Edward Feser's Blog, page 51

Byrne on why sex is binary

At Arc Digital, philosopher Alex Byrne defends the proposition that there are only two sexes, while suggesting that this has no implications one way or the other for transsexuality, gender dysphoria, and related issues.  Let’s consider both claims.
Byrne argues that it is a mistake to suppose that one’s sex is fundamentally a matter of what chromosomes one has or even what sorts of genitals one has.  Hence it is also a mistake to point to examples such as individuals who have male chromosomes but female external genitalia, or people who have only an X chromosome or XXY chromosomes, as evidence against the thesis that sex is binary.  In fact, Byrne suggests, chromosomes and genitalia are reflections of a deeper distinction, and the nature of that distinction is not captured by a mere description of the chromosomes and genitalia: To be chromosomally female is to have the sex chromosomes typical of (human) females; to be genitally female is to have the genitalia typical of (human) females, and so on.  But what is it to be, simply, female or male?
Byrne’s answer is that the sexes are defined in terms of the gametes they produce:
Specifically, females produce large gametes (reproductive cells), and males produce small ones. (Since there are no species with a third intermediate gamete size, there are only two sexes.) A glance at the huge variety of females and males across the animal and vegetable kingdoms will confirm that there is nothing else the sexes can be. For instance, the equation female=XX is confused for a fundamental reason having nothing to do with human chromosomal variation: females of numerous species either have different sex chromosomes (as in birds) or else no sex chromosomes at all (as in some reptiles). The XX/XY system is merely the mechanism by which placental mammals like humans typically become female and male; other animals and plants use different means to achieve the same end result.
End quote.  Byrne does not make use of Aristotelian-Scholastic metaphysical notions in order to make his point, but it is illuminating to do so.  Scholastics distinguish between the essence of a thing and its properties (or “proper accidents”).  A thing’s properties flow or follow from its essence, but are not to be identified with its essence.  For example, the essence of a human being is to be a rational animal, and a capacity for language is a property that flows or follows from this essence.  It is a kind of byproduct of being a rational animal insofar as it will always manifest in a mature and healthy specimen. 
Of course, some individual human beings are deficient in or lacking this capacity, but that is because the “flow” is, as it were, being blocked (by immaturity, brain damage, dementia, etc.).  It does not follow from such cases that the capacity for language is not a true property of human beings, but rather merely that an immature or damaged human being will not manifest all of his properties.  Similarly, the exercise even of rationality itself can be impaired or blocked by genetic defect, brain damage, aging, etc.  For the Scholastic, this does not mean that some human beings are not rational animals, but rather that they are rational animals whose actual exercise of their rationality is being frustrated.
Now, what Byrne is proposing can be interpreted as the thesis that the essence of being either male or female involves having the capacity to produce either smaller or larger gametes, respectively.  And having certain chromosomes and having genitalia of a certain type are properties which flow or follow from having one or the other essence.  In particular, having XY chromosomes, a penis, testicles, etc. are properties of human males, and having XX chromosomes, a vagina, ovaries, etc. are properties of human females.  As with other properties, the manifestation of these can be distorted or blocked due to immaturity, defect, damage, etc.
Again, Byrne doesn’t use such language, but he at least implicitly gestures at something like the essence/properties distinction insofar as he notes that:
There is a complication. Females and males might not produce gametes for a variety of reasons. A baby boy is male, despite the fact that sperm production is far in his future (or even if he dies in infancy), and a post-menopausal woman does not cease to be female simply because she no longer produces viable eggs.
In other words, immaturity prevents the manifestation of the relevant properties in a baby boy, whereas aged organs being worn out prevents the manifestation in a post-menopausal woman. 
This brings us to another Aristotelian notion that illuminates Byrne’s point, viz. that of intrinsic teleology.  As longtime readers of this blog know, intrinsic teleology is the kind that a thing manifests naturally, just by virtue of being the kind of thing it is.  A stock example would be an acorn’s tendency to grow into an oak, a tendency it has simply qua acorn.  This contrasts with extrinsic teleology, which is the kind a thing possesses only insofar as some end or purpose has been imposed on it from outside.  A stock example would be the time-telling function of a watch, which is not intrinsic to the bits of metal that make up a watch, but has to be imposed by the maker and users of the watch.  (Again, see Scholastic Metaphysics for detailed exposition and defense of this distinction.) 
To have an essence involves having certain intrinsic teleological properties.  For example, having the essence of a rational animal entails having faculties that are directed toward or aim at ends such as acquiring knowledge.
Now, Byrne speaks of “the mechanism by which… humans typically become female and male” and says that “other animals and plants use different means to achieve the same end result.”  That is teleological language, and since he is talking about natural kinds rather than artifacts, it is the language of intrinsic teleology, specifically. 
Similarly, when Byrne says that “a baby boy is male, despite the fact that sperm production is far in his future (or even if he dies in infancy),” it is natural to read this in teleological terms.  In particular, it is natural to read it as implying that a baby boy’s physiology is naturally directed toward the eventual production of sperm, and is so directed even if this end is never realized (because of the death of the baby).  Furthermore, the claim that “a post-menopausal woman does not cease to be female simply because she no longer produces viable eggs” can also be read in teleological terms.  The idea would be that a woman’s ovaries are directed toward the production of viable eggs, and remain so directed even if age leaves them no longer capable of realizing that end.  (Something similar is true of organs in general.  For example, the eye is for seeing, and it retains that function even if genetic defect, injury, or old age leave it incapable of fulfilling that function well or at all.)
This reading is especially natural in light of these follow-up remarks from Byrne:
In the light of these examples, it is more accurate (albeit not completely accurate) to say that females are the ones who have advanced some distance down the developmental pathway that results in the production of large gametes — ovarian differentiation has occurred, at least to some extent. Similarly, males are the ones who have advanced some distance down the developmental pathway that results in the production of small gametes.
End quote.  Talk of “developmental pathways” is naturally read as teleological.  The development in question is not just in any old direction, after all, but is a development toward the production of the gametes.  The “pathway” has a specific natural destination.
All the same, I presume that Byrne would not want to commit himself to anything like Aristotelian essentialism and teleology.  He may hold, as contemporary philosophers often do, that teleological-sounding talk is a mere façon de parler which can be replaced with a purely efficient-causal description.  But even the hint of an essentialist and teleological metaphysics accounts for why many with “progressive” views about sex are, as Byrne complains, reluctant to acknowledge that sex is binary.
After all, if anything has teleology, gametes do, and it has to do with getting together with the gametes of the opposite sex.  And if, as Byrne’s account suggests, chromosomes and genitalia play a secondary role relative to gametes, it isn’t hard to figure out their teleology too.  It has to do with facilitating the getting together of the gametes of the opposite sexes.  Hence the extremely well-known suitability of penises to get male gametes into the vicinity of female gametes, etc.
Before you know it, the evolutionary psychologists will show up and start pointing out that psychological drives (like sexual arousal, romantic attraction, and the like) are no less plausibly described in functional terms than genitalia are, and that the psychological functions in question have to do with facilitating the physiological processes by which male gametes get together with female gametes.  Add Aristotelian essentialism and teleology to the mix, and the function talk takes on normativesignificance.  Deviations from the physiological and psychological functions in question take on the status of malfunctions and deformations, no less bad for the organism than other malfunctions and deformations are.  All that’s left at that point is for the natural law theorists to come along and draw out the implications for sexual morality – though the progressive will by that time already have started hyperventilating, in a most unsexy way.
So, the skittishness of some progressives about acknowledging that sex is binary is understandable.  The messier sex can be made naturally to seem, the easier it will be to resist natural law conclusions.  But again, Byrne holds that to acknowledge that sex is binary should give the progressive nothing to worry about.  Is he right?
Well, if essentialism and intrinsic teleology are rejected, then the moral conclusions the progressive dislikes won’t follow.  (Though only because no moral conclusions about anything at all can survive the abandonment of essentialism and teleology, or so I would argue – but that is a topic for another time.)  And as I have said, I presume that Byrne would reject them, though this is not a topic he addresses.
The trouble is that it is very difficult at best to reduce or eliminate essentialist and teleological notions in the context of biology.  To be sure, the assertion that they can be reduced or eliminated is extremely common.  But actually pulling this job off is something no one has really done.  For example, attempts to reduce the notion of biological function (e.g. in causal terms or in terms of natural selection) are famously problematic.  Furthermore, as writers like Marjorie Grene, Andre Ariew, and J. Scott Turner have argued, natural selection in any event at most casts doubt on teleology where questions about adaptationare concerned, but leaves untouched the need for teleological descriptions of developmental processes.  It is often thought that resort to computational notions (such as characterizations of the genome as a kind of software or program) provides a handy replacement for teleology.  But as I argued in another recent paper, the computational descriptions in fact implicitly presuppose something like Aristotelian essentialism and teleology.
Again, Byrne himself describes the phenomena with which he is concerned in terms that suggest teleology.  Even if (as, again, I presume) he would hold that such talk can be cashed out in non-teleological terms, it is another thing actually to show exactly how this could be done.  In particular, one would need to capture everything we know about gametes, chromosomes, genitalia, etc. in a way that makes no implicit reference at all to teleological features.  For example, one would have to be able to give a complete description of male gametes without saying anything that implies that they have the end or telos of getting together with female gametes; one would have to be able to give a complete description of genitalia without saying anything that implies that they have the function of getting gametes together with those of the opposite sex; one would have to give a complete description of immature testicles without implying that they aim or are directed toward sperm production years down the line; and so on.
Since, again, it’s very hard to pull off such a consistently non-teleological re-description (where any aspect of biology is concerned, not just sex), it is no surprise that some progressives prefer to muddy the waters where the biological facts are concerned.  If sex is not binary, then the teleology is messier, and if the teleology is messier, then the dreaded conservative moral conclusions are easier to resist.
So, Byrne’s remarks about the biology are plausible, but his remarks about the implications or lack thereof for progressive views about sex, not so much. 
Related reading:
Love and sex roundup

