Introduction to Frege through some of his critics

                Psychologism, according to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, is a term used by authors to refer to “what they perceive as the mistake of identifying non-psychological with psychological entities,” (Kusch Preface). Frege uses the term, more specifically, to refer to the mistake of treating logic as a special branch of psychology. It is important to realize that the psychologistic viewpoint is no single argument, nor can it be effectively dismissed by refuting any one argument. Rather, the psychologistic viewpoint is several arguments brought together by common assumptions, each one bringing out the implications of a certain element in those assumptions. Over the course of this paper, we will examine the strongest arguments in favour of the psychologistic viewpoint and Frege’s response to each of these arguments. Each of these responses will draw out a distinction in Frege’s own philosophy of logic. The strongest arguments in favour of psychologism can be summarized as: the inseparability of logical and non-logical reasoning, the indemonstrability of primitive laws and the limits of thinking, the a posteriori nature of justified belief and, lastly, the mental subject matter of logic. Frege’s responses will call our attention to: the timeless nature of logical truths, the necessary conditions of objective truth, the meaning of logic as a priori knowledge, and finally the distinction between thought and idea.

                To begin, we should understand that logic as a mental process of inference is therefore a human activity and so exists within a socio-historical context. Reason has a special and oppressive place within this context to which we should not be blind. Since Plato, Reason has been tied to both legitimizing power and making it exclusive in both explicit and implicit ways (Plumwood 11). Formal logic claims an absolute and timeless Truth void of both the oppression it exists in and the emotional attributes it thereby devalues (Plumwood 13). Consequently, it denies the experience of the oppressed as being unimportant to considerations of Truth. Logic also excludes the oppressed through its abstract notation, which requires background knowledge (i.e. university training or equivalent time expenditure) to which they would not have access. When logic is not in this power-laden abstract form, it is in the form of natural languages whose meanings and histories (of oppression) are inextricable. The very attempt to claim that logic does not suffer from the impurities of psychology, is a power-claim that must be understood in terms of its psychological-sociological context. Logic is therefore inseparable from psychology. The force of the above criticism comes from its appeal to a “common sense” association between logic and the elite environment in which it was developed. By questioning the intentions (conscious or otherwise) of those who do logic, the critic sidesteps logic as a subject matter and instead treats logic as an activity, which seems to only logically result in a psychologistic view of logic.

This first criticism is a point Frege indirectly addresses in the introduction to “The Foundations of Arithmetic”. If we were to treat logical-mathematical truths as subject to socio-historical contexts then “astronomers would hesitate to draw any conclusions about the distant past, for fear of being charged with anachronism,” (Frege Foundations VI). No matter how “Reason” may be abused over the course of history, the truths it ascertains are of a timeless nature. If they were not, then (as Heraclitus made clear) everything would be in flux and we could not know anything about the world (Frege Foundations VII). This response draws its strength from taking the very existence of knowledge as one of its premises, something no opponent can do while simultaneously maintaining a commitment to the objectivity of their own claim.

To this, critics from the oppressed groups can say, “At no point did we deny that there are timeless truths, we’ve only denied that one can effectively isolate them from contextual truths of oppression. Is the totalizing nature of your system not evidence of a bid to ignore the conditions of the oppressed?” Frege answers this question in his division between two kinds of proof. The first kind relies on the laws of logic alone, whereas the second also requires additional empirical facts (Frege Begrift. 103). Though the language of “purity” may misleadingly suggest some kind of normative superiority in the strictly logical kind of proof, in fact, these are simply two different kinds of proof. Claiming that logical proofs can exist alone no more devalues emotionality, than excluding ballet from biology devalues dance. Frege’s point is simply that such considerations are misplaced in his project. To criticize Frege’s logical language for failing to capture these everyday facts would be like blaming a microscope for failing to be a pair of eyes (Frege Begrif. 105). We can conclude from this that not only is it not necessary to appeal to socio-historic conditions when undertaking the study of logical truths, but, in fact, it is detrimental to that study. The first criticism is therefore refuted and the necessarily timeless nature of logical truths asserted.

                Secondly, we may ask Frege what the origins of his logical rules are. He might respond that we have merely to examine our own thoughts to realize that everything we think (when we are thinking correctly) has a certain underlying structure. If a black board were nearby, he may write “x=x” and ask us if we disagree. No, but not because we can prove that “x=x” would always be the case in every possible world, but because we cannot imagine a world being otherwise. Indeed, if the final appeal in logic is always to limits on imagination and what we intuit to be true, if there are no further steps possible to prove the basic concepts of logic, then the limits of logic are the limits of thinking and that is very much a psychological topic. The force of this criticism lies in its appeal to the principle of sufficient reason ad infinitum. If something is being held as true, we as rational creatures want to know what reason we have for holding that. We then ask what reason we have for holding those reasons, etc. Stopping the justification seems to be necessitated by personal rather than objective rational limitations.

