Saturday, March 2, 2024

We live this way

Philosophical Bits #2:

Skepticism

 

            But how do I know “this is real”?  Epistemology tries to answer the question: How do I know?  Related questions: What is knowledge?  What distinguishes knowledge from mere belief, even true belief?

            Everyone agrees we would rather have true beliefs than false beliefs.  But a true belief is not the same thing as knowledge.  In the Meno, Socrates points out that some people may adopt a belief, a belief which turns out to be true, without good evidence or by bad reasoning.  They might believe something merely because their hated enemy doesn’t believe it or because no one has proved it false.  They might fall into a belief by accident.  Mere true belief is not enough, says Socrates.  We know when the truth of our belief is tied to the belief by the “bonds” of good reasons.

            This traditional answer, that knowledge is justified true belief, received scrutiny in the 20th century.  In 1963 Edmund Gettier published a short article, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” in which he gives examples of persons who believe a proposition for good reasons (so the belief is justified), and the proposition is in fact true, but do not seem to be cases of knowledge.  Other philosophers quickly created more examples.  Here’s one: While driving in the Willamette Valley, Debbie sees what looks to be a sheep and forms the belief, “There is a sheep in that field.”  In fact, the animal she sees is a dog wearing a sheep outfit made by a middle-school student as part of a prank.  However, unknown to Debbie, there is another animal, a real sheep, standing in a portion of the field but hidden from her sight by a large sign.  Debbie’s belief is true (there really is a sheep in the field), and her belief is justified (she sees an animal that looks like a sheep), but it seems that her justified belief is true only by accident.  It seems her justified true belief isn’t knowledge.

            Philosophers have tried to repair their understanding of knowledge in a variety of ways.  I won’t discuss the details.  In general, the answer to Gettier problems is that justification must hook up to the true belief in the right way.  But the devil is in the details.  What is the right way?  Disagreement persists on that score.

            Skeptics watch from the epistemological sidelines, as it were.  The players in the epistemology game strive to define knowledge, with the goal of better guiding our pursuit of knowledge.  The game is pointless, say the skeptics.  Knowledge is a chimera.  Epistemology might produce some guidance about the way we adopt or reject beliefs, but we should abandon the hope of attaining knowledge.  Regarding any particular belief, the skeptics say, we must face the truth: we might be wrong.

            What about science?  Four centuries of modern science have dramatically changed our beliefs.  Technology, based on scientific discoveries, has dramatically changed our practical world in thousands of ways: electricity, telephones, antibiotics, plastics, radio, Internet, blood transfusions, cars, telescopes, airplanes, microscopes, genetic tests, photographs, videos, recorded music, man-made fibers, and so on.  Surely science gives us knowledge, and the knowledge given by science has made technology possible.

            The skeptics say no.  Science gives us new beliefs.  Technology based on those beliefs has changed our practices.  But are we guaranteed those beliefs are true?  Do we have knowledge?  No.  We might be wrong.

            20th century skeptics were certainly aware of modern science.  The scientific method combines empirical observations with theories.  We propose the theories to make sense of the observations, and we use further observations to test the theories.  Therefore, some philosophers said (these philosophers identified themselves as “positivists”), empirical observations must lie at the heart of science.  Scientific and philosophical theories are meaningless, the positivists said, unless they can be verified empirically.  A.J. Ayer’s 1936 book, Language, Truth, and Logic is an enthusiastic presentation of positivism by one of its exponents.  According to Ayer’s “verification principle,” all meaningful statements are either tautologous or verifiable (at least in principle).

            Now, the verification principle is self-referentially incoherent.  It is itself neither tautologous nor verifiable.  In the second half of the 20th century, philosophers rejected it.  Along the way, though, positivism taught an important lesson.

            Positivism inspired a conceptual search for pure empiricism, empirical observations untainted by theory.  What would an “observation statement” look like?  Obviously, if you use a scientific instrument like a telescope, all your observations must be qualified; you didn’t simply look at the stars, you looked at them with this instrument, with a specific description, and that description implicitly drags in a host of assumptions about light, mirrors, the construction of the telescope, and many other things.  And in everyday scientific practice, that’s fine.  But if scientific theories are to be tested by observations, at bottom we need some observations that are theory-free.  What would “pure” observation be like?