The latest on Catholicism and capital punishment

At First Things, Joseph Bessette, Michael Pakaluk, and Fr. Brian Harrison comment on Steven Long’s recent article on capital punishment and the change to the catechism, and Long responds.
Parkland shooter suspect Nikolas Cruz has assaulted a prison guard, illustrating the continuing danger murderers pose even after incarceration.
In the October 2018 issue of the magazine New Directions , Fr. Richard Norman reviews By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment .  Fr. Norman says that he is “prudentially opposed” to the death penalty, yet still judges that: [Bessette and Feser] authored a well-argued defence of the legitimacy of capital punishment within the catholic tradition… By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed is a relentlessly tightly-argued programme… Most importantly, the authors present a compelling theological case for accepting the legitimacy of capital punishment in principle, even if in practice its use is strictly curtailed.  They challenge the theological bases upon which much opposition to capital punishment rests and debunk many sociological assertions on the abolitionist side of the debate…
They argue very coherently as to why this power is properly reserved to the state according to the tradition of the Church… and they expose many inconsistencies and errors in the arguments brought against the death penalty… [T]his book [is] an important corrective within an often one-sided debate among churchmen.
End quote.  Naturally, Fr. Norman also raises some criticisms of the book.  For example, he says:
Bessette and Feser… do somewhat undermine their explanation of the deterrent effect of the death penalty in a chapter in which the capital crimes of seventeen offenders are described ‘in some detail’— the deterrent effect was evidently lost on these men.
With all due respect to Fr. Norman, this seems to me to be a pretty weak objection.  That a punishment does not deter everyone does not entail that it does not deter anyone.   The prospect of jail time, fines, bodily injury, accidental death, damage to one’s reputation, loss of employment, angering one’s spouse, etc. deter people all the time from doing things that are immoral, embarrassing, criminal, or otherwise risky.  Do they deter absolutely everyone, all of the time?  Of course not.  But it would be absurd to conclude from that that they have no significant deterrent effect.  It is no less absurd to question the deterrent effect of capital punishment, on the grounds that there are somepeople who are not deterred by it.
Another objection raised by Fr. Norman is as follows:
Another question relates to the determination of which authority is empowered to pass capital sentences: what is to prevent a father from applying the death penalty to his child, or the abbot of a monastery condemning a murderous religious?  Each of these has as many responsibilities towards their charges as does the state, but we would surely feel some reluctance at affording them the same juridical powers.
This is also a very weak objection.  One problem with it is that it would prove too much.  In particular, if it really cast any doubt on capital punishment, then it would also cast doubt on every other serious punishment.  For we could equally well ask: “What is to prevent a father or an abbot from imposing jail time or major fines?” and then on that basis argue against allowing the state ever to jail or to fine anyone.
Another problem, though, is that the objection neglects the answer that natural law theorists like Aquinas would give to Fr. Norman’s question.  As Joe Bessette and I discuss in our book, while Aquinas thinks that a murderer deserves a punishment of death as a matter of retributive justice, he also thinks that retributive justice is not by itself a sufficient reason for actually inflicting this deserved penalty, since Aquinas holds that retributive justice is primarily to be achieved in the afterlife.  There would therefore have to be some additional consideration favoring the actual infliction of death in this life – and there is such a consideration, in Aquinas’s view, namely the defense of the community.
Now, only those with authority within a kind of social order have the right to inflict punishments intended to protect that social order.  But those with authority to defend the community as a whole are public officials or governmental authorities.  Hence Aquinas argues thatit is only they, and not private citizens (including fathers and abbots), who may inflict capital punishment.
A further objection raised by Fr. Norman is the following:
The greatest difficulty, however, is with the authors’ fundamental idea of proportionality… [A]t least three problems go unaddressed: (i) if there is a direct proportionality between the crime of murder and a capital sentence, is justice lacking in sentences for murder which do not invoke the death penalty and, if not, could justice be also otherwise served where a capital sentence has been passed; (ii) how do proponents of capital punishment account for the many changes over time in the list of crimes which attract a capital penalty, if the issue at stake is one of proportionality, and (iii) how might one signal the moral difference between one capital crime and another if the sentence is the same, e.g. between the drug-dealer who fatally shoots a rival, the sadist who sexually assaults and murders a child, and the war criminal who orders the execution of hundreds of innocent civilians?
The first thing to say in response to these points is that as Joe Bessette and I note in the book, it is a misunderstanding of the natural law position to suppose that it entails that it is always possible in practice to inflict a proportional punishment, or that that we are always morally obligated to inflict it when this is possible.  For one thing, there may in some cases be practical reasons why inflicting a proportional punishment is not possible, or epistemological reasons which prevent a determination of exactly what a proportional punishment would be.  But that simply does not entail that there is not in fact a punishment that would be proportional.  For another thing, the natural law position holds only that there is a presumptionin favor of inflicting a proportional punishment, but allows that there are various reasons which might override this presumption, including moral reasons. 
Another problem with the objection is that Fr. Norman seems to be conflating questions about what punishments should be given with questions about what punishments arein fact given today.  It’s true, as he says, that there have been “many changes over time” in the list of offenses eligible for the death penalty, but by itself that has no implications one way or the other for the question of what punishments should be given.  In particular, the fact that there are in fact fewer offenses today for which death is inflicted does not entail that there morally must be fewer offenses for which it is inflicted.
That is not to imply, however, that Joe and I would necessarily want to expand the list.  Again, the presumption that an offender will get just what he deserves can be overridden for various practical and moral reasons, and in this life the imperative of doing what is best to secure the welfare of the community is in practice more important than the securing of strict retributive justice.  So it is perfectly possible for the list of crimes for which offenders should in practice be executed to be much shorter than the list of crimes for which offenders might in theory be executed.  Joe and I do not draw up any detailed list of either sort because it simply isn’t necessary for the specific purposes of our argument to do so.
Finally, Fr. Norman writes:
Another significant challenge to Bessette and Feser, which indeed impacts upon catholic tradition more extensively, is the question as to whether the New Testament ever anticipated Christians in positions of significant civic influence in what might be termed a ‘Christian state.’ When the New Testament recognizes the authority of the state to mete out justice, did its authors envisage Christians on the judgment seat?
The answer to this, I think, is that whether or not the authors of the New Testament writings envisaged this is not really important.  What isimportant is what the principles they taught would imply when applied to concrete circumstances in which Christians find themselves in positions of civic influence.  And that is a question that has been answered in detail by the Church’s great political thinkers (such as St. Thomas and St. Robert Bellarmine) and by the social doctrine of the Church. 