Frege makes it quite explicit in the introduction to the “Foundations” that his project is to ground mathematics in logical laws “which themselves neither need nor admit of proof,” (4). In a footnote he argues that the existence of any general truths at all necessitates the admission of such “primitive” laws, since, without them, we would never have any justification for believing anything--only procedures which induce belief (Foundations 4). If we must have these laws, let us then ask what kind of laws they are. We can understand these laws two ways. Firstly, “the laws” could mean that there is a certain reality external to the subjectivity of the thinker which limits what that thinker can think. Secondly, “the laws” might mean something inherent to the subjectivity of the thinker. To analogize: in the first case, the laws of thought are walls beyond which nothing sensical is, whereas, in the second case, there is merely a horizon which our eyes cannot see past. It is clear that the critics mean the second case.

If these basic laws are of the second kind, then the critics are right in concluding that logic is therefore a topic of psychology. Frege makes it very clear in his Thought paper that the basic laws are of the first kind. He says to mistake the laws of thought for the laws of thinking is to ignore the fact that what laws tend to is truth, whereas the laws of thinking would have to account for how one comes to error and superstition as well (290). Said differently, the logical laws deal with thought, which are objective logical entities, whereas the psychological laws deal with ideas which are subjective mental entities (Frege Thought 291-92). Thoughts are things for which the question of truth and falsity arise, whereas ideas are simply subjective mental occurrences. Even if it were the case that our minds only tended towards truth, to equate logical with psychological laws would be “to take a description of the origin of an idea for a definition,” which we should never do (Frege Foundations VI). After all, “an explanation of a mental process that terminates in an assertion can never take the place of a proof of what is asserted (Frege Thought 290). This becomes clear in the following analogy:

Suppose Bartholomew wants to get to his girlfriend, Truth’s, house. He walks west for a few blocks, then turns north a few more blocks. He passes three orange bushes and a one-eyed man playing a bronze tuba. He catches a bus going east at 60 miles an hour for fifteen minutes. Eventually, he arrives at a house. Do we, as the observers, know if it is the correct house? No.

No matter how excruciatingly detailed we are in our description of the steps Bartholomew takes to get to his girlfriend’s house, that alone could never indicate to us whether or not Bartholomew has arrived at the correct destination. If we are interested in knowing if he has arrived at the correct house, we must know something else, the correct path. Similarly, the laws of psychology describe how people take the steps people actually take to get to their particular mental destinations. These laws tell us nothing of whether or not the path was correct. It is the correctness of the path which logic is interested in, whether or not anyone ever takes it, or how they do is irrelevant to logic’s subject matter. We can therefore confidently reject the critic’s equivocation between the laws of thought and the laws of thinking. The second criticism is therefore refuted. As a result, we gain a more solid notion of the true subject matter of logic. It is “the path” inference, not as it happens to be taken by people (as a mental activity), but as it must be taken in order to reach the correct destination.

                The third argument is perhaps the most historically grounded. Both John Locke and John Stuart Mill, at different times, have argued against the idea that a priori knowledge is possible. Locke argues that if any logical truths were really prior to observation, then children would readily admit them, but it is only after a certain abstract learning process in the world that these truths become known (273). What is important about this abstract learning process is that it must begin with concrete objects and observation and develop from there (Locke 273). Similarly, Mill argues that proof for believing in axioms consist in generalizing from observations (Kusch Sec. 2 Par 11). Perception and observation become indispensable for the proving of logical truths. Observation is unquestionably a topic for psychology, therefore logic, again, must look to psychology for its foundations. The strength of this claim rests on similar grounds to feminist critique. That is, the seemingly highly contrived and abstract nature of logic seems impossible to identify with anything other than a human activity, an impressive mental feat.

Given that truth is the aim of logic, logic must study whatever truth can be discerned from (Frege Mind 289). If truth and falsity were either physical objects or properties of physical objects then Locke and Mill would be correct. The question then arises, is truth (or falsity) a physical object or a property of physical objects? Is it possible to discern truth through the senses? Frege considers this possibility that truth comes to us from the senses in his Thought paper, quickly rejecting it (292). After all, if truth/falsity were properties of objects then it would make sense to say “the sun is true” in the same way that we might say “the sun is bright” or “the sun is a holy hippo” (Frege Thought 292). It does not make any logical sense to say “the sun is true” (though we might mean it poetically somehow). It does make sense, however, to say “the sun is bright” or “the sun is a foul-smelling bus passenger”.

Now we must ask: what does it mean for a sentence to make or have a sense? The answer to this question will make very clear the difference between the first sentence, “the sun is true,” and the others. According to Frege, “It is for the sense of a sentence that the question of truth arises…” (Frege Mind 292). This means that if a sentence has a sense, it must be possible to ask whether the sentence is true or not. Frege does not merely mean the sounds that make up the sentence, since sounds are no more true or false than the sun. It is what the sentence expresses that is true or not; what it expresses, Frege calls a “thought” (Frege Mind 292). At the risk of sounding slightly redundant, it is important to see that if we cannot ask whether a sentence is true or not than that sentence must not express a thought. Truth and falsity are therefore not properties of physical objects, but rather prompted by non-physical “thoughts”.