            For a decade or two, in the middle of the century, positivist philosophers of science tried to conceptualize theory-free observations.  By the time positivism collapsed (because of its self-referential incoherence), philosophers of science had adopted a truism: there are no theory-free observations.  All our empirical observations are loaded with assumptions.

            Does this mean we don’t have knowledge?  Are the skeptics right?

            For example, can we know that everyday empirical experiences yield truth?  Is the grass really green?  (Fido doesn’t see color.  Is color real?)  Is there a tree over there?  Should I modestly say only that it seems to me that there is a tree over there?  Some skeptics would say I know only that it looks like a tree to me; the world outside my mind may be different than what I perceive.

Can we know that other people have minds?  I might know that I have a mind, by direct experience.  But can I know that other people have minds, that they are not cleverly designed robots?  The skeptics would say we can’t know these things.  After all, maybe the world was created five minutes ago by an evil demon who made the world just to deceive me.  For all I know, the whole world is just a figment of my imagination, and everything other than my mind is nothing more than an item in my mental universe.  Against the skeptics, G.E. Moore published a paper in 1939, “Proof of an External World.”  In a public reading of the paper, Moore held up his hand.  “I know this is a hand,” he said.  “And here is another.”  Since Moore and his audience both know these two things, there must be a world external to their minds.

            It is said, perhaps apocryphally, that Ludwig Wittgenstein told Moore this paper was the best thing Moore had written.  Wittgenstein certainly wrestled with the problem.  A collection of his notes, written in the last months of his life and called On Certainty, begins: “If you really do know ‘Here is one hand,’ we’ll grant you all the rest.”

            On Certainty is not a polished book, but a collection of notes, published after Wittgenstein’s death in 1951 by his literary executors.  Philosophers have struggled with it ever since.  My own notes on On Certainty are almost as long as On Certainty.

            Wittgenstein thought something had gone wrong on both sides.  The skeptics want to say we don’t know everyday facts that we observe or remember.  Moore wanted to insist that he did know he had two hands, and his audience knew this as well.  Wittgenstein thought both sides had lost touch with the “language game” of knowing.

            The meaning of language is in its use, Wittgenstein wrote in Philosophical Investigations.  How do ordinary people talk about knowledge when they are not wrestling with skepticism?  When would we, in real life, say, “This is a hand”?  The language game of knowing includes things like doubting and being sure.

            Example.  Bob asks, “Did you go to the club Thursday?”  Sally replies, “Sure.  I always go.”  Bob: “But they moved the meeting last week.”  Sally: “Oh! That’s right.  I forgot.  I went to the meeting Wednesday.  But I also went to the club Thursday.  I know I did because I had to return a book.”

            This is an unremarkable use of “know,” completely at home in ordinary language.  Both the skeptic and the commonsense realist (Moore) are tempted to take knowing away from such examples.  I think Wittgenstein praised Moore’s essay because “Proof of an External World” shows how the skeptics had gone too far.  But he worried that Moore’s refutation—“I know this is a hand”—was also language gone on holiday.

            Perhaps the best answer to skepticism is that we live this way.  We live in a world where water boils at 100 degrees Celsius and freezes at 0 (an example in Wittgenstein’s notebook).  We are confident that the world of my morning walks is real, but the world of my novel is not.  We cannot “refute” the extreme skeptic, but we live this way.  And the skeptic is one of us.

           

           

Sunday, February 4, 2024

This is real

 

Philosophical Bits 1:

Metaphysics

 

            This is real.  I am not merely an actor in a story.  That is, I am not a character in a fiction.  My life may have narrative form, but it is a true story, not made up. 

            I am walking outdoors in Oregon in winter.  The world I see around me—a sidewalk, houses, trees, lampposts, streetlights, cars and trucks, white clouds and dark gray clouds, the broken shafts of morning sunlight—all this is real.

            In contrast there is fiction.  I wrote a sci-fi novel, Castles.  It’s a long thing, to be published in three volumes, with scores of characters, and most of the action takes place on an imagined planet on the other side of the galaxy.  However entertaining or instructive the story, the events in it didn’t really happen; it isn’t true.  (I leave aside for the moment the idea of symbolic truth.)  The people and places in my story aren’t real.     