Thomas Pink on “official theology” (Updated)

At the National Catholic Register, Edward Pentin recently interviewed philosopher Thomas Pink on the subject of the failure of the Church’s leaders to teach and defend her doctrines.  (The interview is in two parts, hereand here.)  Pink is interesting and insightful as always, and in general I agree with the substance of his analysis.  However, it seems to me that the way he expresses his main point is potentially misleading and could needlessly open him up to unfair criticism.Pink draws a distinction between the “magisterial teaching” of the Church and what he calls the “official theology” of churchmen.  The problem with many current leaders in the Church, in Pink’s view, is that their official theology effectively smothers magisterial teaching without explicitly contradicting it.  Explaining what he means by “official theology,” he says:

They are statements that are official – made by officeholders in their public role – but they simply explain what the magisterial teaching means, or what the Church’s policies and practices are, without those statements of themselves imposing any obligation on our part to believe them.

End quote.  Now, it’s this expression “official theology” and Pink’s gloss on it here that I find problematic.  Again, I don’t disagree with the substance of what Pink is saying.  I think his main point is absolutely correct and important.  But the literal meaning of the expression “official theology” might lead an unsympathetic reader wrongly to accuse Pink of drawing a distinction without a difference, with a view to rationalizing a rejection of doctrines he doesn’t like.  

After all, what Pink calls “magisterial teaching” is also theological in content, and it is put forward officially insofar as it is to be found in authoritative documents such as the decrees of Church councils, papal encyclicals, instructions issued by the CDF, and so forth.  So isn’t magisterial teaching itself a kind of “official theology”?  Furthermore, doesn’t the Church tell us that it is the job of popes and bishops to “explain what the magisterial teaching means,” and that the faithful are obliged to give religious submission of intellect and will to this teaching (even if, as I have explained elsewhere, the Church allows that there can be circumstances in which such submission may legitimately be withheld)?  So, when churchmen acting “in their public role” rather than as private theologians “simply explain what the magisterial teaching means, or what the Church’s policies and practices are” isn’t there at least a presumption that Catholics do have an “obligation… to believe them”?

So, again, if you go just by the literal meaning of the expression “official theology” and the explanatory remark from Pink quoted above, it may seem that he hasn’t made it clear either how this is distinct from “magisterial teaching,” or why Catholics are not obligated to accept the former despite being obligated to accept the latter.

However, when you look at the specific examplesPink discusses, his meaning is clear.  For instance, he says:

Official theology often changes over time, and not in a constant direction.  The to-ing and fro-ing over unbaptised children [the doctrine on limbo] shows that the official theology of one time can contradict the official theology of another time.  And if past official theology of the Church can be mistaken, so too can modern official theology. 

End quote.  Another example Pink discusses at greater length is Jacques Maritain’s political theology of democratic pluralism, which has never been magisterial teaching but has nevertheless had an enormous influence on how contemporary Catholic theologians think about matters of Church and state.  An example Pink does not give but which is another instance of the sort of thing he has in mind is Hans Urs von Balthasar’s view that there is a realistic hope that all human beings will be saved. 

Other examples could be given, but these three – the rejection of the idea of limbo, the affirmation of the pluralistic non-confessional state as a positive good, and the “empty hell” hypothesis – provide a representative sample.  Here are three observations about them.  First, and again, none of these ideas is magisterial teaching, and no Catholic is obligated to agree with them.  

Second, these ideas are nevertheless widespread even among contemporary Catholic churchmen and theologians who have reputations for orthodoxy, and they reflect more general theological tendencies that are even more widespread.  For example, Maritain’s position reflects the influence of modern personalist philosophy, and personalism was also a major influence on the thinking of Pope St. John Paul II.  Von Balthasar was a major figure within the nouvelle théologie or resourcement movement in twentieth-century Catholic theology, and Pope Benedict XVI was another major figure in that movement.  No Catholic is obligated to endorse either personalism or the nouvelle théologie, but the fact that two popes widely admired among faithful Catholics were influenced by these movements has given them enormous prestige and influence within Catholicism. 

As I say, I think it would be misleading to call either these general movements or the specific theological ideas referred to parts of an “official theology.”  But they might plausibly be regarded as parts of a “dominant theology” or a “prevailing theology,” which I think would be better labels than the one Pink uses.

A third observation is that these three specific examples of prevailing theological ideas – again, the rejection of limbo, the affirmation of the non-confessional state as a positive good, and the “empty hell” hypothesis – all reflect a kind of optimism about the human condition that is novel, and indeed foreign to the Catholic tradition.  Magisterial Catholic teaching holds that without baptism we cannot be cleansed of the stain of original sin, and without sacramental confession we cannot be cleansed of the stain of mortal sin committed after baptism.  Thus, without baptism and confession we cannot be saved.  Hence the urgency of the Great Commission.  Now, it is true that there are qualifications to be made to these doctrines, having to do with the notions of baptism of desire, invincible ignorance, and the like.  But to think that this makes the need for baptism and confession less urgent is somewhat like thinking that a diagnosis of cancer needn’t prompt urgent action, since there are rare cases where cancers disappear without treatment; or like thinking that to prepare to have a large family and put the kids through college, it will suffice to buy a few lottery tickets.

Now, the rejection of limbo is hard to square with the urgency of infant baptism, and the “empty hell” hypothesis is hard to square with the urgency of conversion, of repentance, and of confession of mortal sin.  Celebration of the pluralistic non-confessional state as a positive good (as opposed to a necessary evil) is also in tension with this urgency.  If conversion is an urgent matter, then it can hardly fail to be an urgent matter to dispel theological error.  But if religious pluralism is a positively good thing, then it is hard to see how dispelling theological error can be an urgent matter, and thus hard to see how conversion can be an urgent matter either.  It is no surprise that latitudinarianism in theology and pluralism as a political ideal tend to go hand in hand.  (The connection goes back to the beginning of the liberal tradition, as I discuss in my book on John Locke.)

These novel theological opinions are often formulated in a way that attempts to make them consistent with the letter of Catholic magisterial teaching.  That is, for example, why “empty hell” theorists don’t deny either that hell exists or that some people might in theory end up there, but confine themselves to arguing that there is at least good reason to think that perhaps few if any in fact do.  I think these attempts at harmonization with past teaching are dubious at best.  (Pink has written much on the problems facing attempts to harmonize the affirmation of the non-confessional state as a positive good with traditional Catholic teaching, most recently at Public Discourse.  See the articles linked to above for discussion of limbo and the “empty hell” hypothesis.)  But even if these novel theories could be made consistent with the letter of traditional Catholic doctrine, they are manifestly in conflict with its spirit.  

