Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World [1st ed.] 9783030429775, 9783030429782

Citation preview

Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World Michael H. DeArmey

Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World

Michael H. DeArmey

Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World

Michael H. DeArmey School of Humanities University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, MS, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-42977-5 ISBN 978-3-030-42978-2 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: From a photo of a painting, “The Symposium: Socrates at Agathon’s House,” permission by artist Kay Urry Demarsche This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Each drop of wine we pour is hope and prayer That people will cast out the plagues that threaten everyone Everywhere they are found, beginning in our own hearts: The making of war, The teaching of hate and violence, Despoliation of the earth, Perversion of justice and government, Fomenting of vice and crime, Neglect of human needs, Oppression of nations and peoples, Corruption of culture, Subjugation of science, learning, and human discourse The erosion of freedoms. —Passage from A Passover Haggadah, by permission of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Copyright 1994.

For my parents, Amy and Mack DeArmey and For my professors to whom I owe much Andrew J. Reck Carroll R. Bowman Roy E. Watkins

Preface and Acknowledgements

It may be a commonplace but it is nonetheless true that each person’s life is the product of the interplay of choice, chance, and compulsion (necessity). Such is the case with the writing of this book. One day while looking through the stacks at the university library I chanced upon a book by Mary Midgely with the intriguing title, Wickedness. I read this book and another on a similar topic, Ronald Milo’s Immorality, and with these two in mind I decided that I would design a class on evildoing. I was surprised at the number of students who signed up for the class. And the class discussions were livelier than usual. From that point on I varied the texts whenever the class was being offered, and my investigations into this topic were increasingly extensive. The present book represents my efforts over a ten year period at research, reflection, and writing on a topic I could not put aside. Over and over again I wondered how people could do such terrible things to themselves and others. When a professor in my department retired, I assumed responsibility for a course in environmental ethics. As a result I became increasingly concerned about the deleterious effects of human behavior on animals, plants, and ecosystems–indeed the entire biosphere. My concern is manifested in this

ix

x

Preface and Acknowledgements

book’s detailed examination of the extent to which we have damaged the environment. How can a philosopher contribute to the study of wrongdoing and evildoing? First, the terms that are commonly employed in discussions of evil are notoriously vague. This book aims at greater conceptual precision for terms like bad, wrong, evil, genocide, torture, slavery, and terrorism. Second, philosophers attempt to explain why the behaviors referred to by these terms are immoral. This book sets out a theory of dignity inclusive of human beings and animals. The indicated behaviors are an assault on the dignity of both. The discussion within these pages owes much to the writings of Immanuel Kant in the field of ethics and international politics. Kant is the founder of modern cosmopolitanism, and this book attempts to advance Kant’s project of a world organization and world community. My interest in cosmopolitanism probably goes back to my experience of working with young people from around the world on summer charity projects in Spain and Italy. In part sponsored by Caritas, I was a director of the construction of a food service building in Baza, Spain for poor gypsies, and the following summer in Italy, a similar building for Ethiopian refugees. Young people from around the world, from Australia to Yemen, gave up their summers to help with this work. Each evening after work the thirty or so young volunteers and I would discuss our religions, our views of world peace, and sports. Discussions about religions were heated and divisive, but when the discussion turned on what kind of world is desirable, there was almost unanimous agreement. Some of these agreed-upon-views show up in this book in terms of the many cosmopolitan recommendations that are necessary for a desirable world. That is the third contribution philosophers can make to this subject matter. A philosopher, Plato noted long ago, is a specialist in the general. The chapters of this book amply demonstrate that philosophical work is inherently transdisciplinary. Reflecting on the dark side of human experience as this book does leaves the reader with the unavoidable conclusion that much of what we call civilization exists on a foundation of the suffering of the hundreds of millions of poor and struggling people as well as the destruction of the health of all forms of life and ecosystems on this planet. Being civilized, on the other hand, means being reasonable and just, even if an enormous

