Author Archives: ionainstituteni

• 

  Conscientious Objection: Individual or Institutional?

  Posted at 11:12 am by ionainstituteni

  Aug 15th

  In the aftermath of the abortion referendum, a lot of commentary has now focussed on the right to conscientious objection. This right is typically associated with article 9 of the ECHR and it is to the effect that one has freedom of conscience so long as the exercise of such freedom does not conflict with public order, health and morals, or the rights and freedoms of others. Accordingly, there are a number of activities that individuals, especially those working in healthcare, can object to and refuse to carry out, and abortion is one of them.

  So far so good; health minister Simon Harris has guaranteed the right to conscientious objection to individuals. However, a rather thorny issue has emerged and that is whether or not the right to such objection extends not only to individuals but also to institutions.  Harris has stated that it only applies to individuals, whereas Baroness Nuala O’Loan has argued that it applies to institutions as well (https://www.irishcatholic.com/baroness-oloan-rejects-simon-harris-conscientious-objection-definition/). In Ireland there are a number of Catholic hospitals committed to a Catholic ethos and culture which is clearly inconsistent with the provision of abortion. Hence, the issue over whether or not an institution can conscientiously object is a pressing one.

  A rather simplistic view would be to say that insofar as an institution is not a person, it does not have a conscience, and so cannot avail of conscientious objection. Indeed, one may argue that the notion that an institution can exercise a right that only applies to individuals is absurd. But this is a somewhat simplistic view for the following reason.

  Many public institutions adopt a charter which signifies their philosophy and thereby seals that institution with that identity. We don’t have to look too far in the UK to see this to be the case. The NHS was set up with the ideal that the care for the sick and vulnerable is the responsibility of all of society and so should be paid for by society; access to good healthcare should be based on clinical need and not wealth. Hence, UK citizens can avail of health care in any NHS hospital and facility given their needs. If NHS hospitals only provided medical treatment, they would be no different from private hospitals which provide the same. Rather, NHS hospitals provide medical treatment without distinction of material riches, and so they judge that each member of society has as much a right to such treatment as any other. This is a philosophy that many in the medical profession find attractive and indeed will pursue employment in the NHS rather than seek work in the more lucrative private sector. Indeed, such health professionals see a nice accommodation between their paid employment and their general outlook, so that the one tallies with the other.

  The free medical care provided by the NHS permits many health professionals to live according to their conscience. And this is not just the case for health professionals; there are many public bodies and institutions which enable the individual members to live in accord with their conscience, e.g. universities, local government, charities etc.  The philosophy characteristic of an institution thereby enables its members to live in accord with their conscience. Accordingly, it is not only important that an institution have a particular philosophy which signifies the culture in the place, but that that philosophy be protected so that the conscience rights of the people working there be protected.

  We turn then to the right of conscientious objection, and given that the ethos of an institution is necessary to protect the conscience rights of those who work at that institution, that institution then ought to be able to object to any command contrary to that ethos, and this so as to protect the conscience rights of the individuals who work there. So to go back to the NHS example, the heroic doctor/nurse/midwife who opts for NHS work instead of the more lucrative private work would rightly object to the demand that NHS facilities give preferential treatment to those better off. And the NHS facility as a whole has a right to resist such a mandate in order to protect the rights of those staff who work there because of their belief that when it comes to health material riches should not determine preferential treatment.

  In the case of Catholic hospitals then, we have a Catholic ethos which is a pro-life ethos, such that all human life, from conception to natural death, is worthy of respect and to be protected in a medical sense. Medical professionals who have trained in order to uphold that ethos and in turn take on work at such a hospital are exercising their freedom of conscience to pursue good work consistent with pro-life attitudes. The Catholic ethos of the hospital enables them to do that. Hence, if the Catholic ethos of the hospital is threatened, or indeed, if the pro-life value of the hospital is threatened, then the conscience rights of those who hold a pro-life view at that hospital are threatened. It follows that if the Catholic hospital cannot object to a command which undermines its pro-life ethos, then the conscience rights of the medical professionals working there are not being seriously upheld. And indeed this is often the case, since whilst one medical professional can object to direct participation in an abortion, he or she is often required to make a referral or arrangement within the same facility so that the abortion may occur, thereby becoming complicit in the abortion itself. Therefore, it is necessary to allow for institutional conscientious objection so as to enable the conscientious objection of individuals.