Pink’s main point is that it is precisely because such theological opinions are at the very least in conflict with the spirit of traditional Catholic teaching that many churchmen beholden to these opinions do not proclaim and defend that teaching.  Why bother preaching the urgent need for conversion and baptism, or the urgency of repenting of and confessing mortal sins (such as the variety of sexual sins that are today not only widely indulged in but widely celebrated), if most people are going to be saved anyway?  Especially when doing so will only bring down upon you the opprobrium of the dominant secular liberal culture?  

In this way, the “official theology” (or better, the “prevailing theology” or “dominant theology”) makes magisterial teaching of no effect, without explicitly denying it.  And part of the remedy, as Pink goes on to argue, is for Catholic scholars to criticizethis prevailing theology – to show how it not only differs from actual magisterial teaching, but either explicitly or at least implicitly and in practice conflicts with it.  To carry out such criticism is in no way to be disloyal to the Church or her leaders.  On the contrary, it is precisely to defend the Church’s magisterial teaching and to assist her leaders in doing the same.  (It is also to exercise a right and duty that the Church herself recognizes.)

It seems to me that a helpful parallel here might be drawn with a distinction made in the philosophy of science.  In his recent book on quantum mechanics, Peter Lewis draws a distinction between (1) the phenomena a physical theory is meant to explain, (2) the theoryitself, and (3) alternative possible interpretationsof the theory.  In the case of quantum mechanics, the phenomena would include the interference phenomena of the two-slit experiment, and quantum entanglement phenomena.  The theory would include the mathematical representation of the physical systems central to quantum phenomena, and a law describing the changes of such systems over time.  The interpretations would include accounts of how the mathematical representation relates to concrete physical reality, such as the Copenhagen interpretation or the many worlds interpretation.

I would suggest that a parallel distinction can be drawn between (i) the data of divine revelation found in scripture and tradition, (ii) authoritative magisterial statements found in the decrees of councils, papal encyclicals, etc., and (iii) theological theories and systems that provide alternative interpretations of the sources of revelation and of magisterial statements.

Now, in the case of science, especially in popularized accounts, the distinction between (1) and (2) on the one hand and (3) on the other is often blurred.  For example, one sometimes hears sensationalistic claims to the effect that quantum mechanics has established the existence of parallel universes, or that it has vindicated the idealist view that physical reality depends on the observer.  In fact, quantum mechanics per se does not establish any such claims.  Rather, it is only certain interpretations of quantum mechanics – or even only certain extrapolations from certain interpretations of quantum mechanics – that make such claims, albeit they are interpretations and extrapolations that are sometimes endorsed by scientists.

Similarly, in Catholic contexts, the distinction between (i) and (ii) on the one hand and (iii) on the other is sometimes blurred.  For example, one sometimes hears claims to the effect that Catholic teaching no longer accepts the idea of limbo, or that it now requires that one affirm the non-confessional state as the ideal political arrangement.  In fact, Catholic magisterial teaching makes no such claims.  It is only certain theological theories that make such claims, albeit they are theories that are often endorsed by churchmen.  

What Pink is getting at, I would suggest, is precisely this point.  What he calls “official theology” is what I am referring to as category (iii) theological claims, or as examples of “prevailing theology” or “dominant theology.”   And he is right to say both that these ideas are not binding on the faithful, and that they often tend at least implicitly to undermine magisterial teaching and to discourage churchmen from proclaiming and defending it.

UPDATE 11/10: Pink's views are developed further in a recent three-part article at The Josias on the topic "Vatican II and Crisis in the Theology of Baptism": Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Thomas Pink on “official theology”

