Ahahahahaha – I usually never do spam jokes but this one is too good to pass up.

Perfectly composed articles, thankyou for entropy.

Thank you for entropy! ♥♥

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Greta did a post the other day about someone who rethought something she wrote and then took it back. I hadn’t seen it until this morning.

This is how it’s done, people. She didn’t double down. She didn’t insist that she hadn’t done anything wrong; she didn’t equate “lots of people disagreeing with you” with tribalism, bullying, McCarthyism, or witch hunts. She kept it short and sweet, without a “making it worse” morass of defensive rationalizations/ making it all about her hurt feelings about people being mean to her. She heard the criticism, accepted that she screwed up, and apologized. This is how it’s done.

([cough] Michael Shermer [cough])

The result of course was that – starting in comment 2, already – some anonymous detective insisted for comment after comment that I misrepresented Shermer. No I didn’t. AD also insisted my article (which AD thought was a blog post) was about Shermer and that I had said Shermer is a sexist. No, and no.

A guy called Michael Heath has been insisting even more insistently on a couple of posts of Ed Brayton’s – Shermer and the Myth of Feminst Persecution and a later post that had nothing to do with me or Shermer - that I lied about Shermer, that I am a liar, that I defamed Shermer, that my article is demagoguery. That’s all false.

Greta addressed the detective – one “coelsblog” – in a long comment, which sums up a lot of things with beautiful clarity.

coelsblog: I’m going to say this once.

For the sake of argument, let’s concede all your major points. Let’s say that while Shermer’s statements were sexist, he didn’t intend any of the sexist intent that came across. And let’s say that Benson’s interpretation uncharitably took them out of context: what he said was sexist, but it wasn’t as sexist as she made it out to be. I don’t agree with this assessment: but for the sake of argument, let’s say that it’s true.

So what?

Does that in any way, shape or form justify Shermer’s reaction? Does it justify him calling criticism of him a McCarthy-like witch hunt, a purging, an inquisition, comparing it to the Nazi party? Does it make Benson responsible for what Shermer said? And does it make Benson’s actions more problematic than Shermer’s, and more worthy of extensive critique?

If you think Shermer’s ranting response was justified, or that Benson was somehow responsible for it … then I have nothing more to say to you. That is an indefensible position. And if you don’t… then why are you so fixated on Benson? Why are you micro-analyzing her comments in comment after comment after comment? Why do you think that her misinterpretation (in your eyes) is more worthy of more criticism than Shermer’s off-the-rails hissy-fit?

When you say something sexist, racist, homophobic, whatever, and someone calls you out on it… you apologize. Full stop. Even if the person calling you out got something slightly wrong… you let that pass. You say, “I’m so sorry. I did not intend to say anything sexist/ racist/ homophobic/ etc., but I can see why people are angry, and I can see why they saw it the way they did. I’ll speak more carefully in the future.”  You don’t make it all about you and how everyone’s being mean to you; you don’t make your hurt feelings over being misunderstood more important than sexism/ racism/ homophobia/ etc. Do you think that every atheist who called out Charlie Jane Anders got absolutely everything right, and said everything in the best way possible? I doubt it highly. She didn’t focus on that. She focused on the injury she had done, and the apology for it. That’s what makes her a class act.

And when you — speaking to you now, coelsblog, not to the generic “you” — acknowledge in passing that Shermer’s sexist remarks were not okay, and then spend comment after comment after comment micro-analyzing Benson’s criticism of it, and blaming her for his off-the-rails reaction… it’s a classic “yes, but” response to sexism. In fact, “Yes, but… the person writing about this incident didn’t behave absolutely perfectly in all respects. Why aren’t we talking about that?” is one of the “Yes, but…” examples listed in that piece. The expectation that critics of sexist behavior always get everything absolutely right — and if they don’t, they should expect the targets of their criticism to react horribly — is, itself, unbelievably sexist. Stop it. Right now. Just stop it.