Let us return then to our original challenge and see what becomes of Locke and Mill’s claim. They say that physical objects must be observed in order to discern any truth (which is what logic attempts to do).We have already established that this is not true in any direct way because truth and falsity are neither physical objects themselves nor properties of objects (the sun cannot be true or false). Frege responds that truth and falsity are not properties of objects, but rather have to do with the thought a sentence expresses (which is a non-physical thing). Locke and Mill return that the thought needs to be about something and what it must be about are all physical objects. A logical statement expressing the thought “x=x” may refer to any physical object in particular, but, because of that fact, refers to no physical object in particular. What’s more, the truth of the above statement is made no more certain no matter how many particular objects are given as evidence. It follows solely from primitive logical laws which, according to Frege, make it an a priori truth (Foundations 4). Even if the sentence did pick out a particular object “that tree is that tree” it would be no less an a priori truth, since, according to Frege “these distinctions between a priori and a posteriori… concern… not the content of the judgement but the justification for making the judgement,” (Foundations 3). Locke’s insistence that children must learn these rules through sensory examples is not a problem for Frege since the origin of a belief is not the same as what proves that belief (in the same way that describing the path to a location, on its own, tells us nothing of whether the location is the desired one). In this way, the third criticism is safely refuted.

                Lastly, there is the argument that logic’s abstract “objects” are mental entities and so naturally fit into the purview of science. “1. Logic is the theory of judgments, concepts, and inferences. 2. Judgments, concepts, and inferences are human mental entities. 3. All human mental entities fall within the domain of psychology. Ergo, logic is a part of psychology,” (Kusch Sec. 3 Par. 4). This argument is perhaps the most intuitive, since all three premises seem, at least at face value, uncontroversial. Indeed, the very need to argue against any of these premises would lend credence to Locke’s argument which relies on the need to perceive logical laws, rather than simply having always known them. The less obvious logical laws are, the more difficult it is to claim that they are somehow independent of the very particular (often academic) experience which creates them.

The last criticism, that logic is about judgements, concepts and inferences, these are all human mental entities, therefore logic is a subcategory of psychology has largely already been answered in past refutations. For clarity’s sake, however, we will examine this argument in its own right. It is clear that premise 1 “Logic is the theory of judgments, concepts, and inferences” is uncontroversial (Kusch Sec. 3 Par. 4). Logic does indeed cover all of these concepts and Frege himself discusses them quite plainly (Thought 294). Given this, it must either be premise 2 or 3 which are false, since the argument is itself seemingly valid. Judgements, concepts and inferences, it has already been shown cannot simply be mental entities in the same way that superstitions or emotions are since this would make the truths of math subjective (Frege Foundations VI). Logic does not study the judgements, concepts and inferences as mental occurrences (though they are sometimes), in the same way that the physicist does not study physical laws as experience, but as an independent subject matter. If we were incapable of distinguishing between the physical experience and the objective laws underlying and governing that experience, than physics to would be a branch of psychology. In fact, along this line of reasoning, everything would be reducible to psychology. This argument for psychologism is the broadest in scope, but for that reason goes too far in equivocating that which is both necessarily and sufficiently described as a mental entity (i.e. that which is essentially a mental entity) and that which need not be described in terms of a thinker (i.e. that which is only accidentally a mental entity). It is clear from the above that disciplines such as logic and physics which deal with the second kind of subject matter. The fourth and final criticism is therefore refuted.

To conclude briefly, I would like to make plain the errors common to multiple or all psychologistic arguments explored in this paper. All arguments to a greater or lesser extent confused the objective thinker-independent subject matter of logic with either the thinker-dependent experience of that subject matter (e.g. the learning of it) or else reducing it to thinker-dependent “ideas”. The strength of the criticisms lied mainly in their intuitive appeal to how one may feel about logic, but these arguments lacked the sophistication in distinction necessary to critique Frege’s true project. The recurrent appeal to the seemingly contrived nature of logic can be said to be the underlying motivation for all these criticisms and relies on a confusion between the form and content of logic.

Bibliography

Frege, Gottlob. Conceptual Notation, and Related Articles;. Trans. Terrell Ward Bynum. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1972. Print.

Frege, Gottlob. The Foundation of Arithmetic: A Logico-mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Number. Trans. John Langshaw. Austin. London: Blackwell, 1980. Print.

Frege, Gottlob. "I.—The Thought: A Logical Inquiry." Mind 65.1 (1956): 289-311. Print.

Kusch, Martin. "Psychologism." Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N. Zalta. Stanford University Press, Winter 2011. Web. 5 Oct. 2012. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychologism/>.

Locke, John. "Essay Concerning Human Understanding." Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Ed. Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998. 270-373. Print.

Plumwood, Val. "The Politics of Reason Towards a Feminist Logic." Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic. N.p.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. 11-44. Print.