At the National Catholic Register, Edward Pentin recently interviewed philosopher Thomas Pink on the subject of the failure of the Church’s leaders to teach and defend her doctrines.  (The interview is in two parts, hereand here.)  Pink is interesting and insightful as always, and in general I agree with the substance of his analysis.  However, it seems to me that the way he expresses his main point is potentially misleading and could needlessly open him up to unfair criticism. Pink draws a distinction between the “magisterial teaching” of the Church and what he calls the “official theology” of churchmen.  The problem with many current leaders in the Church, in Pink’s view, is that their official theology effectively smothers magisterial teaching without explicitly contradicting it.  Explaining what he means by “official theology,” he says:
They are statements that are official – made by officeholders in their public role – but they simply explain what the magisterial teaching means, or what the Church’s policies and practices are, without those statements of themselves imposing any obligation on our part to believe them.
End quote.  Now, it’s this expression “official theology” and Pink’s gloss on it here that I find problematic.  Again, I don’t disagree with the substance of what Pink is saying.  I think his main point is absolutely correct and important.  But the literal meaning of the expression “official theology” might lead an unsympathetic reader wrongly to accuse Pink of drawing a distinction without a difference, with a view to rationalizing a rejection of doctrines he doesn’t like.  
After all, what Pink calls “magisterial teaching” is also theological in content, and it is put forward officially insofar as it is to be found in authoritative documents such as the decrees of Church councils, papal encyclicals, instructions issued by the CDF, and so forth.  So isn’t magisterial teaching itself a kind of “official theology”?  Furthermore, doesn’t the Church tell us that it is the job of popes and bishops to “explain what the magisterial teaching means,” and that the faithful are obliged to give religious submission of intellect and will to this teaching (even if, as I have explained elsewhere, the Church allows that there can be circumstances in which such submission may legitimately be withheld)?  So, when churchmen acting “in their public role” rather than as private theologians “simply explain what the magisterial teaching means, or what the Church’s policies and practices are” isn’t there at least a presumption that Catholics do have an “obligation… to believe them”?
So, again, if you go just by the literal meaning of the expression “official theology” and the explanatory remark from Pink quoted above, it may seem that he hasn’t made it clear either how this is distinct from “magisterial teaching,” or why Catholics are not obligated to accept the former despite being obligated to accept the latter.
However, when you look at the specific examplesPink discusses, his meaning is clear.  For instance, he says:
Official theology often changes over time, and not in a constant direction.  The to-ing and fro-ing over unbaptised children [the doctrine on limbo] shows that the official theology of one time can contradict the official theology of another time.  And if past official theology of the Church can be mistaken, so too can modern official theology. 
End quote.  Another example Pink discusses at greater length is Jacques Maritain’s political theology of democratic pluralism, which has never been magisterial teaching but has nevertheless had an enormous influence on how contemporary Catholic theologians think about matters of Church and state.  An example Pink does not give but which is another instance of the sort of thing he has in mind is Hans Urs von Balthasar’s view that there is a realistic hope that all human beings will be saved. 
Other examples could be given, but these three – the rejection of the idea of limbo, the affirmation of the pluralistic non-confessional state as a positive good, and the “empty hell” hypothesis – provide a representative sample.  Here are three observations about them.  First, and again, none of these ideas is magisterial teaching, and no Catholic is obligated to agree with them.  
Second, these ideas are nevertheless widespread even among contemporary Catholic churchmen and theologians who have reputations for orthodoxy, and they reflect more general theological tendencies that are even more widespread.  For example, Maritain’s position reflects the influence of modern personalist philosophy, and personalism was also a major influence on the thinking of Pope St. John Paul II.  Von Balthasar was a major figure within the nouvelle théologie or resourcement movement in twentieth-century Catholic theology, and Pope Benedict XVI was another major figure in that movement.  No Catholic is obligated to endorse either personalism or the nouvelle théologie, but the fact that two popes widely admired among faithful Catholics were influenced by these movements has given them enormous prestige and influence within Catholicism. 
As I say, I think it would be misleading to call either these general movements or the specific theological ideas referred to parts of an “official theology.”  But they might plausibly be regarded as parts of a “dominant theology” or a “prevailing theology,” which I think would be better labels than the one Pink uses.
A third observation is that these three specific examples of prevailing theological ideas – again, the rejection of limbo, the affirmation of the non-confessional state as a positive good, and the “empty hell” hypothesis – all reflect a kind of optimism about the human condition that is novel, and indeed foreign to the Catholic tradition.  Magisterial Catholic teaching holds that without baptism we cannot be cleansed of the stain of original sin, and without sacramental confession we cannot be cleansed of the stain of mortal sin committed after baptism.  Thus, without baptism and confession we cannot be saved.  Hence the urgency of the Great Commission.  Now, it is true that there are qualifications to be made to these doctrines, having to do with the notions of baptism of desire, invincible ignorance, and the like.  But to think that this makes the need for baptism and confession less urgent is somewhat like thinking that a diagnosis of cancer needn’t prompt urgent action, since there are rare cases where cancers disappear without treatment; or like thinking that to prepare to have a large family and put the kids through college, it will suffice to buy a few lottery tickets.
Now, the rejection of limbo is hard to square with the urgency of infant baptism, and the “empty hell” hypothesis is hard to square with the urgency of conversion, of repentance, and of confession of mortal sin.  Celebration of the pluralistic non-confessional state as a positive good (as opposed to a necessary evil) is also in tension with this urgency.  If conversion is an urgent matter, then it can hardly fail to be an urgent matter to dispel theological error.  But if religious pluralism is a positively good thing, then it is hard to see how dispelling theological error can be an urgent matter, and thus hard to see how conversion can be an urgent matter either.  It is no surprise that latitudinarianism in theology and pluralism as a political ideal tend to go hand in hand.  (The connection goes back to the beginning of the liberal tradition, as I discuss in my book on John Locke.)
These novel theological opinions are often formulated in a way that attempts to make them consistent with the letter of Catholic magisterial teaching.  That is, for example, why “empty hell” theorists don’t deny either that hell exists or that some people might in theory end up there, but confine themselves to arguing that there is at least good reason to think that perhaps few if any in fact do.  I think these attempts at harmonization with past teaching are dubious at best.  (Pink has written much on the problems facing attempts to harmonize the affirmation of the non-confessional state as a positive good with traditional Catholic teaching, most recently at Public Discourse.  See the articles linked to above for discussion of limbo and the “empty hell” hypothesis.)  But even if these novel theories could be made consistent with the letter of traditional Catholic doctrine, they are manifestly in conflict with its spirit.  
Pink’s main point is that it is precisely because such theological opinions are at the very least in conflict with the spirit of traditional Catholic teaching that many churchmen beholden to these opinions do not proclaim and defend that teaching.  Why bother preaching the urgent need for conversion and baptism, or the urgency of repenting of and confessing mortal sins (such as the variety of sexual sins that are today not only widely indulged in but widely celebrated), if most people are going to be saved anyway?  Especially when doing so will only bring down upon you the opprobrium of the dominant secular liberal culture?  
In this way, the “official theology” (or better, the “prevailing theology” or “dominant theology”) makes magisterial teaching of no effect, without explicitly denying it.  And part of the remedy, as Pink goes on to argue, is for Catholic scholars to criticizethis prevailing theology – to show how it not only differs from actual magisterial teaching, but either explicitly or at least implicitly and in practice conflicts with it.  To carry out such criticism is in no way to be disloyal to the Church or her leaders.  On the contrary, it is precisely to defend the Church’s magisterial teaching and to assist her leaders in doing the same.  (It is also to exercise a right and duty that the Church herself recognizes.)
It seems to me that a helpful parallel here might be drawn with a distinction made in the philosophy of science.  In his recent book on quantum mechanics, Peter Lewis draws a distinction between (1) the phenomena a physical theory is meant to explain, (2) the theoryitself, and (3) alternative possible interpretationsof the theory.  In the case of quantum mechanics, the phenomena would include the interference phenomena of the two-slit experiment, and quantum entanglement phenomena.  The theory would include the mathematical representation of the physical systems central to quantum phenomena, and a law describing the changes of such systems over time.  The interpretations would include accounts of how the mathematical representation relates to concrete physical reality, such as the Copenhagen interpretation or the many worlds interpretation.
I would suggest that a parallel distinction can be drawn between (i) the data of divine revelation found in scripture and tradition, (ii) authoritative magisterial statements found in the decrees of councils, papal encyclicals, etc., and (iii) theological theories and systems that provide alternative interpretations of the sources of revelation and of magisterial statements.
Now, in the case of science, especially in popularized accounts, the distinction between (1) and (2) on the one hand and (3) on the other is often blurred.  For example, one sometimes hears sensationalistic claims to the effect that quantum mechanics has established the existence of parallel universes, or that it has vindicated the idealist view that physical reality depends on the observer.  In fact, quantum mechanics per se does not establish any such claims.  Rather, it is only certain interpretations of quantum mechanics – or even only certain extrapolations from certain interpretations of quantum mechanics – that make such claims, albeit they are interpretations and extrapolations that are sometimes endorsed by scientists.
Similarly, in Catholic contexts, the distinction between (i) and (ii) on the one hand and (iii) on the other is sometimes blurred.  For example, one sometimes hears claims to the effect that Catholic teaching no longer accepts the idea of limbo, or that it now requires that one affirm the non-confessional state as the ideal political arrangement.  In fact, Catholic magisterial teaching makes no such claims.  It is only certain theological theories that make such claims, albeit they are theories that are often endorsed by churchmen.  
What Pink is getting at, I would suggest, is precisely this point.  What he calls “official theology” is what I am referring to as category (iii) theological claims, or as examples of “prevailing theology” or “dominant theology.”   And he is right to say both that these ideas are not binding on the faithful, and that they often tend at least implicitly to undermine magisterial teaching and to discourage churchmen from proclaiming and defending it.