Preface and Acknowledgements

xi

number of practices and artifacts of civilization are corrupt. There is still time to save ourselves, to correct the course of civilization, to uplift the lives of the poor, and to preserve and restore the environment. Many people have contributed to the writing of this book. First and foremost is my wife Stephanie, who encouraged me, and, as a university editor, proof-read the manuscript. Various chapters of this book have benefitted from conversations with J. Baird Callicott, John Hofer, Robert Kane, Alfred Mele, and Chris Meyers. Long ago I had the good fortune to attend the best high school in Memphis, Tennessee, East High, and I am especially indebted to Ms. Gladys Riggs and Ms. Elsie Stone (Latin and mathematics, respectively). As an undergraduate at the University of Memphis I elected to take a course in philosophy, not knowing exactly what that was, and I was captivated by the fundamental nature of the questions philosophers ask. My chief advisor was Professor Carroll Bowman, a follower of Hegel and Josiah Royce, and this impressed upon me the value of systematic work. My graduate work at Tulane was benefitted by scholarships, especially an Andrew W. Mellon Doctoral Fellowship, and later at Yale by a post-doctoral fellowship. I am especially indebted to Andrew J. Reck at Tulane, who has been my teacher, advisor, and friend throughout my career. At my university, the University of Southern Mississippi, I was chosen as a Charles W. Moorman Distinguished Professor, and I thank then Dean Denise Von Herrmann for her efforts on my behalf, which included release time from teaching. I would also like to thank Provost Steven R. Moser for further release time for work on my book. Finally, I am indebted to Brendan George and others at Springer Palgrave/Macmillan for their efforts on my behalf. Hattiesburg, USA

Michael H. DeArmey

Contents

1

Introduction Synchronous Catastrophic Causation: The World in Crisis

Part I

1 3

Cosmopolitanism, World Organization and World Community

2

On Cosmopolitanism Modern Cosmopolitanism: The Kantian Project Other Cosmopolitans in the Eighteenth Century

11 14 24

3

Cosmopolitanism and Dignity Accounts of Dignity in Cosmopolitan Thinkers Analysis of the Concept of Dignity The Basic Dignity of Living Beings The Enhanced Dignity of Pairing and Caring Human Dignity: Autonomy, Epoche, and Regards Final Thoughts on Enhanced Dignity

29 31 44 50 55 63 68

xiii

xiv

4

5

Contents

Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect Kant’s Ethics of Care Kant’s Cosmopolitan Right to Hospitality and Recent Advances in Cosmopolitan Theory Conclusion: The Cosmopolitan World Community Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes to World Institutions Transforming the United Nations into a Cosmopolitan Organization Requirements of Basic Knowledge Overpopulation

Part II

71 72 78 92 95 96 105 107

Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World

6

Bad, Wrong, and Evil The Concept of Bad Moral Standards and the Taxonomy of Wrongdoing The Concept of Evil A New Theory of Evil

117 118 121 127 134

7

The Destruction of the Earth The Oceans The Atmosphere and Gases Forests Soil: Destroying Ecosystems Beneath Our Feet Gone Forever: Plant and Animal Extinction Cosmopolitan Recommendations to Improve the Health of the Biosphere

139 141 148 151 154 160

The Evil of Genocide Raphael Lemkin and the Origins of “Genocide” Lemkin’s Offspring: The U.N. Convention on Genocide Claudia Card: Genocide as Social Death A New Theory of Genocide

175 177 185 187 190

8

166

Contents

xv

9

Slavery I Defining Slavery The Evil of Slavery Procuring Slaves Types of Slavery Cosmopolitan Recommendations to Eliminate Slavery

201 203 205 210 211 227

10

Slavery II, Child Soldiers

233

11 Torture and Torment The Nature of Torture Living Hell: A Brief Look at the Some Experiences of Torture Victims Is Torture Effective in Gathering Information? Experiences of Torturers Justifying Torture: The Ticking Bomb Scenario Cosmopolitan Responses to Torture

243 244

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone Defining “Terrorism” Can Terrorism Ever Be Justified? Terrorism Is Always Wrong Terrorist Thinking Is Bad Philosophy Cosmopolitan Responses to Terrorism

265 266 272 278 280 281

List of Cosmopolitan Recommendations

285

Works Consulted

291

Author Index

301

Subject Index

307

246 249 255 257 261

1 Introduction

There are issues in the conduct of human affairs in their production of good and evil which … are so central, so strategic in … that their urgency deserves with respect to practice, the names ultimate and comprehensive. These issues demand the most systematic reflective attention that can be given. —John Dewey