  Dr Gaven Kerr

  Posted in Blog | Tagged Abortion, Conscience, Health
• 

  Freedom of the Will

  Posted at 11:30 am by ionainstituteni

  Aug 13th

  Freedom is one of our most prized assets; we rightly think that any situation in which we are not free is a situation that is intolerable for human life. Indeed, any state or society that does not recognise the freedom of its members as a basic principle is one that ought to be condemned and perhaps even face sanction. However, we do not prize freedom so highly that it can cut through anything like a double-edged sword; we rightly curtail the freedom of others in certain circumstances. Here I would like to consider the nature of human freedom and why in fact we can legitimately curtail it without treating the person as something less than human.

  To begin with, we rightly prize freedom because it is a feature of our rational nature as human. Human beings are rational animals, in being rational they not only are able to come to terms and know their environment (taken to the extreme of knowing the very principles by means of which the universe can be understood), but also to act in accord with that knowledge. The ability to act in accord with what we know is the foundation of our freedom. We act in light of our knowledge because given what we know we can see some end or goal as choiceworthy and implement a course of action to pursue that end. Non-rational animals may pursue an end because of a natural disposition by which that end exercises a magnetic attraction on them, whereas humans reason about the end (perhaps many ends) determining it (one of them) to be worthy of choice. Our choice then is a feature of rationality, and to take that choice away from us is to treat us as something less than human.

  If that were all there were to freedom of the will, things would be quite simple; for it would simply entail that our choices in principle must be free in order to be human, so unless we have freedom of choice we cannot be free. But things are a little more complicated than that. I noted above that when we exercise the freedom of the will we do so because we see some end as worthy of choice, this in contradistinction from other ends that are not so worthy, but still could be chosen. Thus, the exercise of freedom in making choices is not simply ordained to pursue anything whatsoever, but to pursue those ends that we deem worthy. Our freedom then is exercised in the pursuit of some good that we envisage, one that will perfect us or others (and in turn us in the process). Hence freedom of the will would be incomplete unless it is understood as ordained to the pursuit of choiceworthy ends.

  It is the choiceworthy ends to which our free will is ordained that provide constraint on our freedom. Often it is the case that states set down laws by means of which a person’s freedom is threatened if they do not pursue what are generally taken to be choiceworthy ends; murder is the classic example, since there is no justification for the pursuit of murder as an end worthy of choice, and so the state mandates that any exercise of freedom in the pursuit thereof is an act unworthy of choice and hence freedom.

  Freedom of the will then is not a freedom to chase after anything whatsoever, but a freedom to pursue that which is worthwhile, in other words, freedom of the will is a freedom to become excellent, to perfect and better ourselves, or, as Aristotle would say, to pursue virtue. It is not a freedom to pursue vice, since not only would that be an abuse of freedom, it would also limit freedom enslaving the practitioner to the particular vice in question thereby making him or her less free. Hence, freedom of the will is only consistent with those choices that promote human flourishing, and not those which undermine freedom by opting for those ends which do not allow the human person to flourish.

  Freedom of the will then must exist in tandem with order or law so that such freedom can be pursued and directed towards that which makes its bearer excellent. Without such law and order as the boundary within which freedom can be practised, there is no freedom but enslavement to vice.

  Dr Gaven Kerr

  Posted in Blog | Tagged Freedom, Virtue
• 

  The Sexual Culture

  Posted at 6:00 am by ionainstituteni

  Aug 8th

  The Sexually Transmitted Infection surveillance in Northern Ireland 2017 published by the Public Health Agency makes for some interesting reading. In general it shows that new diagnoses of chlamydia, gonorrhoea, genital herpes simplex (first episode), genital warts (first episode) have increased from previous years. Within the female population it was women in the age group of 16-24 who were consistently the worst affected, whereas in males it tended to be those in the 20-34 age bracket.[1]

  This data coincides with the FPA’s data on sexual practices of young people published a few years earlier in 2014, which shows that of a representative sample of 14 – 25 year olds over 50% have had sexual intercourse. 36.7% of that number had sex before the age of 17; 27.4% before the age of 16; 42.6% of young men and 33.6% of young women said they were drunk when they first had sex; sexually active respondents had had on average six sexual partners with young women having an average of five partners, and young men eight; not only that, the majority of these young people claimed it would be easy to access contraception.[2]

  I say that all this makes for interesting reading not because it is fascinating and it can expand our horizons in the way that good literature, science, philosophy etc can do. It is interesting in the sense that it should arouse our interest to the fact that young people, young women especially, are caught up in a sexual culture which is damaging them. Set aside issues as to one’s self valuation in having many sexual partners, or the moral integrity of making use of another person (several persons) for one’s sexual gratification; focus more on the fact that the sexual culture within which young people are entrenched is one that is damaging their physical health. Consistently in the female population it is the 16 – 24 year olds who are the worst affected. This is despite the fact that the majority of the young people considered in the FPA’s factsheet said they would find it easy to access contraception.