Education as a Right

It is clear that education (to some degree or another) is a right, if not in itself than as a derivative of democratic and legal rights. That is to say, one cannot have a proper democracy without the informed consent of the people. This entails both political / civic knowledge and understanding on the part of the voter. Since people are not born with either this knowledge or understanding, education becomes necessary. Similarly, in the case of legal rights, it is key that people understand both what they are being charged with and the significance of the evidence that is brought before them. This means understanding what the legal implications of both the accusation and the evidence are. What's more in the same way that the informed consent of the people is necessary for a democracy in general, the ability to give informed consent in more minor cases is also necessary for a well-functioning legal system.
It should be no surprise then, that low political knowledge is frequently pointed to as a cause of low voter turnout (1). In the area of law, we all have a right to a lawyer every step of the legal process precisely because we are not expected to understand or be competent in our incredibly complex legal system. If these basic rights are at all important in accounting for why education is a right, then we must seriously reconsider our education system. Since it has failed to provide adequate political / legal knowledge for the vast majority of citizens (and not simply 50% + 1) to operate independently in the fields of law and politics.
Given the current education system, does it make sense to appeal to education as a right in justifying a certain level of tuition fees? If we understand education as a secondary right with regards to basic democratic and legal rights, then it makes little sense to ask for lower tuition fees in our current system, without first asking for major reform in education such that it adequately equips students to operate in the fields of law and politics. Furthermore, if education is a secondary right only understandable with reference to basic rights, then--unless it can be shown that all degrees in university have a relatively equal ability to uphold the primary rights--it doesn't make sense to talk about a universal drop in tuition rates. With that being said, I won't throw out the idea of appealing to education as a right in justifying lower tuition fees.
Those who appeal to education as a right in asking for a universal drop in tuition rates, must then think education is a right for a different reason then what has been said. Again, either it is a right in and of itself or else there is some other basic right for which education is necessary or expedient. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides for "Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression..." an essential right in any free and democratic society (2). Generally, this right is interpreted in its negative sense as meaning that no one should be imprisoned or suffer any harm (other than by social means perhaps) for holding or expressing any opinion or belief or acting in any particular self-regarding way. Understood like this, it does not seem to be a very strong foundation for a "right to education", but there is another more positive sense in which unlimited education might be justified.
"Freedom of thought..." taken in its positive sense may very well mean being free from both the shackles of tradition and of the opinions and influences of others and from the manipulation of business and media enterprises. In this case, free doesn't necessarily mean apart from. A person can still be free from tradition and observe tradition. The difference is that they chose to observe tradition. Again, the key notion here is informed consent. If a person does not know how to distinguish between a good argument and a bad one, the influences they happen to be born into, whether those influences are well-meaning or otherwise, will have a controlling effect on their thought. In this case, either a great deal of enforcement as to how parents raise their children or else, a high quality of liberal education is needed from an early age. The reason I say that an unlimited amount of education could be justified under this framework is because it is unclear to me whether a person's thought could ever become completely free. Keep in mind, it is not only necessary to be able to distinguish between a good and bad argument, but also to know and understand the facts in fields as diverse as nutrition and international relations. Our society is saturated with all kinds of thoughts and opinions on a huge array of topics and so a huge amount of knowledge would be necessary for any one individual to truly be free of a dependence on the expertise of others.
How could we limit education then? I say that it is the responsibility of others to insure the individual does not form any extreme dependence on any one set of views when they are a child. Because it is the child's right to be free in this positive sense when they are older, it is the duty of the parents (and society as a whole) to make sure that independence is possible. Once that child is an adult in the cognitive sense (i.e. they can be considered capable of rationality*), if society has done its job up until that point the adult should be able to develop their own views and knowledge. It is outside of the scope of this essay to speculate on what that educational program provided to the child for the sake of its independence would look like; suffice it to say, it would be very different from our current education system.
The question then becomes why we should interpret this right in this positive way when historically it is commonly interpreted in its negative sense. That argument I will make in another post.

(1) http://www.elections.ca/res/eim/article_search/article.asp?id=50&lang=e&frmPageSize=
(2) http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/charter/page-1.html
* I see how this scientific way of defining adulthood could be highly problematic, I only mean it tentatively as a way to distinguish between children and adults, hopefully I will be able to find a better one some time in the future.

Response to Margaret Sommerville's Argument Against Assisted Suicide

In today's Globe and Mail an article was published of two ethics professors arguing for and against assisted suicide. For those of you who don't follow Canadian court news, this is in response to a B.C. supreme court ruling striking assisted suicide from the criminal code. I have decided to respond to at least Margaret Sommerville's arguments against assisted suicide, not because I hold so strongly to the opposing view, but because it really needs a good going over.

Prof. Sommerville opens by stating that legalizing assisted suicide will "inevitably" lead to legalizing euthanasia. She goes on to reference this many times. In fact every time she talks about the problem with assisted suicide, it is the problem with "assisted suicide / euthanasia". I understand that space is tight, but given that this could either be a compelling base for her argument, or just a slippery slope fallacy, I think it should have been explained better.

Sommerville then goes on to highlight the effect legalizing assisted suicide would have not only on the individual level, but on the institutional and societal level. This is an important and useful reminder to an often emotional and very personal debate. Regrettably, it is followed by a false dichotomy. "debate comes down to a direct conflict between the value of respect for human life, on the one hand, and individuals’ rights to autonomy and self-determination – the value of “choice” – on the other." By choosing to fall into over simplistic rhetoric usually reserved for abortion debates, Sommerville has fundamentally compromised her view. Any argument that stems from this dichotomy will be in some sense flawed and rely on a fallacious assumption.  Why is it a false dichotomy? The Liberal tradition of autonomy and self-determination is also the tradition of the basic human right to life i.e. the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. From a philosophical standpoint, you can't believe in some of these rights and not the others, they have a common foundation justifying all of them. Similarly, today, those who argue for "choice", as Sommerville puts it, almost always ground the legitimacy of that choice in security of person and other basic life-affirming rights. 