This book has been written in the attempt to mitigate the world catastrophe that lies waiting in the decades to come. While the usual transnational evils continue to plague us—genocide, torture, terrorism, slavery, and wars of aggression, the most frightening, the most unsettling transnational evil is the worldwide destruction of the earth’s biosphere. Over two centuries ago Immanuel Kant attempted to mitigate one evil—war—by arguing for a cosmopolitan world order. Kant proposed a “peace federation” which, since 1945, has taken the form of the United Nations. In Kant’s cosmopolitan world order individuals have rights as citizens of the world, above and beyond national rights. Kant forecast a world community which is the correlate to a cosmopolitan world organization. This book follows in the footsteps of Kant but examines additional transnational evils. Transnational evils are wrongdoings which by

© The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_1

1

2

M. H. DeArmey

design severely harm people and other life forms, and occur in multiple places.1 Their agents are scattered about. Transnational evils involve agents who plan, create a budget, utilize a communications network—in short, create a culture of wrongdoing and evildoing. Cosmopolitanism is essentially two things. It is the attempt to reduce transnational evils by precisely thinking about them, followed by recommendations that protect the dignity and world citizenship of people and their multifarious ways of living.2 Cosmopolitanism is also a theory of a new world order, together with recommendations for closer ties between people and cultures—an improved world community. In this work the new world order will be a greatly strengthened United Nations, with new structural components and increased legal power. The improved world community will be more appreciative of differences within the family of mankind. Proposals will be set out that are designed to bring human beings closer together, and these run the gamut across human values and institutions: education, art, hospitality, understanding strangers, citizenship, the ethics of care and respect, and cooperation. Cosmopolitanism has its enemies. These are isolationism, extreme nationalism and populism, totalitarianism of every variety, political conservativism, racism, relativism, and subjectivism. The people who hold these beliefs are not necessarily bad people, though some are. Many are probably your neighbors. At this point in world history, what is imperative is cooperation among nations and world citizens, not the various political realities just cited.

1This book is concerned with local wrongdoing and evildoing only insofar as these are internal to transnational evils. The array of characteristics of evildoing that distinguish it from lesser wrongdoings are described in Chapter 6. 2 Precision thinking to the extent possible, always remembering Aristotle’s remark that one must be content with what the subject matter allows. Cosmopolitan recommendations are not aimed at individual nation states but are universal proposals necessary for a better world, resulting in fewer and fewer occurrences of transnational evils.

1 Introduction

3

Synchronous Catastrophic Causation: The World in Crisis We are at this moment in time on the brink of disaster so disruptive it could bring down civilization itself. Our dear planet is now significantly overpopulated, and there is an unbreachable time lag that will occur even if steps are taken to decrease birth rates. Ten to fourteen million people will be alive, ceteris paribus, by 2050. On top of this, so to speak, there are disastrous permutations in the atmosphere adversely affecting human health, the health of ecosystems, marine life, and crop production. Lack of food due to crop failures, water shortages, and overpopulation will produce riots. Moreover, there is a looming energy crisis, such that it is increasingly more costly to extract traditional oil and gas as these resources dwindle. Forests too continue to dwindle. The stability of nation states is disrupted in multiple ways. Borders are more permeable, millions of people are on the move attempting to relocate for a better, safer life. There is now a sharp increase in gangs, hate groups, and terrorists.3 Political groups/parties are increasingly polarized, employ insults and harsh language. We are in the midst of what Gilbert Murray once called a “failure of nerve,” the abandonment of confidence in reason.4 The homogenization of technologies, cultures, and practices worldwide which has been taking place for decades means that if a crisis occurs, it will have a cascading effect throughout the system. Thomas HomerDixon’s analysis of this is instructive. He states that …a socio-ecological crisis … will have an intricate causal, spatial, and temporal structure. For example, rather than a single critical transition at the planetary scale, smaller crises originating within particular systems or geographical regions might propagate across system boundaries, connect together, and then expand into a global crisis.5 3This splintering into gangs and hate groups has been discussed by Magnes Enzensberger, Civil Wars from L. A. to Bosnia (New York: The New Press, 1990); Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993). 4 Gilbert Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishers, 2010). 5Thomas Homer-Dixon et al., “Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis,” Ecology and Society, 20 (2015). Access online at:

4

M. H. DeArmey

His prognosis is gloomy indeed: Humankind, I argue, is on the cusp of a planetary emergency. We face an ever-greater risk of a synchronous failure of our social, economic and biophysical systems, arising from simultaneous, interacting stresses acting powerfully at multiple levels of these global Systems … I believe that the next one hundred years will be a time of great instability and quite likely of extraordinary violence and human hardship.6

