have no effect, while the consequentialist position seems to suggest what it is individually moral is collectively immoral. And indeed, this exposes Kantianism’s fetishism – its blind obedience to the rules, no matter what. It also demonstrates consequentialism’s essential individualism, its difficulty with dealing with collective challenges.

[1] Notice that I have slipped from talking about ‘maxims’ to talking about ‘acts’. I do this to avoid the tricky question of what constitutes a maxim.

Living for Others

I’ve always been sympathetic to the socialist argument that fulfilling and enjoyable work is crucial to human wellbeing, part of our ‘species-being’, as Marx calls it. It’s a line of thought found in the work of those like William Morris, who believe that among capitalism’s most perverse effects is to turn labour, through which we should learn about ourselves and realise our potential, into drudgery which we seek to escape. Similarly, Oscar Wilde claimed that “The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others”.

Today, as in Wilde’s time, most people live for others. They have a limited set of marketable skills, and so spend their working lives providing whatever service the market requires, regardless of how they would choose to spend their time. I have always felt incredibly fortunate to have a wide range of options open to me, to know that my career was a matter of choice, rather than something I had to do to get by. I have always felt lucky to be working as much for myself as for others, and that I should value this freedom because it is so unusual.

The concept of professional philanthropy turns this reasoning on its head. It suggests that as long as we live in a world so unequal that genuine career choice is a luxury, it is immoral to take advantage of it. For as long as we live in a world where money has the capacity to do such good – in terms of reducing inequality, preventing disease, providing education – it is self-indulgent to turn your back on it.

The uneasiness I feel about giving up my freedom to work only for myself reminds me of the argument my mother made to me as a child when I refused to finish my dinner (I’m sure many of you had similar conversations). ‘Think of all the starving people who are desperate for that food you’re about to throw away’, she would say. Her point, of course, was that if other people value it so much, so should I. To do otherwise would show a lack of respect and humility. My response was that if they wanted the food so much, they should have it – my eating it wouldn’t make them any better off.

As long as it was impossible for the food to be given to the impoverished my mother’s argument was valid, and mine invalid – the best way to respect the destitute would be to acknowledge my good fortune. But if (as was probably the case when we lived in Kolkata, come to think of it), it would be viable to transfer the food to the poor, then my argument surely makes more sense – it would surely show them more respect to feed them than to eat food in their honour.

I think a similar argument applies to luxury of career choice. For as long as we think that self-realisation is bound to be limited to a lucky few, then the appropriate response is to savour it. But if there is hope of extending it to others, then the best use of our good fortune is to sacrifice it.

How much should act-consequentialists pay for a Radiohead album?

An old objection to act consequentialism is that it conflicts with honesty. The basic structure of the argument runs like this:

(1) An honest person must accept certain constraints on their behaviour – there are certain actions which are off-limits to them, such as telling a lie or breaking a promise.

(2) Act consequentialists cannot accept such constraints, since they must be open to performing any act which has the best consequences. It may well be the case that telling a lie or breaking a promise has the best consequences.

Therefore: (3) Act consequentialists may be morally obligated to act dishonestly.

Act consequentialists usually respond by demonstrating two forms of bad consequences that flow from dishonesty. Firstly, they object that dishonesty undermines important social institutions, such as promising. Being able to trust one another is a necessary requirement for cooperation, and without cooperation, we would lose many important benefits. Yet if people regularly lie to one another and break their promises, trust breaks down, and these benefits are lost. Therefore, we ought to be honest in order to preserve trust and social cooperation.

The trouble with this argument is that while it rules out regular dishonesty, it seems insufficient to ensure that dishonesty is never the best policy. One lie or broken promise is unlikely to make that much difference. As we see, people lie and break promises all the time, and yet trust still exists. The key is that they do not do so too often. The only constraint that this argument places on the act consequentialist is that they must choose their exceptions carefully – they ought not to be dishonest all the time, but only when it is really necessary.