The question is not so much the value of life, but to whom this value belongs. Here's an analogy: you and I agree that I have a million dollars in cash. I decide to burn the million dollars. It does not follow that I deny what the million dollars is worth, but if it is really mine, it should be mine to burn. Now, that is not to say that an argument couldn't be made that I do not truly understand the value of the million dollars, but that is not what Sommerville is doing. Sommerville is declaring that there are two mutually exclusive sides in this debate, though she demonstrates this in no way.


She's goes on to argue that "Even if we were to accept (which I do not) that helping a competent, consenting adult to die does not contravene respect for individual human life, it still contravenes respect for human life in general." We must then ask, in what way assisted suicide contravenes respect for life? The implication would seem to be that someone who respects life would never choose to end it, but besides the fact that she never actually defends this point, it is highly suspect. Here is a trivial example of why the formula "if you respect X you would never choose to end X" doesn't work. Let's say you're a fan of Frasier. Now, if you are, you may very well say something like, "it was all downhill after the 4th season." Being a fan and so having respect for the show might lead you to say something like "they should have stopped at the 5th season. 


This may seem like such a trivial example it couldn't possibly be analogous to life itself, but what you should really be focussing on is the fact that in no way does respect and choosing to end something seem incompatible. The same could be said of a marriage. Anyone who has ever divorced on amicable terms knows that it was probably the best for both people. Someone who believes that respect for the institution of marriage and the family means they should never choose to end it (i.e. divorce) often end up in downward spiralling situations bringing down the entire family. I am not trying to say that divorce is always the right answer, merely that it may sometimes be the right answer and is in no way incompatible with a respect for the institution of marriage or the family. The point, again, is that respect for something and choosing its end are not incompatible sentiments.


She then goes on to argue that assisted suicide crosses the line of "not intentionally killing one another except for self-defense". This line has been crossed many times by governments at war for reasons other than having been or expecting to be directly attacked. This is a line that society has long since crossed and is in fact built on, if you count the deaths directly and indirectly resulting from the colonization of North America. 


"People who support legalizing assisted suicide/euthanasia simply assume that individual autonomy is the value that takes priority." This is a false assumption based on the prior false dichotomy. She goes on to say that the most frequent reason for wanting assisted suicide is fear of abandonment and so we should not be providing these people with means to commit suicide. Again, this relies on a false dichotomy. Legalizing assisted-suicide does not  in any way shape or form, prevent our response from being one of care and compassion, on the contrary, the possibility of suicide might motivate some people to do that much more. Implying that the right to assisted suicide somehow replaces other solutions is, again, too over simplistic and disregards the fact that it is the choice of those who have other reasons for wanting death that are being made by the fear of uncaring families. Someone else's uncaring family should not be able to determine the law that means my ongoing pain and suffering or my release. 


She then goes on to point out the potential for elder abuse. This is basically victim-blaming. "Because other people could abuse you, we will not give you the option to live / die the way you want." Our policy efforts should be towards reducing elder abuse, but not at the expense of the elderly person. Abusers should not have the authority in our courts to determine the lifestyle choices of the abused. 


"Why are we debating assisted suicide/euthanasia now when there is so much more we can do to relieve pain than was possible in the past?" This is another false dichotomy. We can continue to do more to relieve pain. It is not the implementation of mass-assisted suicide that is at stake in court right now. It is the option. A society can both have the option to implement assisted-suicide and do everything in its power to help its members not get to that point.


"If we legalized assisted suicide/euthanasia would it become the norm? Abortion gives a clue in this regard." This comment reveals a lot about the assumptions of the author present throughout this piece which I have largely addressed. She concludes with another false dichotomy between good care and assisted suicide. 

Twitter and Political Discourse

Twitter and more broadly the phenomenon of the "soundbyte" has deeply affected political conversations. If a statement, fact or argument can't be fit into 140 characters or the few seconds the TV stations give you, apparently it's not worth the viewing/listening public's time. While people debate whether or not it's democratic to not break up a budget bill because the opposition parties say you should (by the way it is perfectly "democratic" in that it is procedurally, though not conventionally correct, it's just troubling and mean-spirited), they are failing to attack and even encouraging the totality of political discourse being reduced to catchy slogans and hash tags. I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with shortening your message and for those who work 2 or 3 jobs and have a family and really can't listen to anything longer than that it is incredibly important. What we should never forget is that these short catchy soundbytes and tweets in order to be legitimate must come out of a broader, deeper, better informed conversation. I say this because what differentiates a good tweet or soundbyte from a bad one (e.g. short, sounds good, easy to remember, often witty or humorous) is completely different and often contrary to what differentiates a good policy or political argument from a bad one (e.g. logic, plausible, effective, feasible, creative in its solution not just its presentation).

This is a political point but it's also a very philosophical one. Though sophistry in the forum has always been a problem, it has at least been possible in longer conversation to engage an idea, as we shorten that we streamline the conversation more and more until it is completely taken for granted and no on e ever needs to change their views they simply need to pick the catchiest phrase.

I guess what I'm trying to say is:

Better marketing is not better politics.