Violence in word and action

Bernard Wuellner’s always-useful Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy defines violence as “action contrary to the nature of a thing.”  Readers of Aristotle and Aquinas will be familiar with this usage, which is reflected in their distinction between natural and violent motion.  Some of their applications of this distinction presuppose obsolete science.  For example, we now know that physical objects do not have motion toward the center of the earth, specifically, as their natural end.  Hence projectile motion away from the earth is not, after all, violent.  But the distinction itself is not obsolete.  For example, trapping or killing an animal is obviously violent in the relevant sense.  It is acting contrary to the natural ends of the animal. Violence is not per se bad.  When a lion kills a gazelle, it acts violently insofar as it frustrates the natural ends of the gazelle.  But it thereby fulfills rather than frustrates its own natural ends.  It is good for the lion to do this, even if it is bad for the gazelle.  Indeed, to prevent the lion from acting violently toward other things would itself be an act of violence toward the lion, insofar as it would be preventing the lion from doing what its nature prompts it to do.  This violence toward the lion can itself be a good thing – for example, if you’ve got a pet gazelle you want to protect.
Notice that there is nothing special about animals here, even if the violence they inflict and suffer is especially vivid.  Even herbivores act violently when they eat plants.  After all, to eat a plant is to frustrate its natural ends.
You might ask: “But doesn’t natural law theory say that it’s always bad to act contrary to nature?”  No, that’s not what it says.  It says that it’s bad for human beings to act contrary to their ownnature.  But like a lion, a human being can do something good by acting contrary to another thing’s nature, as we do any time we kill a plant or animal in order to eat it and thereby nourish ourselves.  What is good for a thing is determined by its own nature, not “nature” in some larger abstract sense. 
Having said that, since human beings are social animals, what is natural for other human beings is part of what is constitutive of any one human being’s good.  For example, parents realize their own natural ends precisely by helping their children to realize theirs.  The human race is a kind of extended family, and part of what is good for us is to act in a way consistent with everyone else’s realizing what is good for them (though our positive obligations to help others flourish are in general less strong the farther removed they are from us, as I have explained elsewhere).  Hence it is contrary to natural law for us to act toward other human beings the way we might be permitted to act toward plants and non-human animals.
Now, chief among our natural ends are those that follow from our being rational animals, possessing intellect and free will.  Hence, killing or otherwise physically harming other human beings is not the only way of acting violently toward them, in the sense of acting contrary to their nature.  There is also a kind of violence involved when we act contrary to their rational nature, by refusing to engage them at the level of rational discourse or frustrating their lawful free choices.
Hence, as rational, social animals, it is constitutive of what is good for each of us to engage with other human beings in a way that respects their intellects and free wills.  When dealing with other human beings, there is a moral presumption that when we want them to think or to do something, we have to secure this outcome by persuading them rationally rather than resorting to force, threats or other kinds of intimidation, psychological manipulation, or the like.
This presumption can be overridden.  For example, children often do not want to do what their parents tell them to do, even when what the parents are asking of them is perfectly reasonable and good for them.  Such children are acting contrary to reason, and parents have the authority to coerce them or punish them for disobedience by reasonable methods (verbal rebukes, spankings, taking away privileges, or whatever). 
An insane person may also be coerced, precisely because he is incapable of rational action and may be a danger to himself or others.  Those guilty of crimes have also thereby forfeited their rights to certain goods, which might include their property, their liberty, or in some cases even their lives, and they may be coerced accordingly.  Indeed, as Aquinas argues, our inclination to punish evildoers is itself a natural and good human inclination, necessary for our well-being as rational social animals.  (See chapter 1 of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed for a detailed explanation and defense of the natural law account of punishment.) 
So, punishing wrongdoers is not a morally objectionable form of violence – and indeed, in one sense it is arguably not really a form of violence at all, since their nature as rational social animals entails that they can be punished for wrongdoing, so that to punish them is not to act contrary to their nature.  In fact, to prevent lawful authorities from ever inflicting just punishments would itself be a kind of “violence” in the sense we are considering, because it would be contrary to what the natural law requires them to do.
One of the implications of all this is that blanket condemnations of violence are muddleheaded and, indeed, immoral.  Some violence is bad, but not all of it is, and sometimes it can even be morally required. 
(Gandhi is reputed to have defended an ethic of nonviolence by saying that taking an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind.  It seems he may never actually have said it, which is a good thing for him, because it is a pretty stupid thing to say.  The lex talionis principle does not hold that you should inflict on just anyonea harm proportional to the one he has inflicted.  It holds that you should inflict on wrongdoers, specifically, harms proportional to the ones they have inflicted on the innocent.  But lawful authorities who inflict harms on the guilty are not wrongdoers, so a consistent application of the lex talionis principle does not entail that they too should be harmed.  Hence, if the pseudo-Gandhian quote were rephrased in such a way that it was not aimed at a caricature, it would instead say something like “Taking an eye for an eye would make blind everyone who has unjustly taken both of some other person’s eyes.”  Or, since most defenders of lex talionis don’t think that literally gouging out eyes is a good idea all things considered, a better paraphrase would be “Inflicting proportional harms on wrongdoers would leave all wrongdoers proportionally harmed.”  But then the obvious response to this corrected pseudo-Gandhian one-liner is: “Yes, it would.  That’s the point.”)
What has been said also casts light on why torture is morally objectionable.  The problem with torture is not that it involves inflicting pain or something otherwise unpleasant.  A child can deserve a spanking or the loss of some privilege, and a criminal can deserve much worse, and inflicting such punishments is not wrong.  The problem with torture is also not that it involves coercing the will.  When a parent threatens a child with punishment, or a policemen threatens to shoot a bank robber if he does not lay down his weapon, or a victim punches an attacker in order to get him to stop the attack, the will is coerced, but entirely justly.
The problem with torture is that it involves completely subverting the intellect and will altogether, essentially attempting to reduce the rational animal to a non-rational animal.  In that way, it is contrary to the victim’s nature in a way that merely inflicting pain or coercing him is not.  (I would tentatively suggest that it amounts to the perversion of a faculty.  For it is essentially a matter of trying to get someone’s intellect and will to a certain result by means of a method that subverts the proper functioning of the intellect and will.)
Yet another implication of the analysis of violence given above is that to respond to an opponent who attempts to engage with you in a rational way with vituperation, ad hominem attacks, intimidation, and the like is also a morally objectionable kind of violence.  For it involves acting contrary to the person’s rational nature.
Notice that I am not saying that polemical engagement with just any opponent is necessarily wrong.   As I have argued several times over the years (e.g. here, here, and here), it can be legitimate to respond to an opponent with polemical harshness – in particular, when the opponent is himself hell-bent on flinging vituperation and the like.  There is no inconsistency whatsoever in responding with rhetorical harshness to those who are rhetorically harsh, any more than there is in police firing back at bank robbers who fired first.  In both cases, self-defense or the defense of others can justify a harsh response.
What I am talking about is the case where your opponent is not being vituperative, but is trying to present you with rational arguments, and instead of responding in kind, you fling abuse at him, attribute bad motives to him, mock him, and otherwise refuse to treat him as a fellow rational agent.  This is a kind of violence in the sense I have been describing, insofar as what is by nature good for him, for you, and for the community of rational social animals to which you both belong, is for you to engage with one another at the level of reason, and you are acting in a way that is contrary to that.
Now, blog comboxes, Facebook discussion threads, Twitter feeds, and the like are often snake pits of violence in this sense of the word.  In many of them, rational arguments, where they are given voice at all, are met with little more than attributions of bad motives and other ad hominem attacks, mockery, and other forms of sophistry.  The irony is that it is often precisely those who most loudly profess to be rational and/or non-violent who are the most prone to this kind of verbal violence.  For example, the staunchest opponents of capital punishment and other advocates of non-violence often evince an appalling inability to construct rational arguments, to restrain their emotions, or to refrain from heaping abuse on those who disagree with them.  New Atheists and proponents of other forms of self-congratulatory pseudo-rationalism are often guilty of the same.
Further irony can be seen in those prone to accusing others of “micro-aggressions.”  If someone calmly attempts to give a rational argument for some conclusion, even a politically incorrect one, that is precisely the opposite of “aggression” or violence, because it is an appeal to reason.  And if someone attempts to shut down rational debate because of hurt feelings, that is itself a kind of aggression or violence, precisely because it is contrary to reason.
Then there is the irony of those ostensibly committed to peace and human dignity whose favored tactics are publicly to harass those who disagree with them, to prevent them from speaking, to stir up mob violence, and otherwise to disrupt the law and order that are the precondition of calm and rational discourse.
There is no clearer manifestation of respect for the human dignity of a person with whom one disagrees than to reason with him – and no clearer insult to that dignity than to try to shout him down, intimate him, or otherwise treat him as something incapable or unworthy of rational engagement.  Such are the Orwellian times we live in that those who most loudly claim to be against violence are the ones most likely to resort to it.
Related posts:
The voluntarist personality
What is an ad hominem fallacy?
The ad hominem fallacy is a sin
Meta-bigotry
Wrath and its daughters

Capital punishment on The Patrick Coffin Show

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Patrick Coffin on the subject of capital punishment and the recent change to the Catechism.  You can now watch the interview either at The Patrick Coffin Show website or at YouTube. If you’re not a regular viewer of Patrick’s show, you should check out his show archives, where you’ll find many interesting guests interviewed and important topics covered.
Links to my other recent radio and television interviews can be found at my main website.