The second type of consequence brought forward by act consequentialists are the effects of a loss of personal reputation. Even if I lie all the time, it is unlikely to have a significant effect on how much other people trust each other. Yet all it takes is a few lies to greatly reduce people’s trust in me. Thus act consequentialists have a good reason to be honest because of the need to maintain their own reputations for integrity.

Of course, this raises the question of whether act consequentialists still have any reason to act honestly in cases where their reputation is not on the line. The increasingly popular phenomenon of ‘honesty boxes’ puts this to the test. Under an honesty box system, payment for a good or service is not enforced, but depends on the conscience of the consumer. Yet this neglects the possibility that the consequentialist’s conscience might tell them something entirely at odds with common-sense morality. Since honesty boxes are anonymous, and so consequentialists need not worry about their reputations, what other reason do they have to respect them?

In the case of small-scale institutions, the non-compliance of even a single individual may undermine the whole project. For example, if an office operates a coffee machine where everybody is expected to pay a set amount for every coffee they consume, the failure of even one person to pay up could make the scheme unviable. Nobody would know whose fault it is, but the consequentialist’s actions would ruin mutually beneficial arrangement for everyone.

Other honesty box systems involve making a promise, and so consequentialist objections to breaking a promise become relevant. For example, last week I found a copy of Paul Story’s novel Dreamwords left at a bus stop, with a note from its author attached. The note asked people to people to take the book only if they promise to pay its full price if they enjoyed the, and only £1 if they did not. Essentially, this sort of promise is a novel form of the ‘desert island problem’, which has exercised many moral philosophers - a case where a person makes a promise to a person who has no way of knowing if the obligation is discharged. Interestingly, Story labels the scheme ‘An experiment in honesty’, which means that breaking this promise is likely to be more consequential than breaking your average promise. The results from ‘experiments’ like these are likely to receive a fair amount of attention, and to feed back into people’s perceptions about how trustworthy their society is. Therefore consequentialists have a stronger reason to fulfil these sorts of promises, as their social consequences are greater than average.

It is harder to justify contributing to large anonymous honesty boxes that don’t involve promising, like Radiohead’s famous ‘pay what you like’ policy for the album In Rainbows. In these cases, the only consideration I can think of in favour is that if we believe that this is a good model for others writers and publishers to follow, then consequentialists should contribute to its success by paying money that will support it an encourage its extension.

While all of these are possible reasons in favour of paying into an honesty box, good act consequentialists need to consider the other side of the equation: possible alternative uses of the money. Inevitably (this is the consequentialist response to so many moral dilemmas), the best way to spend your money is almost certainly to donate it to an anti-poverty charity.

This conclusion, that we should donate all our money to charity, with its implication that this dilemma is an essentially frivolous one where we try to choose between two equally sinful alternatives, is unsatisfying. It shows the limitations of absolutist, as opposed to scalar, consequentialism. Consequentialist ought to have the resources to explain that ideally we should give our money to charity, but that if we don’t it may be better to contribute to honesty boxes than to spend money on our selves.

Does the public know enough to condemn or acquit Luis Suarez?

To many, Liverpool’s continued defence of Luis Suarez despite his eight match ban for racial abuse is transparent and shameful. For them, the club is clearly putting petty footballing concerns above the serious matter of fighting racism, indulging their star striker’s bigotry as though it were just another idiosyncrasy. It might just be my pro-Liverpool bias, but I think there’s more to the story than that.

Something that most people seem to have ignored is that Liverpool F.C., its manager and players almost certainly know more about the case than anybody else. There are all sorts of ambiguities and uncertainties about both the incident and the judgement, which only Liverpool, Manchester United and the commission really understand. Since both the commission and Man Utd. have kept silent so far, Liverpool’s statement in response to the verdict is the most direct account of the facts that the public have to go on. Of course, it is hardly likely to be neutral, but it raises a few questions that need to be answered by the official report.

Are the facts in dispute?

The first confusion is thrown up by Liverpool’s defence of Suarez. Much of the coverage of the tribunal suggested that the words uttered were accepted by both sides, and that the case depended on their interpretation, Suarez’s defence hanging on cultural differences. Yet in their statement, Liverpool placed a great deal of significance on the fact that there were no witnesses. Now if Suarez and Evra agree on what was said, it’s not clear why the fact that nobody else heard their conversation should matter. Surely it’s only if there is some doubt about the facts of the event that anybody should find it “extraordinary that Luis can be found guilty on the word of Patrice Evra alone”.