Consider Alice’s experiences in Through the Looking Glass.  Tweedledum and Tweedledee tell her she is only a character in the Red King’s dream. “If that there king would wake up, poof!  You’d be gone.”  Alice, of course, rebels against the idea that she isn’t real, and at the end of the story she wakes up.  The Red Queen, whom Alice was angrily shaking, turned out to be a cat.  But readers of the story are provoked to wonder: Alice really is a figure in a fairy tale, despite her insistence that she is real; how do we know we aren’t also fictional characters?  Lewis Carroll, the author, was a mathematician.  It is no surprise that the layers-inside-layers of the world inside the looking glass provoke us to think.

So how do I know “this,” the world of my morning walk, is real?  Do I slap my foot (or both feet or my hand) against the sidewalk?  What would that prove?  Can I “shake” something or someone (like Alice shaking the Red Queen) and wake myself from a dream?  I’ve had lots of dreams, and I have experienced waking from dreams.  I am extremely confident that I am not dreaming.  It seems I can tell the difference between dream and reality.  Can I?  The Matrix—another storyenvisions a dystopian future in which most people are systematically deceived about reality.  I am confident that I do not live in a supercomputer-generated illusion.  Is my confidence misplaced?

            In an Intro to Philosophy course, I introduce students to philosophical jargon.  Every discipline has its own jargon, I reassure the students.  Philosophy’s words are no more intimidating than the technical terms of other fields.  Just think of the strange words you learn in biochemistry or neuropsychology.  You’ll get used to it.  You’ll even begin to use these words yourself. 

Here are two words to begin: metaphysics and epistemology.  In metaphysics we ask: What is real?  In epistemology: How do we know?

Some philosophy students quickly decide, when they learn there are competing theories in both metaphysics and epistemology, that philosophy is entirely a matter of opinion.  Nothing is true or false, right or wrong.  We don’t know what is real or how to know.  I must assure them there is a difference between good philosophy and bad philosophy—and they will begin to recognize the difference when I mark their papers.

Some philosophers, sceptics, would say I should not assert the reality of the world of my walk, but their assertions—made with great confidence at various times in the 20th century—have been rightly undermined.

 

I do not live in the made-up worlds of Through the Looking Glass, The Matrix, or Castles.  I live in the real world, and I am grateful for my existence.

           

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Bible Reading in 2024

 

Heroes of Old

 

            For many years—since the early 1990s, at least—I have maintained a regular program of Bible reading.  In odd numbered years, I read some portion of the New Testament, one or two chapters per day (Luke-Acts in 2023); as a result, I read the selected book(s) twelve times in the year.  In even numbered years, I read the whole Bible, four or five chapters a day, starting with Genesis right through to Revelation.  Thus, I’ve read through the Bible at least fifteen times.

            I was taught as a child, and I believe as an adult, that God speaks through scripture.  For thirty years I taught full-time at George Fox University, an orthodox/evangelical Christian university that is committed to the authority of the Bible.  I read the Bible, I study the Bible, and I seek to be changed by the Bible.  To speak more precisely, I hope to be changed not just by this collection of ancient books we call the Bible but by the God revealed in the Bible.

            And now it is 2024, time to begin with Genesis again.  It’s January 2, so I read Genesis chapters 6-10.  The text says in verse 2: “. . . the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.”  Verse 4: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them.  They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”

            Such a text creates a problem for Bible readers.  How should we understand it? 

            At George Fox, I have said many times to students, we are committed to the authority of scripture.  That is, we believe what the Bible teaches.  But what the Bible teaches is not necessarily what the Bible says.  It’s relatively easy to quote some passage of the Bible that is false, if we take the words away from their context.  For instance, Psalm 93:1 reads, “The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.” (The great reformer, Martin Luther, thought this verse proved that the theory that the earth orbited the sun had to be wrong.)  Careful Bible readers know that every passage must be understood in context and according to genre.  Few of us are tempted to take the psalmist’s poetry as an astronomy lesson.  After all, the earlier lines of the same verse say, “The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty and is armed with strength.”  The psalm teaches about God’s omnipotence and eternal authority, but to do so it says something false about the motion of the earth.

            Back to Genesis 6, the “sons of God” and the “heroes of old.”  I think it is a mistake to read this literally.  The genre here is not poetry, but myth. 