The imperfection in what I wrote in the article was saying of the overall stereotype, “Don’t laugh: Michael Shermer said exactly that…” when I would have closed that loophole by instead saying “Michael Shermer invoked exactly that stereotype…”

But that is really not a very big imperfection. Since I immediately go on to report exactly what Shermer really did say, it’s an absurd bit of pettifogging to pretend that I meant the “said exactly that” literally or that I intended it to mislead. For fuck’s sake, if I intended it to mislead why would I immediately quote exactly what he really did say? What I said is just a normal bit of commentary. People who know how to read know that. It’s obvious on the page which bit is in fact exactly what he said. Aesthetically, “invoked exactly that stereotype” is somewhat inferior to “said exactly that.” It’s a bit cluttered. In academic writing, of course, precision trumps aesthetics every time, but guess what, I’m not an academic and Free Inquiry is not an academic journal. There’s always a tension in this kind of writing, between pedantry and style. You make choices all the time. There are tradeoffs. You make them, generally, based on the background assumption that the reader is not an idiot. I never for one second thought that any reader would be idiot enough to read “said exactly that” and then ignore the next part where I spelled out what Shermer actually did say. Nor did I think any reader would be idiot enough to read “it’s a guy thing” in the following paragraph and think Shermer had said that, either, since I had just spelled out what he did say – “it’s more of a guy thing.”

You have to assume the reader is not an idiot, because if you don’t, you get horrible over-literal baby-step writing with no color or energy or wit. Lunatics are insisting that I wrote those four paragraphs (that address Shermer) the way I did as a dastardly attempt to frame him. The hell I did. I wrote it that way because writing that assumes the reader can’t read is terrible writing, and I refuse to do set out to do terrible writing. (Terrible writing I do by accident is another story.)

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

I tweeted a link about an upcoming debate at Cambridge between Dawkins and Rowan Williams a few hours ago. There are replies saying Richard will wipe the floor with him. I’m not so sure. Williams was an academic before he was the archbish, and now he’s not the archbish any more.

He almost certainly knows of better arguments than the kind of highflown archepiscopal bafflegab he gave to the House of Lords and so on while he actually was the archbish. And since he’s not the archbish any more, he may feel less of a duty to sound churchy and archepiscopal.

There’s no chance that he’s actually stupid. The fact that he used to say a lot of stuff that comes across as stupid to atheists doesn’t mean he is actually stupid. It’s more likely a déformation professionelle. I would think that when arguing with Dawkins he’s well able to come up with things to say that will prevent the latter from wiping the floor with him. Whether he will choose to or not is another question, but I’m thinking he probably will.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The BBC’s Andrew North tells us more about the Delhi rape victim.

Like the student’s family, at least two of the accused are from impoverished villages in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, and source for many of the thousands of migrants who come to Delhi every year hoping for a better life
- the same journey her father made nearly 30 years ago.

And the other men are from similar migrant backgrounds. Where they differ, though, was in what they did about it.

“We gave our all to our daughter,” her mother told us, still devastated with grief. She says she can barely leave her bed, complaining of frequent headaches and chest pains.

And their support was working: her daughter was studying at a college in Dehradun in northern India and was on course to qualify as a physiotherapist, while working overtime in a call centre.

“We never gave our sons better treatment,” said the mother. In that respect they were also different from many among India’s middle class.

Figures show they are just as likely as poorer groups to favour male children, even before they are born – and afterwards in care and medical treatment.

It means India is in a rare category – along with only China – of having higher rates of infant mortality among girls than boys.

The student’s mother also lashed out at India’s sexist attitudes, attacking the many politicians and other public figures who’ve suggested she brought the rape on herself.

One well-known spiritual guru even said she should have embraced her attackers as “brothers” to stop them assaulting her.

“Either they don’t have daughters,” her mother said, “or they are clearly backing these crimes.”

It’s heartbreaking.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

There’s a BBC Four series from last summer, Uncovering Shakespeare; I saw the first two episodes last night, Macbeth first and The Comedies/Shakespeare’s Women second, which is the opposite of the order of broadcast.