If the catastrophic events described above are underway, think about what will happen if concurrently tremendous amounts of ice melt in Greenland and western Antarctica. If this occurs, and it is likely underway now, estimates put ocean rise at nine meters or about 28 feet. Large cities will be flooded. Barricades and walls of concrete and steel will be completely inadequate. As a consequence millions of people will move inland, not all at once but in an ever-increasing stream. Social services such as clinics and hospitals will be overwhelmed. Police forces will be overwhelmed, even the military will be unable to stop angry looters and gangs of marauding killers. Bands of people will go after farms where they can overtake owners and steal crops, chickens, and livestock. Economies will collapse. Given these upheavals, leaders of countries least affected by rising oceans will be tempted to attack and take over the territory of weakened countries. Under these conditions an array of local evils, such as robberies and murders, will sharply increase. Slavery, genocide, even the use of weapons of mass destruction are real possibilities. Unless we become cosmopolitans and work together as a family of peoples, the certain forecast is the Fall of Mankind and global biotic destruction. What we are doing to the earth’s biosphere is so destructive that it raises the question posed by the Fermi paradox: “Given the likelihood of huge numbers of planets in the Milky Way and other galaxies, why have we not detected intelligent life?” It may be that alien civilizations https://homerdixon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Homer-Dixon-etal.-Synchronous-Failurethe-architecture-of-global-crisis-ES-2015-76811.pdf. 6Thomas Homer-Dixon, “Synchronous Failure: The Real Danger of the 21st Century.” Speech given at George Washington University, December 4, 2002. Access at: https://homerdixon.com/ synchronous-failure-the-real-danger-of-the-21st-century/.

1 Introduction

5

do not survive into the period in which they attempt contact with other planetary civilizations. They do not reach the point at which they could create von Neumann machines. “Machine assemblers” or von Neumann machines self-replicate by extracting minerals from asteroids or planets they find in the course of their various journeys through space. They would be accompanied by cargo vessels containing capsules of plutonium for the propulsion system of the replicated probes. The alien civilizations which created the mother or original machines would design them such that they constantly send out signals announcing their presence and requesting a reply. In the event they receive a reply they would be automatically rerouted to the planet originating the response. They would contain transmittable information as to where the home planet is that manufactured the probes, and what that civilization is like. Space should contain significant numbers of signaling machines. But SETI has detected no such signals despite years of scanning the heavens. An original paper by Frank Tipler argued that since there are no von Neumann machines, no civilization survives its own collective behavior.7 This paper generated a wide-ranging discussion by mathematical physicists, astronomers, and philosophers. Reviewing the literature, it seems that probability would have it that if human beings self-destruct, it will be either by making the biosphere uninhabitable through pollution and changes in the earth’s chemistry, or through detonation of nuclear weapons in a third world war, or both concurrently. Our only hope of saving ourselves and the entire biotic community and avoiding Tipler’s cosmic fate is cosmopolitanism—a greatly strengthened world organization and world community. The suggestions offered in this work, or something like them, are a matter of urgency, not only to stop the destruction of the environment but also to reduce concurrent and long-standing transnational evils as well (such as slavery and genocide).

7 Frank

Tipler, “ Extraterrestrial Beings Do Not Exist,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 21 (267) (1981). Also see Stuart Armstrong and Anders Sandberg, “Eternity in Six Hours: Intergalactic Spreading of Intelligent Life and Sharpening the Fermi Paradox.” The Future of Humanity Institute, Philosophy Department, Oxford University. Access online at: http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/intergalactic-spreading.pdf.