            (The very word, “myth,” creates doubt and consternation for many people.  In academia, a myth is any meta-story that organizes the thinking of a significant group of people.  Thus, we speak of the “myth of inevitable secularization,” “the myth of American exceptionalism,” “the myth of dialectical materialism,” and so on, including myths of various pagan gods.  “Myth” often implies falsity, but it always means that it is a meta-story that shapes worldviews.)

            Ancient Israelites were familiar with stories of the great men of the distant past.  Egyptians, Babylonians, Sumerians, Greeks—all the powerful cultures of the ancient world had myths of the men of old.  In the deep past, these stories said, men were bigger (some were giants), they lived longer (thousands of years, in Babylonian myths), and they struck bargains with the gods.  Some men and women were offspring of the gods.  These are the greats of pre-history, the “heroes of old.”

            How should an Israelite think about such stories?  What does our myth say?  The text nods briefly to such stories, as if acknowledging them.  But the acknowledgment is vague.  Who are these “sons of God” who father children by the “daughters of men”?  The text doesn’t say, and there is no good answer.  If the “sons of God” are lesser gods, this text contradicts the emphatic Old Testament teaching that there is only one God.  If the “sons of God” are angels, this text contradicts the teaching of Jesus that the angels don’t marry—and it would make this text singular among all Bible references to angels.  If the “sons of God” are ordinary men, the myth is deflated; it doesn’t explain the “heroes of old” at all.

            The key to this myth, I think, is in the verse I haven’t quoted, in between verse 2 and verse 4.  “Then the LORD said, ‘My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is corrupt; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.’”

            The God of Israel is in control.  The ancient Israelite could nod to his neighbor: “Yes, you have stories of great men of the past, the demi-gods and heroes.  But my God—the only real God—put a limit to all that.  Find me someone who lives more than 120 years.  We are mortal beings, corrupted beings, who live before the face of God.”

            It seems to me that our text treats the myths of the nations as an opportunity to assert the power and divine authority of Yahweh.  Speculation about the “heroes of old” can produce lots of fun; the Percy Jackson stories are bringing pagan legends to a whole new generation.  But the Bible speaks to people in this world, a world of sin and death, a world that needs redemption/salvation.  Redemption came, not through the heroes of old, but through the Word made flesh.

             

           

Monday, December 11, 2023

Leisure, Capital, and AI

 

Hot Tub Thinking

 

            Here are a few disjointed thoughts.

December 2023.  The Israel/Hamas war has been raging for more than two months.  The Russia/Ukraine war is now almost twenty months old and shows no movement toward peace.  Meanwhile, I take time out to sit in my hot tub.

            Here I am, a retired teacher, living in middle-class American luxury: a 2500 square foot house (plus detached garage) on a half-acre in Dundee, Oregon.  The house is warm and dry.  We have internet, television, gas heat, solar panels, air-conditioning in summer, and lots of devices to help us prepare food, wash clothes, and amuse ourselves.  Sarah has a car, I have a pickup, and our granddaughter drives another car (insured by me). 

            Why am I so favored?

            Capital and leisure, that’s why.  I’ve written about this before.  Human beings sometimes produce more basic goods—food, clothing, shelter, security—than they need.  Civilizations arise when people use this “excess” wealth to free some of us from the production of basic good.  When excess wealth is “saved,” it allows the favored few to invent and produce other goods, including art (of many sorts), religion, philosophy, and science.  Saved wealth can become “capital,” when it is used to increase the productivity of workers.  Over many centuries, capital has so greatly increased human productivity that Earth now supports a population over eight billion, of which perhaps only one billion live in “absolute poverty,” one bad harvest or one bad fishing season from starvation.  Absolute poverty was the condition of most human beings over most history and pre-history.  But in many countries in the 21st century, a large proportion of the world’s population live in some degree of prosperity.  Billions of people in China, Japan, Europe, and North America reasonably expect to live in clean houses or apartments and enjoy many of the machines—cars, washers, televisions, computers, etc.—that I enjoy.

            I can own a hot tub because of capital and leisure.  But I could not enjoy it if I did not also have security.  I hear sirens as I sit in the hot water.  Something is wrong somewhere: a crime scene, an emergency, injuries, perhaps worse.  Someone, or some number of people are suffering.  Who knows?  Perhaps it’s more than just one household; maybe a score of people are hurting tonight in our town.