Words or intent?

There is an ambiguity in the F.A.’s statement which might have some bearing on the offensiveness of Suarez’ crime. The F.A. claims that Suarez is being punished for using “insulting words” against Evra. But of course, how insulting certain words are often depends as much on how they are said as on the words used themselves. It is unclear at this moment in time whether Suarez is being punished because the words that he used are never acceptable, or because he said them in a way that were clearly intended to be insulting. The former is clearly much more understandable and defensible as it would suggest that Suarez merely erred in his understanding of what sort of language is acceptable, rather than acting in a fundamentally inexcusable way. Liverpool’s claim that “Patrice Evra himself in his written statement in this case said: ‘I don't think that Luis Suarez is racist.’ and that “The FA in their opening remarks accepted that Luis Suarez was not racist”, if true, seem to favour the idea that all sides accept that Suarez meant no wrong.

How significant was cultural context?

It may well be that all the talk of cultural differences is a smokescreen, and that Suarez used insulting language in a plainly insulting way. But many of the reports seem to suggest that cultural questions are relevant, and that certain mitigating factors should be considered. For a start, the conversation in question appears to have taken place in Spanish. Secondly, the offensive word used has been reported to be either ‘negro’ or ‘negrito’. The latter isn’t even a word in English.

A number of people have suggested, along with Henry Winter, that “for somebody who has lived in northern Europe for four years, including three years in Holland with Ajax, the Liverpool striker should have understood the sensitivity towards the word “negro”. But Suarez used a Spanish word in the context of a Spanish conversation, that argument hardly seems to apply. Especially if the word used doesn’t even exist in English.

It is possible that the cultural question never really arose in the course of the tribunal. But if it did, there certainly seems to be a plausible defence open to Suarez.

Liverpool need to ‘calm down’

Perhaps I’m being too credulous, but I think that the ferocity with which Liverpool have reacted to the ban is evidence that they genuinely believe that Suarez has not done wrong. However, if that is the case, it would be a good idea for them to pick a line of defence and stick to it. Wide eyed conspiracy theories about how the F.A. wanted to make scapegoat of Suarez make them look paranoid and desperate, even if there is a hint of plausibility to them. Unless they are sure that Patrice Evra is lying, questioning his credibility and calling for him to be banned looks desperate.

In fact, the club’s treatment of Patrice Evra, regardless of Suarez’ guilt and innocence seems shoddy. It is clear that Evra was hurt and upset by what was said, and it would have been good to see some sort of apology for the distress caused, even if it was unintended. Moreover, it is possible that Liverpool’s vilification of Evra is sending the wrong message to fans. It would be good to see the club condemning the sickening abuse Evra has received on twitter from Liverpool supporters.

How guilty is Suarez, and what is he guilty of?

Ultimately, even if we accept the F.A.’s decision, there is a lot more we need to know before we judge Suarez and those who support him. The first key question is whether the facts of the case are in dispute. The second is whether Suarez is being punished merely for the words he used or for the suspected intent behind them. Finally, does the F.A. buy the portrait of Suarez as a confused foreigner mistaking the mores of his new country, or was his crime more serious?

A (cautious) defence of ‘fattism’

Modern Western societies condemn the obese as monstrous, but the truly deplorable are those complicit in the bullying of the overweight. That’s the conclusion of David Haslam’s recent condemnation of contemporary attitudes to fat people. He doesn’t explicitly draw the link, but it is clear that Haslam intends his article to make us recognise discrimination against the obese alongside more commonly acknowledged forms of prejudice, like racism and sexism. The most alarming piece of evidence that he produces is the way that the overweight, like victims of sexism and racism often internalise the contempt in which they are held, coming to see themselves as sub-standard and worthless:

researchers have found that children as young as six years old, even those who are overweight themselves, use words like “lazy,” “stupid,” “cheats,” “liars,” “sloppy,” “naughty,” “mean,” and “ugly” to describe their obese peers.