I thought the Macbeth wasn’t very good. It was way too heavy on “interesting” but totally irrelevant visuals – lots of New York streets packed with cars, for instance; wut? – and way too light on the words. Not enough discussion of the words, not enough saying of them, not enough clips of actors saying them, pretty much no discussion at all of the way the words do the work. On the other hand there were some clips, and the discussion wasn’t actually boring, so I enjoyed watching it, but I wished it had been better.

But the next one was good. Joely Richardson was the presenter, and she knows her Shakespeare (and his words) a lot better than Ethan Hawke (who presented the Macbeth one) does.

And it was on a subject I’m very keen on, which is how astonishing it is that Shakespeare did so much with women characters when that wasn’t the norm at all (and still isn’t, not to the extent that he did it) and when he had only boys to play the parts. Yeah. They talked mostly about Twelfth Night and As You Like It. There was a lot of conversation with Vanessa Redgrave, sitting opposite Joely Richardson on a couch. JR’s voice is so like VR’s it’s almost funny.

Neither episode, though, can hold a candle to Playing Shakespeare, the nine part series directed by John Barton in which actors – Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Ben Kingsley, Patrick Stewart, Peggy Ashcroft, David Suchet, Harriet Walter, Alan Howard, and others – and Barton discuss the language in detail, and perform bits of scenes. It’s enthralling and illuminating (and regulars with acute memories will remember that I’ve talked about it before). It’s on DVD; the library has it. What’s taken me so long?!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Chapter 5 of Martha Nussbaum’s Sex and Social Justice is titled “American Women” and it’s basically about the idea that there is sane normal sensible feminism and then there is crazy extremist radical feminism, with the first being sensibly in favor of equality before the law, which we now have, so that’s that, and the second being about crazy wild stuff like distorted preferences and asymmetrical power. Nussbaum addresses Christina Hoff Sommers as the clearest source of this notion (and as a fellow philosopher), but she says the idea is widespread.

Nussbaum points out that the feminists Sommers sees as “radical” are the very people who brought about the changes that Sommers applauds.

It is not only women in the academic elite who wish to be able to call the police when battered in the home; who wish to be able to bring a charge of rape without testifying to their prior sexual history; who wish to avoid sexual harassment in the workplace…If Sommers holds that a woman such as Mary J. Carr, who successfully brought charges of harassment against General Motors (GM) after a five-year campaign of threats and obscenities, is not an “equity feminist” but a supporter of a suspect radical agenda, it would appear to be Sommers who has lost touch with what American women want. And yet, the concept of asymmetry of power, which Sommers apparently rejects, was a crucial part of Judge Richard Posner’s reasoning when he decided in favor of Carr and against GM. [p 133]

Posner is a Reagan appointee, by the way.

To be continued.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A letter to the influential Nigerian newspaper The Guardian defends same-sex marriage and cites Leo Igwe.

The letter points out that religious groups are very opposed to same-sex marriage, while human rights activists support it.

Such opponents include Christian denominations as well as Muslim groups all of which have voiced their rejection of the pressure on Nigeria by some sections of the international community. Among them is the Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), the Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh who has repeatedly opposed the move, saying same-sex marriage is not biblical and therefore unacceptable.

However, Nigerian Humanist human rights activist, Leo Igwe, who is a supporter of the UK gay Humanist Charity the Pink Triangle Trust, said: “The statements made by David Mark that the ban on same sex marriage was irrevocable are reprehensible. They are a clear demonstration of homophobia and show a lack of appreciation of the humane moral values of the contemporary world.

Instead of supporting the ban on same sex marriage, the Senate and the Government of Nigeria as a whole should make a commitment to promoting and protecting the universal human rights of everyone, whatever their race, ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, religion or belief, even when such commitment conflicts with the teachings of religion.”

Good job, Leo.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

You also get to see Wafa Sultan’s talk…which was one of the most shattering things I ever saw/heard. Be prepared for that. Have a stack of paper towels handy.

But do not miss it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOK-F79aRBo&feature=share&list=PLFo5kdUdZWj6fGZ3Mu6yvxMzfU6Sz_b-B

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

You are so lucky! You get to see Bernice Sandler’s talk at Women in Secularism 2012, at last.