            A score, perhaps.  In a town of a couple thousand.  As I sit in my hot tub, I realize I take local security for granted.  In Gaza and Ukraine, the situation is vastly different.  We see how desperate we are when security disappears.  War robs people of security.  Houses are bombed, children are killed, food supplies are stolen, medical systems are broken, and on and on.

            We need peace, and we pray for political leaders—not just the ones of which we approve, but all of them.  We pray they change their minds.  We pray for political change when leaders refuse to change.  (In the 1980s, I prayed for peaceful change in the Soviet Union.  It’s okay to pray for miracles.)

            Most people think the key to security is power, coercive and if necessary violent power.  Over the centuries, capital has increased our power, giving us deadlier weapons.  In recent centuries, and especially in this new 21st century, the application of capital to weaponization has increased tremendously.  We invent new and more powerful weapons.  And now we are turning to artificial intelligence to coordinate our weapons, to give us security.

            In 2023 ChatGPT was released.  Lots of people are talking about artificial intelligence.  Governments are just beginning to talk about laws to govern AI. 

            Science fiction stories warn us that AI could turn on us.  Defense systems could malfunction.  In the older stories, computers gain control of missiles and rain thermonuclear destruction on us.  In newer stories, cyber-attacks take control of information systems; rather than killing us, the machines control what we think.

            AI is made possible by capital, just like my hot tub and other conveniences.  On one hand, AI promises to improve security (while also increasing the supply of basic goods).  On the other hand, AI takes control in order to deliver its promises.

            I don’t check my word processing program, to see how it transforms my keystrokes into essays.  I just use it.  The engineer at the hydropower plant can’t inspect his much-more-complex program; he just uses it.  Smart people used lots of leisure to build the programs, and I assume they built in checks so people could monitor them.  I hope so!  But when we use the programs, we just use them.  Can we design AI to win our security without giving up control?  Do we just have to trust the program?

           

Friday, November 3, 2023

Israel and Hamas, Again

 

Terrorism and Just War Theory

 

            As the whole world knows, Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.  The attackers achieved tactical surprise, killing approximately 1400 Israelis, mostly civilians, including children, babies, and old people.  Hamas also captured more than 200 hostages and made them prisoners, presumably in underground Gaza locations.

            Hamas is officially committed to the eradication of Israel.  The so-called “rules of war” are meaningless to Hamas, except as those rules might be manipulated to gain tactical advantage.  For example, Hamas leaders know that the Geneva Conventions forbid the direct targeting of civilian populations.  They know that the government of Israel, as a member of the United Nations, is committed to following the rules of war.  Therefore, Hamas has located many of its military installations near or under hospitals or mosques; they hope Israel will hesitate to attack such places because those attacks will cause civilian casualties.

            To be clear: Hamas directly attacked non-combatants and, according to video evidence, tortured, raped, and murdered people who could not resist.  Hamas is a terrorist organization, officially dedicated to genocide.

            How should Israel respond?  Specifically, what does just war theory have to say?

            Just war theory divides the question of justice in war into two parts.  First, jus ad bellum lays down rules for deciding to go to war: just cause, right intent, proper authority, and reasonable expectation of success.  Second, jus in bello gives rules for just warfighting: no torture or killing of captives, distinguishing combatants from non-combatants, and proportionality (harms to non-combatants must not be disproportionate to military gains).

            Israel’s prime minister has claimed that Hamas’ terrorist attack gives Israel a just cause; therefore, Israel’s war with Hamas is just.  Such reasoning is too simplistic.  It seems to me Israel certainly has a just cause, its government is a proper authority, and Israel’s great military capacity gives it reasonable expectation of victory.  If Israel also has a right intent, Israel’s war against Hamas would comply with the rules governing the decision to go to war (jus ad bellum).

            What is Israel’s goal in the war against Hamas?  The prime minister made this clear: the elimination of Hamas as a terrorist and governing organization.

            I should note here that Hamas has governed Gaza—more than two million people—since 2006.  Since Hamas came to power in Gaza, they have not allowed elections.  Like many governments in history and today, the legitimacy of Hamas as a government is open to question.  Nevertheless, Hamas is both a government and a terrorist organization, a fact which complicates Israel’s war aims.