  There is no safe sex in these circumstances; there is only more or less dangerous sex. Often greater access to contraception is suggested as a means of controlling the damaging side effects of such sexual behaviour. But the majority of young people engaging in sex said it would be easy to access contraception, and a sizeable proportion of young respondents said they were drunk when they first had sex. This sexual culture is not one of responsibility, but of irresponsibility whereby sex is seen to be nothing more than an enjoyable past time (something to do when drunk) as opposed to an extremely potent relation that unites two people at their deepest and most personal levels. Bombarding this situation with more contraception is not going to turn an irresponsible outlook into a responsible one; since contraception promotes the outlook that one can engage in sexual intercourse without having to take responsibility for the normal circumstances surrounding that activity.

  These young people are engaging in sex at a young and quite formative age. Given the STI stats above, it is during those years whereby they are forming themselves as young people ready to embrace the world that they are being quite physically damaged by sex, especially young women, to say nothing of their psychological or moral outlook. All of this is a symptom of a wider problem whereby sex is not seen as an activity uniting two people; rather it is seen as something that two individuals do for themselves for their own reasons – each to their own. Viewing sex as something that only accidentally unites two people, like enjoying an amusement ride with one’s friend only on a grander scale, divorces sex from any deeper relationship. But sexual intercourse unites us at our deepest and most personal levels, in which case if there is not already a deep personal unity between the persons in the form of a relationship, sex has very little significance.

  The deeper and on-going tragedy of such a rampant sexual culture goes beyond the physical damage that it is causing in our young people, it goes to the heart of society insofar as we are failing to encourage young people to form deep and lasting relationships which will in turn provide the context of a deep and lasting sex life. To take responsibility for one’s sex life is not to take some artificial measure for avoiding the typical consequences of sex and hopefully the atypical consequences in the form of STIs; rather it is to take responsibility for one’s personal relations with others, and in particular with that other to whom one feels the deepest affection and closest bond, anything else just devalues sex and makes it less enjoyable than it actually is.

  To use another for one’s own sexual gratification is quite a problematic activity since it fails to recognise the human dignity of the other than one is using. When such use is reciprocal, that is a tragedy, since neither recognises the dignity of the other that they are using. If we as a society feel that we can use each other in the deepest and most profound way simply for our own good, rather than striving to work for the other’s good and setting our sights on that, then we are failing as a society; for we are not seeing others as the rational beings that they are and with whom we form relations (and hopefully relationships), but as mere objects subject to our own desires. Bringing about a responsible sexual culture is not simply about preventing pregnancy or STIs, it’s about seeing sex as a relation in which each works for the good of the other and thereby binds the two together in working for each other’s good. When we strive for the good of the other, we are taking responsibility for the others in our lives, and that responsibility applies to all our relations, not only sexual.

  [1] Public Health Agency, Sexually Transmitted Infection surveillance in Northern Ireland 2017 (http://www.publichealth.hscni.net/sites/default/files/STI%20surveillance%20report%202017%20_0.pdf).

  [2] FPA factsheet, Sexual Behaviour and Young People (https://www.fpa.org.uk/sites/default/files/northern-ireland-sexual-behaviour-and-young-people.pdf).

  Posted in Blog | Tagged Culture, Sex
• 

  Noble Disagreement in Moral Matters

  Posted at 12:24 pm by ionainstituteni

  Aug 1st

  In a previous post I made the case that moral discourse can be civilised by attending to the reasoning and argumentation made on behalf of the conclusions adopted, so that the positions can be thought through and if agreement is not attained, at least one can see how one’s opponent gets from A to B to C (https://ionainstituteni.org/2018/07/04/rehabilitating-public-moral-discussion/). What this view presupposes is that there can be noble disagreement in moral matters such that whilst two interlocuters disagree, their disagreement is not based on any unworthy sentiment of the one to the other, e.g. hatred, malice, fear etc; rather their disagreement is a reasonable one such that either sees the weight of his or her respective reasons as outweighing the other’s.