The Problem on Education as Purely Economic

If we were to take all immigrants and walked them around the cities and towns of their new country, while we discussed jobs and what they need to do to get them, would we consider that adequate for integration? The answer, I think, is quite obviously no. While ensuring that new citizens know how to navigate our labour market is very important, it seems equating Canadian culture with its economy is a huge mistake. While some may argue that the government ought not use taxpayers' money to go any further than the economic, there are some troubling implications to this.

Even from a purely self-interested and economic policy perspective, just introducing new Canadians to the economic aspects of Canada seems inadeqaute. After all, a great number of studies (e.g. 1 Vissandjée et al, 2 People for Education, etc.) show that poor integration results in higher education and health care costs which result in lost economic productivity. Even with all those costs, there is still a greater danger, and that danger is to social cohesion.

If the hundreds of thousands of new Canadians have no more contact with the broader Canadian community than the workplace (especially if that workplace is run by a fellow immigrant in an ethnic community) it will become that much more likely that those communities will become more insular. I am in no way arguing that any group or individual should be asked to compromise their culture or beliefs for the sake of some homogeneous North American one. I am merely pointing to the fact that turning immigration into a purely economic conversation, challenges at the very core whether Canada as a country is anything more than a bargain between people who all need a place to work.

I will start with the modest premise that every culture has something to offer the others and that Canada has the potential as a national project not to force, but to encourage us all benefit from each. Given the above, it only follows that an introduction on the social level rather than simply the economic level needs to happen not merely as an instrumental step, but as something inherently valuable.

An exact analogy can be drawn between the case of integrating immigrants and educating the young. That is, if education becomes just a matter of job training, then we as a community lose out on the opportunity to develop in the next generation anything more than the skills to continue the bargain. If we understand culture and history as a conversation, I much rather we be talking about art, philosophy, sports, fashion, cooking, pets, and whatever else interests us than the country just be one long sales pitch back and forth. Why is a centralized institution necessary to accomplish this? Just like the potential for the insular community coming from the new Canadians who know little about the broader community, so too do we that problem with respect to families. What's more, because families often involve children who are not yet at an age where they can pick their own community, without a centralized institution to stand for the broader community, the children fall completely under the control of their parent(s)' selection. This is an unquestionable violation of the child's freedom of thought and conscience later in life not to mention freedom of association. Especially when we take into account how exposure to different people at an early age changes how we interact at a later age.

1)  http://www.springerlink.com/content/12v1496m28505646/
2) http://www.peopleforeducation.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Annual-Report-2012-web.pdf

The Power of Government- Why Legislating Abortion is Ridiculous in a Free and Democratic Society Part 2

A Response to Comments on the Argument

To Tyson,

“ the government would simply not be permitting a disruption of the natural process of pregnancy. “

To begin, by giving the pain of pregnancy special status because it’s a “natural process” commits the “is-ought” fallacy. Disease is also a natural process should the government simply not permit a disruption of that? Rape, arguably, is a natural process, insofar as it is observable in the animal kingdom, should we say that a government that does not police this is simply not permitting a disruption of a natural process? Just because pregnancy is “natural” does not make its pain or psychological effects (especially if it’s unwanted) any less severe and any less unnecessary. After all, the government interferes in the natural process all the time by giving medicine and advice and a host of other things all towards minimizing the pain. Starting from a premise of the privileged place of “natural” pain is problematic from the get go.

“ First of all only the end of the pregnancy would be painful for the most”

Tell you what, how about you engage in at least 9 months of work disruption, need for increased and diverse food, regular sickness, inability to walk great distances. Remember if abortion is legislated, we’re giving the government the ability to tell someone they must endure the most severe pregnancy. Will the government pay the food bill? Will the government compensate her for her lost work and the overall disruption to her career? Now enter the fact that in the case of wanting an abortion it’s an unwanted pregnancy and all this is being done against a woman’s will and you can be certain the psychological effects will be that much worse. So minimizing the costs of pregnancy to the woman is simply denial.

“This active action by the government is required to terminate it, inaction (i.e. not performing abortions) is not forcing the woman to endure pain and suffering.”

Actively preventing and enforcing a law is not passive. Keeping someone from seeking a procedure on pain of imprisonment is a pretty active thing. As for why the government ought to administer the abortion, well would you prefer private corporations who benefit from more abortions to be responsible for counseling women in bad situations on whether or not to get an abortion? The doctors have to be as neutral as possible and informed consent cannot be at the hands of someone with interests of their own. So it does not follow directly from saying abortions ought to be allowed that the government ought to administer it, but it does follow from the statement if we are going to allow abortions we ought to do it in the safest way possible.

To Mr. Cochrane,

“Oversimplification and reduction to absurdity are classic logical fallacies”

Reductio ad absurdum is only a fallacy if it is prefaced on a strawman or a false dichotomy. I have done neither here unless you disagree that making abortion illegal does not give the government the power to subject a woman to pain in the name of the fetus’s right to life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

As for oversimplification, what is it you would like to enter which I have not included in my argument?

 “The point was settled a long time ago, that the woman's right to choose is paramount”

I agree but there is no quicker way for valuable beliefs to become dead dogma than to stop debating them. What’s more, there are still many people out there who don’t agree with you and it is for their benefit that I engage with this issue. No one ought to be ignored in their views especially not if their absurd. If someone’s views are absurd and they are never engaged with they not only get to keep their views, but they taken on the status of a victim and on occasion a freedom of speech martyr (as some white supremacists have become). Ignoring other views is not a way of addressing them.