            Eliminating a terrorist organization seems to be a right intent.  Eliminating the government of a neighboring state is much more questionable.  Significantly, Israel’s prime minister has said little about what government should replace Hamas in Gaza.  The prime minister has said that Israel does not intend to govern Gaza directly.  But for Israel to succeed in its stated aim—eliminating Hamas as a governing organization—Israel will have to conquer Gaza.  Its military forces will have to occupy Gaza (or large parts of it) for some period of time, however brief.  As regards right intent, Israel’s leaders need to face into the question of government for Gaza.  It cannot be a right intent to invade a neighboring country only to leave it in the kind of chaos and lawlessness we see in Haiti.

            What about jus in bello?  I have read no reports of Israel torturing or killing captives, so I will assume Israel’s war will pass that test.  Discrimination?  Israel’s government says its war is aimed at Hamas, not the people of Gaza, so it clearly recognizes the problem.  The civilians of Gaza do not deserve to be killed or displaced merely because they have the misfortune of being governed by a terrorist organization.

            The modern proportionality rule descends from a more straight-forward medieval rule in just war theory: no attacks on non-combatants.  After all, the fundamental idea of just war theory is to oppose and stop evildoers, not commit more unjust acts; attacks directed at non-combatants are inherently unjust.  But the practice of war, even in medieval times, forced just war theorists to modify the rule.  Killing non-combatants—that is, planning and carrying out military attacks that will kill innocent people—may be justifiable if such killing is necessary to accomplish a legitimate miliary objective.  We’re not talking about “accidental” deaths here; according to the proportionality rule, deliberate attacks that kill innocents are “just” if those attacks are aimed at legitimate targets.  Proportionality only says that such non-combatant deaths must not be “disproportionate” to military gains.

            Israel’s war against Hamas is now in its 28th day.  The prime minister has repeatedly warned his people (and the world) that the war will be long and hard.  Instead of an immediate and massive counterattack, Israeli missiles and bombs hit targets in Gaza for three weeks.  In recent days Israeli ground forces have begun incursions into Gaza.

            Gazan officials report that more than 9000 people have died in Gaza.  Such numbers cannot be verified.  Hamas controls information from Gaza, and it is in their interest to paint Israel’s war as evil.  Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that civilian deaths in Gaza number in the thousands, a factor of four or five times the death toll of Hamas’ attack on October 7.

            How many Hamas fighters are in Gaza?  No one knows.  How many must Israel kill in order to achieve its goal: the elimination of Hamas as an organization?  No one knows, though we may assume that Israel’s military officials have established benchmarks they will use to evaluate their war.  These benchmarks probably include Hamas’s ability to fire missiles at Israel, estimates of how many fighters Hamas has, names of important Hamas leaders, and other things.  In each case, Israel will aim to reduce Hamas’s capabilities and manpower to a negligible level.

            According to the prime minister, Israel’s war is in its early stages.  By all accounts, Hamas has hidden its forces underground in Gazan cities.  To eliminate Hamas as a terrorist and governing organization, Israel must be prepared to fight in cities: building to building, tunnel by tunnel, block by block.

            Israel has tried to reduce civilian casualties by urging Gazans to flee to the south.  Tens of thousands have done so, but many more remain in northern Gaza.  To be sure, southern Gaza is not safe; Israeli airstrikes hit targets there.  Further, we may assume that if the war is long, and if most Gazans move south, Hamas will move some of their forces south to benefit from human shields.  In that case, Israel will face the “military necessity” of bombing areas of Gaza to which Israel urged civilians to flee.

            The government of Israel needs to face hard realities.  To achieve its stated goals, Israel will have to kill many more non-combatants than have already died.  I am no expert, but it’s possible that 100,000 or more civilians would die before Israel can eliminate Hamas as a functioning organization.  How can such slaughter of innocents pass the proportionality test?

            Conceptually, the proportionality test is deeply flawed.  The prime minister of Israel may well say (after the fact) that the elimination of Hamas as a terrorist and governing organization was so important that the death of any number of civilians was justified.  At the same time, Israel will dispute casualty figures offered by various antisemitic voices claim; the actual death toll, Israel will say, is less than whatever number its enemies announce.  Such debates only matter if there is some hard content to “proportionality.”  How many innocents must die to render Israel’s war “disproportionate”?  Suppose, as imaginative test, half the population of Gaza (1.1 million people) died before Hamas was eliminated; would that be “disproportionate”?