It’s about the subtle, unnoticed ways women and men are treated differently.

What??? Really? Is that true? There are subtle, unnoticed ways women and men are treated differently?

Who could ever possibly have guessed…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyT3uW9Ib9E&feature=share&list=PLFo5kdUdZWj6fGZ3Mu6yvxMzfU6Sz_b-B

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Where is this Big Book of God’s Rules where God spells out all these new rules that some people know all about but I’ve never heard of? Like the rule that a girl who works at Burger King has to wear a long skirt instead of trousers? I seriously have no idea where that rule is but apparently it’s such an important and real and binding rule that Burger King has to hire her because of it and it has to let her wear a long skirt instead of trousers on the job. Also if it slips up and fires her instead it has to give her 25 thousand dollars.

Burger King has agreed to pay $25,000 to a Pentecostal teenage girl who was fired because she wished to a wear a long skirt instead of pants.

In August, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit on behalf of Ashanti McShan, who had been hired to work at a Burger King restaurant in Texas. “At the time of her interview for the job, Ms. McShan asked to wear a skirt instead of uniform pants as a religious accommodation,” the EEOC lawsuit stated. “Defendant assured her that she could wear a skirt to work. However, when she arrived at work for orientation, the store management informed Ms. McShan that she could not wear a skirt and that she had to leave the store … The result of the foregoing practices has been to deprive Ashanti McShan of equal employment opportunities because of her religious beliefs and observances as a Christian Pentecostal.”

What beliefs? What observances? In what sense “religious”? Is it an official “religious belief” that women have to wear skirts and not trousers? Are you sure? Are you sure it’s not just a stupid prejudice in favor of the way women used to dress before they got so god damn uppity, disguised as a pretend religious belief? Because I’m not. I remember battles over skirts v jeans when I was a child. I remember always always always wanting to be allowed to stay in jeans at all times because skirts are so damn inhibiting. I didn’t use that word, of course, but I hated wearing skirts and that was why. Skirts are an invention to make girls and women unable to move freely. The whole point is that if you make a wrong move everybody will be able to peer at your crotch! Gotcha! I see Spain, I see France, I see Sally’s underpants. It’s the underage version of talk about kicking women in the cunt.

So I want to see this mysterious Big Book of God’s Rules where God says women and girls can’t wear trousers. Then I want it tested for authenticity.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Massimo goes a few rounds with the ol’ science can whup philosophy story.

Oh my, I thought I was done for a while chastising skeptics like Sam Harris on the relationship between philosophy, science and morality, and I just found out that my friend Michael Shermer has incurred a similar (though not quite as egregious as Harris’) bit of questionable thinking. As I explained in my review of Harris’ book for Skeptic, one learns
precisely nothing about morality by reading The Moral Landscape. Indeed, one’s time on that topic is much better spent by leafing through Michael Sandel’s On Justice, for example.

I too reviewed Harris’s book, and I too thought it was way too dismissive of philosophy and way too short on argument as a result. I thought that as a non-philosopher, of course, while Massimo thinks it as a philosopher (and a biologist too!), but I’ve read a little moral philosophy here and there, and I found it a lot more enlightening than I found The Moral Landscape.

Shermer proceeds immediately by blaming the is/ought problem as the main culprit for scientists’ misguided concession to philosophers (even though I bet dollars to donuts that the overwhelming majority of scientists has never heard of the is/ought problem). Indeed, Michael claims that the problem is a fallacy (I take it he is using the term colloquially, since I don’t see that entry listed in the vast catalogue of fallacies that professional philosophers and logicians have accumulated.)

Why is the is/ought problem a fallacy, according to Shermer? Because “morals and values must be based on the way things are in order to establish the best conditions for human flourishing.” Let’s unpack (as philosophers are fond of saying) that loaded phrase. First off, there is a prescriptive claim (“must”) that is not actually argued for. Sounds like Michael is engaging in some a priori philosophizing of his own. Why exactly must we base morals and values on the way things are (as opposed to, say, they way we would like them to be)?