“until the "potential" person (that is no less a parasite than a tapeworm)”

Using this kind of language and thinking this way is unnecessary and damaging. It undervalues the beauty in pregnancy and motherhood and, as my argument shows, is not necessary in order to argue for the right to an abortion. In fact, nowhere in the Supreme Court decision striking the abortion law do they so demean the fetus and rather they focus on how any decision made about would be an absolute undermining of the woman’s autonomy. I agree with Tyson that if you really want to address the pro-life movement, the best thing you could do is grant all their premises and show how even then they can’t demonstrate their conclusion.

. “All other arguments regarding the "personhood" of a fetus lead inexorably to the logical conclusion that human rights must apply fully to a newly fertilized human zygote, or, by extension, to every living human cell, through the potential of cloning to develop a fully functional twin human being from it...”

This is a bit too slippery slope fallacy for me. There are relevant difference which even the pro-life side acknowledges.

“ Exactly - one can just as well argue that every person now living can be held morally and legally responsible for whatever future world arises from our personal choices - a position which is clearly self-contradictory”

I’m not sure what you mean by future, but taking it in its plainest sense, this is not only not self-contradictory but the basis of the environmental movement. It’s the basis any consequentialist moral theory. Say what you will about utilitarianism but to say it’s contradictory because no one should be held accountable for the results of their actions is to just reject it out of hand without giving a reason.

To Andrew,

“Neither of you are considering the correct argument for being pro-choice. While it's true that abortions save women from the terrible pain of childbirth, it saves both the woman (and the man) from the greater burden of having to sacrifice their lives and future to that potential child. A free rational society does not and should not place potentialities above actualities when it comes to value and morality. That is the root of the premise that being pro-choice is the rational thing to be.”

What you’ve just outlined is not pro-choice it is pro abortion. A free and rational society does not self-destruct after one generation because no one wants to “sacrifice” themselves by being a parent.

“ Hence philosophically speaking, an actual should be held to a higher value than a potential.”

The problem with this is that we are not speaking philosophically per se, we are speaking legally, so the relevant philosophy is not the metaphysical, but the political and legal. Because parliament can decide if it wants to redefine what it is to be an “actual”, saying an actual takes precedence over a potential still leaves us open for the legislation of abortion. That is why it is far from the strongest argument. By saying an actual would trump even an actual, that is, even if we presumed the fetus’s right to life, as an individual human being, but no individual human being has a right to the body of another human being, then the philosophical debate about actual and potentials becomes moot and the right to an abortion is preserved.

“ Furthermore w.r.t. morality, what gives anyone the right to demand that the actual (I.e. mother/parents) sacrifice themselves to the potential (their unborn child), whom once born would demand a tremendous amount of responsibility as a dependent from their parents. Once it is born, it becomes a human being, an actuality for whom someone must be responsible simply because it does not have the attributes necessary even for its own survival.”

No one has the right to demand that of the mother, but your point goes further than that and seems to state that a rational mother would never ask that of herself. Being anti-child is perhaps one of the strangest philosophical views a person can ever take and if it is the logical consequence of Randian thought than that is grounds enough to reject Randian thought. To say that children are too much of a drain, is to say an ideal society made only of the best people would never reproduce because they get nothing out of it.

“ But what kind of crime is it to choose not to bear a potential child simply because you don't want to accept that kind of responsibility, which is ultimately your choice alone?”

How is it you define an “actual” human being, because that notion has been used countless times through history to justify slavery, genocide, murder, and a host of other atrocities.

“ I hold that rational self interest (where rationality is that which promotes and advances life both short and long term (which is why it must be clearly thought of before choosing to act)) is an infinitely more superior and even benevolent premise to hold w.r.t. morality because it promotes the expression of the best in all of us”

And how do you define the best without reference to rational self-interest (since to refer to rational self-interest would be circular)?

“ The problem with this idea and why it's unpopular today is because it requires a lot of effort on everyone's part. “

Do you have any proof of this other than idle speculation (no pun intended)?

“ all of today's modern authorities on morality demand that women sacrifice their rational self interest (be it future goals, hopes and dreams) automatically to the so called interests of their unborn children, who obviously have no interests at that stage in their life. “

What exactly makes someone an authority on morality? Is it that a lot of people listen to them? If that’s the case, the tendency is towards fewer children and women being more career-driven. Since you claim that “all” the authorities on morality say that women should sacrifice themselves, then all I need to do is point to one to disprove that statement. Tell me where Betty Friedan or Simone de Beauvoir, or John Rawls or Nozick, or Singer implore women to sacrifice themselves for their children. Yes there are moral authorities who still do, but they’re hardly the only voice.

“ while it is in the farmer's interest to grow and maintain his plants and his livestock, it is not in society's interest to grow and maintain human beings”

Show me a society that aborts all of its members and I’ll concede your point. You could bring up genocidal states as an example, but typically, those states are killing “outsiders” and usually with the rhetoric of it being necessary for the society’s well-being. The fact is not just some, but all societies that have had any longevity have been set up in such a way as to propagate itself and that involves having members. Whether the members are just there to pay taxes and die at war, or whether they’re there to spread the ideology, or whether the good of the members is the goal of the society, it is absolutely the case that society has an interest in growing and maintaining human beings.