            I predict that Israel’s leaders will claim, after the fact, that their war against Hamas obeyed the rule of proportionality.  They will make this claim no matter how many innocent Gazans die.  At the same time, critics of Israel will claim Israel’s war violated the proportionality test—again, no matter how many civilians die.

            I urge this conclusion: the “proportionality” rule is conceptually flawed.  It places no real limit on the violence of war.

            My own view is that just war theory is a 1600-year-old mistake.  Followers of Jesus should reject it.  Of course, that will mean nothing to the leaders of Israel, who make no pretense of following Jesus.  Sadly, the vast majority of Christians today (and in the past) give only lip-service to their Lord, who commanded us to love our neighbors, including our enemies.

            Some philosophers, pointing to weaknesses like the conceptual impotence of the proportionality rule, openly reject just war theory.  Some “realists” say that states fight for their own purposes and define success on their own terms.  Moral norms do not apply.  The so-called “laws of war” are really just the (self)justifications of nations that win, after the fact.  Other “realists” might agree with all that, but then plead that humanity needs some way to apply morality to war, lest we kill everyone. 

           

Monday, October 9, 2023

Hamas v. Israel

 

How Long, O Lord?

 

            In forty days of auto touring, Sarah and I saw parts of fifteen states: Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and Utah.  I anticipated writing some reflection about sights or people observed along the way, but the day we arrived home we heard the news: Hamas struck Israel, and Israel has declared war.

            Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have suffered injustice meted out by Israel for generations—since 1967 at least.

            Jews have suffered injustice meted out by so-called Christians for centuries.  Israel as a state exists largely because of a 150+ year-long mission (Zionism) to create a safe place for Jews.

            Israelis and Palestinians must learn to live together in peace.  Some think this calls for a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine with particular bits of ground and separate governments.  Some think there should be one state with genuine freedom of religion.  Almost everyone says they believe in democratic governance, but practice has fallen low.  Israel has real elections, but their coalition government gives outsize influence to extremist parties.  The government in the West Bank is worse, with much corruption.  The rulers of Gaza, Hamas, are worse yet.

            The United States officially lists Hamas as a terrorist organization.  The attack on Israel gives overwhelming evidence this judgment is true.  Hamas achieved military surprise, hitting Israel with so many rockets and missiles that the famous Israeli air defense system, the “Iron Dome,” failed to stop some of them.  Hamas sent raiders into various parts of Israel, where they pulled civilians out of their homes to kill them.  Other non-combatants were kidnapped and taken as hostages to hideouts in Gaza.  Today Hamas leaders said they would execute hostages if Israel attacks civilian areas in Gaza.  Such actions are quintessential terrorism: creating and using fear to manipulate an enemy.

            Despite Hamas’ early “successes,” Israel remains militarily far stronger.  Israel has declared siege against Gaza: no food, no water, no electricity.  Israel has already pummeled suspected Hamas locations in Gaza with airstrikes, and they are preparing troops to invade.  Israel’s Prime Minister has said the war may be protracted but Hamas will be destroyed.  Hamas is backed by Iran, but Iran is not militarily able to intervene.  If Israel’s government chooses to do so, they can probably eliminate Hamas in Gaza—if they are willing to kill enough people.  How many?  100,000?  Most of the dead will be civilians.  If such horrible slaughter deters Netanyahu’s government from the stated goal of destroying Hamas, there will be hardliners in Israel (and supporters in the U.S.) who will criticize him for weakness.

            I have read analysts in the papers who suggest Hamas’ real goal is to prevent long-term peacemaking between Israel and Saudi Arabia.  Leaders of Hamas may count their war against Israel a success even if Israel kills all the leaders of the group.

            Both sides have suffered great injustice.  Both sides claim their cause is just.  Neither, of course, is interested in “just war theory” as developed mostly by Christian theologians.  But the war aims and justifications given for evil policies are familiar to anyone who studies the history of “just wars.”

            Many leaders and public voices on both sides will claim God’s approval for their actions.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael supposedly approves of killing the children of the enemy.

            Jesus taught us to pray for God’s kingdom to come.  How long, O Lord?