By Man on radio

Last week on The Catholic Current radio show, I was interviewed by Fr. Robert McTeigueabout By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed and the recent change to the Catechism’s treatment of capital punishment.  The interview lasted an hour and you can listen to the podcast online. Links to other radio and television interviews can be found at my main website.

The voluntarist personality

A voluntarist conception of persons takes the will to be primary and the intellect to be secondary.  That is to say, for voluntarism, at the end of the day what we think reflects what we will.  An intellectualist conception of persons takes the intellect to be primary and the will to be secondary.  For intellectualism, at the end of the day, what we will reflects what we think.  The two views are, naturally, more complicated than that.  For example, no voluntarist would deny that what we think affects what we will, and no intellectualist would deny that what we will affects what we think.  But the basic idea is that for the voluntarist, the will is ultimately in the driver’s seat, whereas for the intellectualist, the intellect is ultimately in the driver’s seat. The intellectualist is right.  That is the view of Aquinas, at any rate, and in an earlier post I argued that voluntarism in a strong version is incompatible with the principle of sufficient reason, and therefore false.  Catholic teaching also affirms intellectualism.  For example, Pope Leo XIII teaches in his encyclical Libertas that:
the will cannot proceed to act until it is enlightened by the knowledge possessed by the intellect.  In other words, the good wished by the will is necessarily good in so far as it is known by the intellect; and this the more, because in all voluntary acts choice is subsequent to a judgment upon the truth of the good presented, declaring to which good preference should be given.  No sensible man can doubt that judgment is an act of reason, not of the will.
Similarly, in Humani Generis , Pope Pius XII condemns “innovators” who depart from this doctrine, and who:
indiscriminately mingling cognition and act of will, [say] that the appetitive and affective faculties have a certain power of understanding, and that man, since he cannot by using his reason decide with certainty what is true and is to be accepted, turns to his will, by which he freely chooses among opposite opinions.
And in his famous Regensburg Address, Pope Benedict XVI criticized a voluntarism which:
might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness.  God’s transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God...  As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy...  God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism.
As Benedict’s remarks indicate, that man is by nature a rational animal is what makes it true that we are made in God’s image.  Voluntarism is, accordingly, a dehumanizing doctrine.  In making of us fundamentally willful animals rather than rational ones, it simply gets human nature wrong.  And it makes us out to be essentially “capricious… not even bound to truth and goodness,” all our reasons at bottom just rationalizations of what the will has fixed itself upon.  It is an essentially Nietzschean conception of human nature, even if some of its adherents think of themselves as the reverse of Nietzschean.
Intellectualist psychology
“Intellectualism” in the sense in question is, of course, not claiming that all human beings are or ought to be intellectually inclined in the sense of having an interest in philosophy, science, art, or other intellectual pursuits.  It merely claims that even the least intelligent human being wills whatever he wills because his mind perceives it to be true or in some way good.  
Again, the intellectualist is also not denying that the will can affect the intellect.  If you really want to believe in some idea, you might reinforce your confidence in it by focusing your attention on evidence that seems to support it and not letting yourself dwell on evidence against it, and these are acts of the will.  You can also avoid dwelling on the fact that you are engaging in such intellectual dishonesty, to the point where you forget that you have done it.  The emotional appeal of an idea and/or the painfulness of the thought of its being false can facilitate the will’s resort to such self-deception, insofar as they can distract the intellect from seeing the truth.  
But it is still always the intellect that lies at the beginning and end of this process.  The will is only drawn to the idea in the first place because the intellectjudges it (however wrongly or confusedly) to be plausible or good, and the end result of the self-deception is that the intellect’s confidence is increased.  That increased intellectual confidence is precisely why the will, too, becomes even more attached.  
The reason why an irrational person will cover his ears or shout over you or walk away when you have unwelcome evidence or arguments to present to him is precisely because once the intellect sees the truth, it’s “game over” for the will.  Though his will is attached to the idea, it will not remain so if his intellect is made to see the evidence against it, and so he tries to avoid seeing it.  If the will were really in charge, it could simply push ahead no matter how clearly the intellect saw the will’s object to be false or bad.  Rationalization is co-called precisely because the intellect needs to see reasonsfor something before the will can lock on to it – even if what that means is that we are sometimes coming up with reasons not to consider reasons.  One of those reasons might even be the intellect’s making the false judgement that “Voluntarism is true anyway!”
As these remarks indicate, even the will of the voluntarist is following what his intellect (wrongly) tells him.  The voluntarist may believe that his intellect is subordinate to his will, but he is wrong.  Someone who is intellectually convinced of voluntarism may even otherwise think and act very much the way what you’d expect someone to think and act if intellectualism is true.  He may be a very rational person, careful always to try to present evidence and arguments for his views, and to consider counterarguments.  He may be in no way engaged in self-deception, but simply making an honest mistake.  By the same token, someone who is intellectually convinced of intellectualism may otherwise think and act very much the way you’d expect someone to think and act if voluntarism were true.  He may be intellectually dishonest or otherwise have poor reasoning skills.  A voluntarist can be a rational person, and an intellectualist can be an irrational person.  
Psychoanalyzing the voluntarist personality
But let’s consider persons who really do approximate what human beings would be like if voluntarism were true.  Some human beings are weak in intellect.  Some are very stubborn or willful.  Some are prone to excessive emotion.  And some (worst of all for them and for those who have to deal with them) are all three.  Any of these character defects can so diminish a person’s rationality that it is as if his intellect were subordinate to his will.  He might be so in love with a certain idea, or so determined to follow a certain course of action he has decided upon, or so incapable of clear and logical reasoning, that the intellect’s contribution to his behavior is reduced to a minimum.  To be sure, it isn’t that his intellect isn’t really still in the driver’s seat.  It’s that his intellect is driving blind.  
Could it get worse?  Yes, if he is so clueless about his condition that he projects it onto others – if he supposes that it isn’t merely that he is like this but that people are like this.  He treats others as essentially wills to be opposed or emotionally swayed, rather than as intellects to be rationally persuaded.  Call this “the voluntarist personality.” (Note that I’m not talking about voluntarist philosophers themselves now, but rather about people whose personalities approximate what you’d expect people to be like if voluntarism were true.)
The voluntarist personality can, given its willfulness, manifest itself in the amoralism of the libertine or the sociopath.  But that is not its typical manifestation.  On the contrary, I would suggest that the usual indicator of a voluntarist personality is the opposite extreme tendency, towards a kind of moralism.  Since the voluntarist personality sees people primarily as wills rather than intellects, his default position is to judge them as having either good or bad wills rather than as being either correct or incorrect in their judgments.  Accordingly, he tends to see those who agree with his opinions as virtuous rather than as merely correct.  And he tends to see those who disagree with him as guilty of a moral failingrather than merely making an honest mistake.  
It’s the sober middle ground between amoralism and moralism that the voluntarist personality has difficulty achieving.  He either disregards morality altogether and just does whatever he wants; or he moralizes everything, making of every cause a crusade and every dispute a witch hunt.
Now, this in turn entails two further tendencies which at first glance seem hard to reconcile but both of which are in fact exactly what one should expect of such a character type.  On the one hand, the voluntarist personality tends toward sentimentalismin matters of morality.  He is likely to speak excessively of love, mercy, and the like, and very little about moral principle and moral virtue.  Moral principle strikes him as too cerebral and too easy for a person to respect even if he has a bad will.  Moral virtue, the habitual tendency toward actions that are in line with moral principle, also strikes him as too bloodless, and something someone might exhibit in a rote way or merely because of upbringing, even if his will is bad.  
Love, by contrast, is by definition the willing of what is good for someone, and so it can seem to the voluntarist personality to be almost the only thing that really matters.  And since he is not too concerned with abstract principle, the way love is expressed is less important to him than the mere expression of it.  Hence the voluntarist personality will tend to be overly impressed by mawkish expressions of humanitarian concern, and to be insufficiently attentive to whether this actually results in policies that work.  The latter sort of concern seems too technical and intellectual – again, the kind of thing someone might be concerned with even if his will is bad – whereas the expression of noble sentiments seems directly to manifest a good will.  The voluntarist personality is also likely to talk excessively of mercy, since he will tend to think that whether a person has a good will is more important than whether his behavior is actually in line with the demands of moral principle.
(Note that I am, of course, not in any way denigrating love, mercy, etc. or denying that someone might outwardly follow the moral law while having bad motives.  I am talking about the voluntarist personality’s tendency to oversimplify and put excessive emphasis on these points.)
On the other hand, the voluntarist personality tends toward harshness to those who disagree with him, rather than the love and mercy you might expect from someone so prone to sentimentality.  This makes perfect sense psychologically, even if it is odd logically.  Again, the voluntarist personality looks at people primarily as wills rather than as minds.  So if you disagree with him, he will tend to see this as evidence that you have a bad will, as a moral failing on your part rather than as an honest disagreement.  The voluntarist personality thus tends to reply to opponents with ad hominemattacks, and to question the motivesbehind an argument rather than to address the merits of the argument itself.  And if what you disagree with, specifically, are what the voluntarist personality regards as his own very refined and noble moral sentiments, he will conclude that you must be very wicked indeed.
Hence, the more moralistic and sentimental the voluntarist personality is, the more likely he is to be hateful and merciless with his enemies.  And he will find it difficult to see the inconsistency given his stubborn and emotional nature and his lack of skill at, or patience with, logical reasoning.
Naturally, the voluntarist personality also tends toward fideism.  In the religious context, of course, this cashes out to a “will to believe” without evidence, and an impatience with or even hostility toward careful philosophical and theological reasoning or doctrinal consistency.  The voluntarist personality who is religious will regard that sort of thing as too bloodless and cerebral.  And since he’s not very good at it anyway but nevertheless means well and has strong faith, he judges that it can’t be that important.  He will tend to see religion as a matter of the heart more than, or even to the exclusion of, the head.  
But someone with a voluntarist personality might also be irreligious, and here his fideism will cash out to a hostility to religion that is so excessive that he finds it difficult to believe that it is even possible for a religious person to have serious arguments to present or to be making an honest mistake.  He has absolute faith that arguments for God’s existence and other religious claims can only ever be rationalizations of prejudice, and insists on attacking the motives of the apologist without bothering to try to understand his position.  The religious fanatic and the New Atheist are accordingly just two peas from the same voluntarist pod.
In politics, the voluntarist personality’s tendencies are predictable given what has already been said.  He will tend to evaluate policy in terms of the motives of those who propose it, and by reference to sentimental and moralistic considerations rather than by way of the dispassionate consideration of arguments and evidence.  He will tend to see political opponents as having bad motivations, and thus he is prone to demonizing them.  
Since he overemphasizes the will, he will also overestimate what the will can accomplish, and will thus tend in all practical matters to be either excessively optimistic or excessively pessimistic.  For example, when most people seem to agree with his political opinions, he will be prone to see this as evidence of a moral advance in society at large, since it will seem to him to indicate that most people have good wills.  Great moral progress will seem to be in the offing.  On the other hand, when most people disagree with his political opinions, he will be prone to see this as evidence of frightful moral decline, since it will seem to him to indicate that most people have bad wills.  Apocalypse will seem to be around the corner.  What is difficult for him to see is that sometimes people simply happen to disagree about whether certain policies are workable or wise, and (unlike the voluntarist personality) aren’t necessarily thinking in moralistic terms.  
I leave as homework the question of whether this analysis might illuminate what is going on these days in the Catholic Church and in American politics.  
Related posts:
Razor boy
Voluntarism and PSR
Cooperation with sins against prudence (and chastity)