  It is often presupposed that this sort of noble disagreement is impossible in moral matters; this is because of a general widespread commitment to moral relativism. Failing any objective moral principles by which moral judgements can be made, the relativist often argues that such judgements are based on subjective tendencies of the one making them. Hence, when moral disagreement occurs it is not a result of some reasoned framework which grounds the judgement; rather it is a judgement of the other person motivated by some underlying sentiment. Hence, moral relativism often frames moral judgements as a kind of disapproval of the person acting in a way that we dislike, to which the obvious response is that if you don’t like X, don’t do it, but don’t tell others not to. Clearly on such a view there can be no noble disagreement in moral matters, because all moral disagreement rests on some ignoble motivation for objecting to the behaviour of another.

  In order to circumvent this scenario and allow for noble disagreement and in turn civilised moral discourse we must distinguish between making a moral judgement and judging a person’s moral behaviour; the two are not identical.

  When we make a moral judgement we do so having outlined and defended a moral framework which considers species of acts and determines whether they are good or bad accordingly; hence one striving to be good seeks to act in accord with that framework. All three of the main moral traditions (virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism) outline a framework by means of which moral actions can be categorised.

  Making moral judgements as to what is right and wrong given a moral framework is quite distinct from judging a person’s moral character. A person may be committed to some moral framework, for example the utilitarianism of Singer defended in Practical Ethics whereby we consider equally the interests of all who have a stake in some action. That person may be trying her best to form her actions in accord with that outlook since she is convinced of the truth of Singer’s view. However, given her personal history, her weaknesses, aspects of Practical Ethics she finds challenging, etc she may fail to live up to the standards of Singer’s outlook. Nevertheless, given her starting point, that person may have come quite far in her own endeavour to live by a particular moral vision. She should be praised accordingly for that, even though in a number of respects she fails to live by the standards of the outlook she has adopted.

  A person, for whatever reasons, may fall short of the standards set by some moral framework; that doesn’t make the standards any less true, and the inability to live by those standards, as in the above example, is not an immediate condemnation of the person. Only the individual person knows how far (or not) he or she has come in trying to live a good life by some standard; but the standard itself can be considered independently of the people trying to live by it (or not) and assessed in itself.

  One can have a noble disagreement in moral matters precisely because one can consider the truth or falsity of a moral outlook independently of those who do or don’t live by that framework. Hence, when one argues that A, B, C are right or wrong, one is not making a judgement on a person who does or does not do A, B, C; rather, one is making a judgement on the rightness or wrongness of A, B, and C. And this can be done by appealing to independent reasons and not on the basis of some sentiment about the practitioners of A, B, and C. Noble disagreement in moral matters then requires that we focus more on the truth or falsity of the moral framework involved, e.g. the truth or falsity of Singer’s Practical Ethics or Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and less on the person who strives, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, to live by that framework. That way we can avoid imputing to those with whom we disagree ignoble sentiments as founding the disagreement and thereby focus more on the reasonableness of the moral outlooks involved.

  Dr Gaven Kerr

  Posted in Blog | Tagged Disagreement, Morality
• 

  The Paradoxes of Tolerance

  Posted at 9:50 am by ionainstituteni

  Jul 26th

  Tolerance is an almost sacred concept in contemporary public discussion. It is taken to be a concept that when put into practice almost always guarantees the moral uprightness of the practitioner. There is nothing worse in the estimation of others than to be intolerant. Tolerance is taken to be such a foundational norm of behaviour that it transcends the general moral relativism which abounds these days and can seem to cut through any moral system. Nevertheless, there are certain paradoxes of tolerance that are often the focus of discussion in the literature in this area. I shall focus on three pertaining to important aspects of the nature of tolerance.

  The Nature of Tolerance

  The general notion of tolerance is that it involves at least the recognition or acceptance that there are people, beliefs, practices etc with which one does not agree, which one finds objectionable in some way, but which one does not take steps to suppress or undermine. So there is something that one finds disagreeable or objectionable, yet one tolerates it for some reason.

  The first essential feature of tolerance then is the objection component – in order to be tolerant, we must find something objectionable. If one does not find something objectionable, one does not tolerate it, one is simply indifferent to it.