“ Society is as abstract a concept as imaginable, and an impossible concept at that within the limits of a free people. “

As opposed to rights which we have been discussing happily up until this point which are tangible entities which can be pointed to and whose hands can be shaken, clearly something being abstract makes it unintelligible and silly to talk about.

“who are entities with rights”

Where exactly do these rights come from if not abstract assertions?

“ There is no such thing as the rights or the responsibilities of a group, and any man who claims that the rights of some groups take precedence over those of individuals is nothing short of a potential murderous dictator “

As opposed to those who say rational self-interest is the only thing which governs their decisions and if they happen to have the guns, then it does often seem to be rational to be a murderous dictator (i.e. Agathocles). This is especially true if you’re born into the role of a dictator, it would seem irrational not to be murderous since going soft gets you dead.

“ Society would have no choice in the matter if tomorrow people chose to have endless abortions, thereby destroying humanity in a matter of years, or if they chose to start a nuclear war and destroy humanity in a day. It will have been their choice and their consequence to endure “

It would seem that society, even if we define it as just a group of rationally self-interested individuals, would have a big choice in making sure the people who would destroy humanity are stopped at any cost (just ask Hobbes). This does not make a good case for the right to abortions, which is why my argument completely ignores such abstract conflicts such as group vs. self and focuses on what is outlined in the Charter and so what Canadian law is dictated by already.

“ What would happen? Well overall population will decrease, competition will decrease, some companies might even start to experience worker shortages even for the most mundane type of work. What would rationally happen then, assuming we lived in a totally free society? Simple: a change in priorities, i.e. a re-evaluation of value, whereby giving birth and bringing people into the world would, with time, be of ever much greater value than it used to be. And the beauty of the whole thing is that nobody would be responsible for the shift other than the free market, i.e. not the government, and certainly not society itself. The free market would step in… opening up opportunities for private companies to come in and offer incentives for people to have kids, along the lines of: have kids and we will reward you with X and Y and you don’t even have to raise the kids if you don’t want to, but if you do, we’ll reward you with Z in addition.”

The much more likely scenario is the corporations would up and leave and a demographic crisis would cripple the country for decades to come. And in fact it would be “the free market’s” fault, but of course the free market is just an abstract entity it has no rights or interests it’s just a collection of rationally self-interested individuals.

“Probably, only reality would disagree with you. Why? Well, what would happen to any private company which, in an effort to produce hard working intelligent individuals (since that’s what’s required for success, last time I checked), decided to produce mindless idiots who simply obey orders? Such a company would cease to exist, just like any company which in a free market decides to bend the rules in order to favor itself. “

I don’t recall Dollarama having to be bailed out. I do recall a lot of countries who pushed for free market reforms like Iceland and Ireland going nearly completely bankrupt, but then so did more socialist countries so that really only goes to show the oversimplification latent in your dichotomy. There are plenty of companies who only need slaves to make up the majority of their workforce (they tend to be children to).

Some general Comments:

The entire argument here was purposefully and completely sidestepped by my argument, falling back into the rhetoric of what constitutes a person is not helpful when we can see that people aren’t entitled to one another’s bodies in any legal way (a separate question from the morality of it). As for self-sacrifice, this straw man version of modern moral systems (utilitarian, Kantian, existentialist, etc.) would fall apart immediately under the scrutiny of Mill’s “Utilitarianism” where he argues the pleasure one gets from oneself is necessarily limited whereas if one derives pleasure from all including oneself the limits are far greater; or Sartre’s “empathy”, to recognize oneself as Self and being in the meaninglessness of existence cannot happen fully without recognizing others as being in a similar predicament and basing one’s actions (for which they are fully responsible) on this empathy; then of course there’s Kant who would say that you are bastardizing the word rationality by tying it to egotism, and that what rationally really entails is the absence of contradictions in one’s reasons for doing something and that logically entails the second half of the categorical imperative never treat others solely as a means to an end. 

The Power of Government- Why Legislating Abortion is Ridiculous in a Free and Democratic Society

P1: Every child has the right to life

P2: All a woman needs to do to get pregnant is have sex

P3: The life of the fetus is not guaranteed upon birth, only reasonably expected

P4: By making abortion illegal (legislating abortion) on the grounds of the fetus’s right to life, the government is given the power to subject a woman to suffer the pains and misery of pregnancy against her will in the name of another’s right to life

P5: Sick children have the right to life

P6: We can reasonably expect that barely regulated human testing will speed up the process of medicine production needed to keep sick children from dying

P7: if the government can subject women to 9 months of pain and misery against their will in the name of another’s right to life, according to section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (see below), it should have the power to subject men as well

P8: (SC1) Therefore, the government should have the power to force men (or women) who have sex to undergo medical testing whose side effects can be equal to, but no worse than, the worst pregnancy*, if the medicine produced has a reasonable chance of saving at least one child's life.

P10: P9 would be unacceptable in a free and democratic society

                                                                                                                                                                        

C: Abortion should not be legislated

(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/charter/page-1.html#l_I:s_15

*The worst pregnancy, of course, results in death so pretty much any medical testing should be ok.