Moral Philosophy
Eve Garrard comments at Normblog on this whole incompletely theorized thing we have going here (though not in those terms, which I have only just this second dragged in). Her comment is interesting, and it helpfully omits the part about being puzzled as to why I keep etc etc (yes, I am having fun with that, why do you ask?) – but it still isn’t quite what I’m talking about, at least I think it isn’t.
It’s very hard to see why we would think that Holocaust-denial ought to be legally permissible unless we think that there’s a moral right in play, that people have a moral right to speak their minds, even if what their minds contain is false and indeed disgusting. But this is what Ophelia jibs at – given that Holocaust-denial involves lies and falsifications, why should we think we have a moral right to engage in it? How can we have a moral right to lie, falsify the evidence, play fast and loose with the truth?
That isn’t exactly what I jib at. Because I don’t think Holocaust denial does necessarily involve lies and falsifications. It can involve error, self-deception, misinterpretation. It can also involve, no doubt, transient lies in speech rather than in print, and it can involve minor infrequent lies in print – lies that are unsystematic enough to fall short of unmistakable deception and falsification. But I take systematic falsification to be a different matter – and, again, I think it is telling that people mostly don’t defend Irving’s right to engage in systematic falsification; at the very least I wonder why that is, and if it doesn’t hint at something.
This is not an unreasonable question. Lies and falsifications are generally (and certainly in the case of Holocaust-denial) morally wrong. And it does seem puzzling, even paradoxical, to say that we can have a moral right to do that which is morally wrong. Nonetheless it’s true that we do: we sometimes have the moral right to act – that is, people ought not to prevent us from acting – in ways which are undoubtedly morally wrong.
Hmm. Which people and in what sense of ‘prevent us’ I wonder. In the examples Eve gives, I’m not sure it’s true that people close to us ought not to try to prevent us by persuasion, for instance. But no doubt she means forcibly prevent, which is another matter. Anyway, this is Eve’s field, and it’s certainly not mine, so I’ll take her word for it. It’s like that comment Jon Pike made in reviewing Honderich in Democratiya – ‘there is a standard, ordinary language distinction between having a right to do X and X being the right thing to do.’ I’ve been keeping it in mind throughout this discussion. But I don’t think it applies to falsification on the scale Irving practiced it – or at least I’m not convinced that it does. I’m just not convinced that he does have a moral right to deliberately falsify the evidence on the scale he did (remember what Lipstadt said: every single footnote had something wrong with it). I don’t think it should be a police matter, I don’t think it should be an imprisonable offence, but I’m still not convinced it’s a free speech right or a moral right. I think it’s something in between those (something not fully theorized, perhaps).
At the risk of further complicating an already labyrinthine topic, isn’t it the case that archaeological scholarship in biblical territories has been damaged, perhaps fatally, by politically and religiously motivated forgeries and falsified reporting?
Further complicating not a problem. That’s the idea. That’s what I’m intent on doing – insisting that the subject is complicated, not simple. And yes, it is the case; and that of course is also true of all these textbook controversies – in California, in Japan and China, in India, all over the damn place.
I’ve enjoyed following this line of argument here — it makes me think (which is, of course, always painful.)But perhaps the issue of “morally right to do X” vs. “X is morally right to do” is best highlighted for me not so much on holocaust denial, but on the subject of alternative medicine.
Look at Trudeau’s book of lies — “Natural Cures ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About.” Despite the fact that he’s a known con man with a record, and despite the fact that his book is filled with blatent misinformation and claims that modern medicine is refuted by his vague “insider knowledge,” this book is sold by all the best stores. He has to know he’s lying.
Or consider a hypothetical book claiming that “many studies” support curing diabetes with bee pollen, and it’s titled “Throw You Insulin Away!” Here we’re dealing with the likelihood of actual resultant deaths.
And yet we’re unlikely to be talking jail time, legal action, or even mass public disapproval, given the current climate in favor of letting people make their own “choices.” Yet is this still morally wrong? Morally okay? Morally wrong if the lies are deliberate, but different if the writer is himself deluded?
And do the same arguments apply to this debate as to holocaust revision, or is this coming from a completely different area? Frankly, I’m not sure.
I believe that the core argument in ethics goes freedom is 1. The freedom to act and 2. freedom from the actions of others. While you have the freedom to do as you will, once your actions affect others they need to be limited. The issue with a written work is that a written work automatically has authority. In Sastra’s example the worry is that an uninformed diabetic will read the book, throw away their insulin and suffer for it, believing that what was written was true. Peer review works by ‘trying out’ the information on other experts in the field who can then properly challenge the information before it can be submitted to a public who can’t necessarily put it to the same scrutiny.
The “throw away your insulin” example is at least a very clear one. What about the one that came up here about a year ago, about the memoirs of Hempher the 18th century British spy whose job was to destroy Islam from within by helping to create Wahabism? It seems that a large number of Muslims who read this on the net deem it to be completely true and therefore feel justified in their anti-Western feelings because they have seen “proof” that the West is engaged in a centuries-long conspiracy to destroy Islam by devious means. Are there any false statements that one can be sure fall into the category of being harmless?
I’m suddenly reminded of “The Fisher King” and the expression on Jeff Bridges’ face when it hits him that a careless remark he made seems to have sent someone over the edge and triggered a bloodbath.
“And yet we’re unlikely to be talking jail time, legal action, or even mass public disapproval, given the current climate in favor of letting people make their own “choices.” Yet is this still morally wrong?”
Well, yeah, I think so. And therefore I think even if Trudeau has a legal right to publish dangerous nonsense, he doesn’t have a moral right to do so. This business of saying a legal right and a moral right are the same thing has me stumped. I thought it was a perfectly commonplace distinction.
Prince Chuck has a legal right to talk up Gerzon therapy or whatever it’s called, but by doing so he endangers people who choose it instead of treatments that have some chance of working. Medical researchers have a right and perhaps a duty to do whatever they can to prevent him from doing that by persuasion – by writing open letters to him in the Guardian, as a researcher did last year, telling him he was abusing his power and fame by doing what he was doing. PC has (just barely, given limitations on the monarchy) the legal right to do that, but by golly it’s immoral.