Haslam doesn’t seem to be arguing directly for any legal intervention. Rather, he seems to want us to reconsider our social attitudes. However, I am not sure that a social norm of condemning the obese is necessarily a bad or a wrong one. I think it would be unquestionably a good thing if racism and sexism were to end, but I’m not so sure about ‘fattism’. This is because of two crucial ways in which being obese can differ from being black or a woman:

(1) The obese have some capacity to change the relevant feature i.e. to lose weight

(2) Being obese is almost certainly worse than not being obese.

In other words, a big part of the reason why racism is bad is because it is unproductive – a black person cannot stop being black – and arbitrary – there is no reason to single out black people for condemnation rather than white people, because black people are no worse than white people. My suggestion is that the social humiliation of the obese is neither unproductive nor arbitrary, because it exhorts fat people to take an action that they are capable of taking, and which it would be good for them to take.

Both of these premises need some argument. Premise (1) is likely to be controversial because it appears to suggest that fat people are responsible for their own plight. This is explicitly rejected by Haslam who emphasises the significance of childhood and upbringing, over which a person has little control. However, premise (1) does not depend on the assumption that a fat person must be fat out of any fault of their own. Rather, all it claims is that however they got into this position, they have the ability to do something to get out of it. For sure, it is likely to be easier for some than others. But it seems to me extremely unlikely that there are many people who are literally incapable of losing any weight.

The second premise is less obvious to me, even though Haslam appears to concede it. He lists the problems of obesity: “a dysfunctional metabolism, insulin resistance, chronic illness, and a shortened life”, as if to acknowledge how much worse off the overweight are. Yet it could be argued that obesity is a valid lifestyle choice – that there is a legitimate question over whether avoiding unhealthy food and taking regular exercise are genuinely worth the health payoffs. If we think this, then the obese have not erred or failed in any way, they just have different values or preferences to thin people. But if obesity is seen as a legitimate lifestyle choice this has radical implications – it means we can no longer treat obesity like a public health problem, that government campaigns against it are illegitimate. It means granting real license to be fat.

If we accept, however, that the obese can and ought to alter their situation, this suggests that the stigmatisation of fat people isn’t all bad. For obesity to be fully socially acceptable would mean that people lose a powerful incentive to lose weight and make their lives better. Yet even if this the case, it does not imply that the current situation, which angers Haslam so much, is justified. Even if fattism has some beneficial consequences, there are three big reasons why we might still want to oppose it.

The first is that it might be disproportionate. It is perfectly plausible and consistent to think that fat people should not be treated the same as everybody else, but that they should be treated better than they are at present, and that current practices go too far.

The second is that fattism might be counterproductive as a strategy for combatting obesity. It might increase a person’s sense of powerlessness and induce fatalism. It might cut them off from support networks which might otherwise aid them in losing weight. It could foster low self-esteem, and lead to comfort eating. Rather than incentivising weight loss, picking on fat people might make them even fatter.

Finally, there is the possibility that there are far more effective and efficient ways of getting people to lose weight. For example, it is likely to dietary norms or the relative cost of different foods contributes more to obesity than the social acceptability of being overweight. In that case, it is likely to be better to focus on those levers than the ones that depend on cruelty and hurt feelings.

Writing in other places

I've just realised I've only posted to this blog twice in the last three months, which is certainly not the sort of discipline it was meant to impose on my writing. And of course, I realise how disappointing my absence must be to my legions of fans. I've not been totally lazy, though - I've written a couple of articles for other websites which might be of interest:

The first is a piece co-written with Puneet Dhaliwal for Ceasefire in which I argue in favour of 'professional philanthropy' - seeking out high earning careers (such as, controversially, banking) in order to donate large amounts of money to charity - as a strategy for fighting poverty. Find it here.

The second is a book review for the Oxford Left Review discussing Jonathan Wolff's book Ethics and Public Policy, and more generally, whether political philosophy ought to be concerned with practical questions of policy at all. Find it here (on page 79).