Thursday, August 3, 2023

Election Odds

 

Presidential Politics, Fifteen Months Out

 

I’ve been thinking about the 2024 race for president.  This probably indicates I spend too much time reading the news, much of which is depressing. 

*Joe Biden is 80.  He’ll turn 81 in November.  As the sitting president, he’s the presumptive Democratic nominee.

*Donald Trump is 77, with a birthday in June.  Polls show the former president far ahead of his Republican rivals.  Fifteen months ahead of the election, the most likely scenario points to a choice between Biden and Trump.

*Biden’s health is a worry.  The greatest threat to his renomination lies in the possibility he suffers a stroke or some other debilitating condition in the next twelve months.  The odds are even higher that he could die or suffer debilitation while in office, should he win a second term.  Trump’s health concerns are smaller, but not nearly zero.

*Trump has been indicted in three different jurisdictions: in New York for making and lying about hush money payments to a porn star; in Florida for keeping classified documents (including highly classified military and diplomatic documents) and then hiding them when the authorities asked for them; and in Washington, D.C. for trying to subvert an election he had lost.  The documents case is strongest, not relying on controversial legal theories (the New York indictment) or proving a conspiracy to subvert the election if Trump believed he had won.  (Trump will argue that he believed he had won and his efforts to overturn the election were heroic attempts to overcome fraud.)

*Trump’s supporters gleefully (and hypocritically) point to Hunter Biden’s legal woes.  The president’s son has committed various crimes; we can say this definitively because Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to lesser crimes to avoid felony trial, a plea deal that collapsed in court.  Hunter Biden will almost certainly be convicted in court, unless a new plea bargain can be reached.  All the while, Trump’s supporters allege that prosecutors are taking a soft line with the younger Biden because of his father’s influence.  President Biden repeatedly has said that he has not influenced the Department of Justice treatment of Hunter Biden.  For all I know, this is true, but the appearance of evil is a damaging thing in politics.

*If elected, Trump will be tempted to pardon himself.  No matter how fraught the legal controversy this would create, Trump is enough of an egotist to do it.  Creating the greatest Constitutional crisis since the Civil War would not deter him.  He would bask in the adulation of his fans and relish the vitriol of Constitutional scholars.

*Biden seems committed to retaining Kamala Harris as his vice president.  He needn’t; other presidents have switched VPs mid-stream.  Roosevelt chose Harry Truman for VP in 1944.  Kamala Harris has done little while VP to suggest she could rise to the occasion if Biden suffers a major stroke during the election campaign or dies in his second term.  Of course, the same could be said of most vice presidents.

*Harris seems to be a doctrinaire “progressive” Democrat.  It’s possible that she would, as president, pursue a moderate or bi-partisan approach to governing.  I wouldn’t count on it, but it might be the best hope we’ve got.

*Mike Pence is running against Trump, so there is no chance Trump will choose him again as running mate.  Recently, Trump has been quoted as saying Pence was “too honest” during the crucial weeks leading up to January 6, 2021.  This time Trump will choose his VP more carefully, demanding a level of loyalty approaching toadyism.  The choice may appall Democrats and Independents, but it will be celebrated by Trump’s base.

*Recent widely publicized polls show Biden and Trump both at 43% of likely voters.  I don’t think that will hold.  There is still a small percentage of genuinely undecided voters, maybe 10% of likely voters.  For many such voters, Trump’s conviction on some of the charges against him—and the evidence underlying that conviction—will decide the issue.

 

My summary: (1) There is a significant chance (35-40%) that Trump will be elected in 2024.  (That is odd of Trump winning, not his percentage of the vote.  Trump will win more 40% of the popular vote.  He could win election with 48-49% of the vote, because of the way Democrats concentrate their voters geographically.) Economic developments and world affairs could turn enough voters against Biden.  If Biden suffers stroke or other disability in the weeks before the election, that also could elect Trump.  (2) There is a greater chance (60-65%) that Biden will be elected in 2024.  Trump is not going to win over the undecideds; he needs Biden to lose them through recession or disability.  (3) There is a significant chance (25-30%) that Biden, if elected, will not serve a complete second term, which means the odds of Kamala Harris serving as president before election day 2028 are about 15% (60% x 25%).  The odds of Trump’s VP becoming president before the 2028 election are 5% or less.  Physically, Trump is healthier than Biden.