Caught in the web

Many of you will have heard the awful news already.  Longtime blogger Zippy Catholic has died.
David Oderberg’s new book Opting Out: Conscience and Cooperation in a Pluralistic Society has just been published by the Institute of Economic Affairs.
At the Daily Intelligencer , the liberal Andrew Sullivan on the dangerously illiberal tendencies currently unfolding within the Democratic Party. 
At Five Books, Peter Hacker on the best books on Wittgenstein . The Writing Cooperative on how Isaac Asimov wrote so much.  At The American Conservative, Bradley Birzer on Ray Bradbury’s politics.  Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle returns for a third season.
Brian Besong’s Manual Recovery Projectaims to bring important Neo-Scholastic manuals of philosophy and theology back into print.  Ford and Kelly’s superb two-volume Contemporary Moral Theology is among the works now at last available again.
At Public Discourse, Thomas Pink argues in defense of Catholic integralism.
At Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Matthew Kostelecky reviews Michael Gorman’s book on Aquinas and the hypostatic union.
The Claremont Review of Books on René Girard.
Prof. John McAdams and academic freedom have prevailed in the courts over Marquette University.  National Review reports .
At Commentary, Gary Saul Morson on atheism and Bolshevik totalitarianism .
Seven things you might not know about F. A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, at FEE.
He replaced one-sided propaganda with… one-sided propaganda.  Slateon Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.
Philosophy and physics are in focus at the website A Pythagorean Universe.
Was John Rawls a socialist?  Jacobin investigates .
Barney Hoskyns’ new book Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion is reviewed at The Washington Post.  Guitarist Jay Graydon on his famous solo on “Peg.”
The Times Literary Supplement on J. L. Austin, philosopher of common sense.
Scientific American on the difficult birth of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Also at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, Jennifer Frey reviews James Doyle’s new book on Elizabeth Anscombe.
If you’re into ontological investigations, you’ll like the blog Ontological Investigations .
Ars Technica , NPR, and The Daily Beast on the death of Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko.  Comics writer Chris Ryall reports on some words of wisdom from Ditko: “Anti-clarity… [is] anti-mind.”
The New Atlantis on Errol Morris on Thomas Kuhn.
Where else would we get blog post titles?  In defense of puns, at Quartz.
A rare 1990 audio interview with Robert Nozick has been posted at YouTube .
At Time, Heather Mac Donald on how colleges create delusional, thuggish ideologues.
In the National Catholic Register, E. Christian Brugger on the limits of papal authority.  In First Things, Russell Hittinger on the Spirit of Vatican I.  Jonathan Last reports on the sorry state of the Catholic Church , at The Weekly Standard.
If you’ve only seen the Ant Man movies, you don’t know the whole story.  Polygon on the shocking truth about Marvel’s Hank Pym .
Jim Holt on the feud between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr., at Lapham’s Quarterly.
The Weekly Standard on John Coltrane and the end of jazz .
Carl Trueman on Aquinas among the Protestants , at Public Discourse.
Loome Theological Booksellers, possibly the oldest theological bookstore in the world, needs your help.

Five Proofs on Fox News Radio (Updated)

Some time back I was interviewed by Lauren Green about my book Five Proofs of the Existence of God for her Fox News Radio show Lighthouse Faith.  You can now listen to the podcast online. [UPDATE: If you are having trouble with that link, some other options can be found here and here.]Links to other radio and television interviews and the like can be found at my main website.