  The second essential feature is that in spite of what we find objectionable, we accept it in some way. This does not mean that we endorse what is objectionable or that it is no longer objectionable, but that the reasons for accepting what we find objectionable outweigh the reasons for finding it objectionable. And so we are led with good reason to tolerate what is objectionable.

  The third feature then is that there has to be a limit to toleration. This is because sometimes the reasons for finding something objectionable far outweigh any reasons that could be provided for accepting it. Murder is a classic example in this regard; the reasons for objecting to murder are always weightier than any reason for accepting it. Hence we do not tolerate murder.

  On the basis of these three features of tolerance, there are three paradoxes.

  The Paradox of Objection

  Finding something objectionable is an essential feature of tolerance; if we don’t find something objectionable, we are not said to tolerate it, we are simply indifferent to it. It follows then that the more objectionable we find something and yet are able to accept it, the more tolerant we are and hence have a stronger moral character. But there is a paradox looming here.

  Suppose we have a racist who is genuinely convinced of her racism. This person finds people of other races objectionable; yet she realises that the reasons for being tolerant are stronger than those for being racist. Hence, she decides that in spite of finding people of other races objectionable, she will accept them nonetheless. The paradox here is that if tolerance is a fundamental virtue to possess, then this tolerant racist is really being quite virtuous and has a good moral character. Thus, somebody with quite a depraved and indefensible moral outlook can be said to be morally virtuous – and this is an obvious paradox.

  The Paradox of Acceptance

  To be tolerant one not only has to find something objectionable, one also has to accept what one finds objectionable. So the reasons for acceptance in this regard are stronger than the reasons for rejection. There are plenty of mundane examples of this kind. Many parents of small children will often find the general chaos and disorder of the home objectionable – they would rather it not be like that. But the reasons for objecting here are very slight compared to the reasons for accepting such disorder, e.g. giving children space to thrive, growing in love through play, allowing children to express themselves, watching them grow etc.

  On the other hand, there are cases where the reasons for objecting to something are very strong, almost as strong as the reasons for accepting it, and so there appears to be a kind of stalemate. In such cases, if we tolerate that for which we have very strong reason for rejecting, we end of tolerating something that we have very good reasons for finding objectionable. And this is evidently paradoxical since we ought not to tolerate that which we have good reasons to reject.

  The Paradox of Limits

  There has to be a limit to toleration since we cannot tolerate everything. So if our reasons for rejecting something outweigh our reasons for accepting it, we are thus intolerant of it. But there is a certain paradox here in the very idea of a limit to toleration. If tolerance is taken to be something good and virtuous, then its complementary opposite, intolerance, is taken to be something vicious and not good. But there are quite straightforward cases in which the right thing to do is to be intolerant of something, e.g. we do not tolerate murder, racism, sectarianism etc. The paradox here is that whilst tolerance is conceived as a virtue we can also be said to be virtuous when we practice its opposite and are intolerant.

  Conclusion

  Given these paradoxes, what are we to do? Are we to reject tolerance as a virtue to cultivate? Certainly not!

  In the history of thought, paradoxes have often played an important role in clarifying an issue. Indeed there is a well established proof in logic known as reductio ad absurdum such that if we assume some premise and establish a contradiction on the assumption of that premise, then we can reasonably infer that the assumed premise is not the case or must be clarified in some way. The consideration of paradoxes thus allows us either to deny a premise or clarify its meaning.

  In the case of tolerance, we do not deny the need to cultivate tolerance as a virtue, so given the paradoxes we must clarify tolerance in some way. What the paradoxes show is that tolerance is not something that is morally normative. It is not enough to be tolerant; one has to be tolerant in the right circumstances with the right object. The only way to do this if we weigh the reasons for objecting to something and the reasons for accepting it. But the only way to do that is if we have certain moral norms more basic than tolerance by which to evaluate what is objectionable and acceptable, i.e. what is right and wrong. Hence, tolerance does not tell us what is right or wrong, it only goes to implement what we already take to be right and wrong. Tolerance is therefore not a sure guide in moral matters, but rather latches onto a deeper moral framework which is our guide; it is the strength of justification of that framework and its informing our actions that will establish whether or not we are acting virtuously, not how tolerant we are.

  Dr Gaven Kerr

  Posted in Blog | Tagged Morality, Tolerance

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