Second, “the way things are” has, of course, changed dramatically across centuries and cultures (science tells us this!). Which point in the space-time continuum are we going to pick as our reference to ground our scientific study of morality? We better not just assume that the our own current time and place represent the best of all possible worlds.

Third, “human flourishing” is a surprisingly slippery (and philosophically loaded!) concept, not at all easy to handle by straightforward quantitative analyses. (If you want an idea of the sort of complications I have in mind, take a look here and here.) And of course it should go without mention that the goal of increasing human flourishing is itself the result of a value choice that cannot possibly be grounded in empirical evidence. Nothing wrong with that, unless you insist on a scientistic take on the study of morality.

I think that’s a good sample for seeing why philosophy is useful for thinking about morality, and why just talking about the way things are isn’t adequate.

One more sample:

Shermer then goes on to add a market economy to the mix of his favorite ideologies, claiming that “it decreases violence and increases peace significantly” (hardly surprising, coming from a well known libertarian). Once more, without even going to question the empirical assertion, shouldn’t we at least admit that “market economy” is a highly heterogeneous category (think US vs China), and that some market economies decrease fairness, do not provide universal access to health care and education, lower workers’ wages, and overall negatively affect human flourishing? How should we rank our values in order to make sense of the data? How do the data by themselves establish a guide to which values we should hold? And why should we follow whatever the current science says, as opposed to having discussions about where we would like science and technology (and economics) themselves to go?

How should we rank our values - that’s a question that Harris gave astonishingly short shrift in his book.

Read the whole thing; it’s long and rewarding.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Oh how interesting. Catholic hospitals don’t always say that a fetus is a person. For instance, how about when an on-call obstetrician doesn’t answer the page when a pregnant woman is in the ER having a heart attack and she ends up dying? And then her husband files a wrongful death suit?

No, not then.

The lead defendant in the case is Catholic Health Initiatives, the Englewood-based nonprofit that runs St. Thomas More Hospital as well as roughly 170 other health facilities in 17 states. Last year, the hospital chain reported national assets of $15 billion. The organization’s mission, according to its promotional literature, is to “nurture the healing ministry of the Church” and to be guided by “fidelity to the Gospel.” Toward those ends, Catholic Health facilities seek to follow the Ethical and Religious Directives of the Catholic Church authored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

You know, the Ethical and Religious Directives that say St Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix did a wicked wicked thing by terminating a pregnancy to save the woman’s life. Those Ethical and Religious Directives.

…when it came to mounting a defense in the Stodghill case, Catholic Health’s lawyers effectively turned the Church directives on their head. Catholic organizations have for decades fought to change federal and state laws that fail to protect “unborn persons,” and Catholic Health’s lawyers in this case had the chance to set precedent bolstering anti-abortion legal arguments. Instead, they are arguing state law protects doctors from liability concerning unborn fetuses on grounds that those fetuses are not persons with legal rights.

As Jason Langley, an attorney with Denver-based Kennedy Childs, argued in one of the briefs he filed for the defense, the court “should not overturn the long-standing rule in Colorado that the term ‘person,’ as is used in the Wrongful Death Act, encompasses only individuals born alive. Colorado state courts define ‘person’ under the Act to include only those born alive. Therefore Plaintiffs cannot maintain wrongful death claims based on two unborn fetuses.”

Innnnnnteresting.

To be fair, maybe Catholic Health isn’t being hypocritical; maybe Catholic Health, like the administration of St Joseph’s Hospital, refuses to obey the bishops on this issue.

Who knows. There shouldn’t be any ambiguity on the subject either way. The Ethical and Religious Directives should be a dead letter.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A great new Jesus and Mo. First, a word from their sponsor -

You may notice the return of the “Help J&M pay their hosting fees” button in the r/h column. This is because our current host – the magnificent
nearlyfreespeech.net – have changed their billing system to make it fairer for
sites which don’t use up many resources. Unfortunately, J&M is not one of those
sites, and  our monthly bill has increased substantially – so if you have a few
bucks spare to throw into our hosting account, that would be much appreciated.

And now, see them finally get through to the barmaid.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)