6

M. H. DeArmey

This work is divided into two parts of uneven length. Part I: Cosmopolitan World Organization and World Community begins with Chapter 2, a brief history of cosmopolitanism from Diogenes to Kant, with the main focus on Kantian cosmopolitanism. Chapter 3 sets out a cosmopolitan theory of dignity, not only for persons but for most of the entire biotic community. This is referred to as a biotic and enhancement theory of dignity. The argument will be that when value comes on the scene, dignity appears. Chapter 4 examines Kant’s theories of cosmopolitan hospitality, care, and respect. This is part of Kant’s efforts to develop a world organization and its correlate, a world community. The ethical treatment of immigrants and their paths to citizenship are clarified, and contemporary thinking on hospitality and the ethical treatment of immigrants is discussed, with insights from Derrida, Seyla Benhabib, Ben Jolloun, and K. Anthony Appiah. Chapter 5 proposes a revision of the world order, beginning with structural changes to the United Nations. These changes involve strengthening and expanding the legal powers of the United Nations, while leaving the sovereignty of nation states intact, but with one exception, the threat to global stability by transnational evildoing. Part II: Cosmopolitanism and Evil begins with Chapter 6, a taxonomy of bad, wrongdoing, and evildoing. What forms of badness, wrongdoing, and evildoing are there? This chapter puts some order and precision in thinking about these concepts and their referents. A new definition of evil is offered. At the most general level transnational evils are inversions of civilization and deformations of life. Chapter 7 is an extended discussion of the destruction of the earth’s biosphere, gleaned from technical research and reports from the scientific community. Active and passive wrongdoing are discussed in this context. Chapter 8, GENOCIDE, begins with Raphael Lemkin’s pioneering work on genocide, leading to the ratification of the UN Convention on Genocide. The chapter advances an analysis of the concept and referents of this transnational evil, including critical appraisals of contemporary writers such as Claudia Card. Chapter 9 is a discussion of slavery, with critical assessments of the work of three main writers on this subject, Orlando Patterson, Kevin Bales, and Siddharth Kara. Chapter 10 continues the discussion of slavery, but focuses on child soldiers, a topic neglected by writers on slavery.

1 Introduction

7

Chapter 11 is an analysis of the concept of torture and an examination of the ethics of torture as well as its effectiveness. Experiences of both victims and perpetrators are described. An analysis of the ticking bomb scenario is part of this chapter. Chapter 12 is a thorough analysis of terrorism. For a host of reasons it is shown that terrorist acts are always wrong. Terrorism is distinct from the more general category of acts that produce terror, and is a subset of that general category. Throughout this book, in each chapter, cosmopolitan recommendations are made that will reduce the occurrence of transnational evils. These recommendations are non-draconian, reasonable, and necessary. I have also provided a list of these recommendations at the end of this work. In regard to the destruction of the earth, there is still time to save ourselves and the biosphere, but time is running out. So the task of putting human behavior on a sane, rational, and ethical path is urgent. The reader should be prepared for a lengthy journey through the dark side of human behavior. You must beware of the dangers of misanthropy, otherwise you may lose your moral bearings and no longer care about how others are treated. As I say to my students in my course on evil, remind yourself again and again of humanity’s best behaviors and outlooks.

Part I Cosmopolitanism, World Organization and World Community

2 On Cosmopolitanism

Roosevelt…contemplates a future “when any two persons on earth will be able to be completely present to one another” in less than a second….All the trends are “toward the greater unification of mankind.” …we become interdependent. Communities merge into states, states into nations, nations into families of peoples…” —Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1926 Whither Mankind ?

Cosmopolitanism began in ancient Greece as a moral outlook on the world. We are one human family. A virtuous character and good moral relations to others are central. Some writers, ancient and modern, attribute the origin of cosmopolitanism to Socrates. Cicero (Tusculus Disputiones),1 Epictetus (Discourses), and Plutarch (De Exilio), say that Socrates was the first to view himself as a citizen of the world. Epictetus says what other course remains for men but that which Socrates took when asked If what is said by the philosophers regarding the kinship of God and men be true, to what country he belonged, never to say “I am an 1 Cicero,

Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations. Translated by C. D. Yonge (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1977), Book V, xxxvii, 202.

© The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_2

11

12

M. H. DeArmey

Athenian,” or “I am a Corinthian,” but “I am a citizen of the universe”? For why do you say that you are an Athenian, instead of mentioning merely that corner into which your paltry body was cast at birth?2

And Plutarch says …the saying of Socrates is still better, that he was no Athenian or Greek, but a “Cosmian” because he did not shut himself up within Sunium and Taenarus and Curaunian mountains. ‘Seest thou yon boundless aether overhead That holds the earth beneath its soft embrace?’ This is the boundary of our native land.3

In the early modern period Montaigne kept this attribution alive.4 Recently Rob Riemen claimed that Socrates was the founder of cosmopolitanism. Riemen cites this passage from the Gorgias, in which Socrates connects the human family with the world order: The wise claim, Callicles, that heaven and earth, gods and humans, are connected by public spirit, friendship, a sense of order, self-control and justice. That also, my friend, is why we call this universe the cosmos, world order, and not chaos….5

These intriguing claims about the Socratic origins of cosmopolitanism cannot be confirmed with confidence. Rather, classicists regard Diogenes the Cynic as the founder of cosmopolitanism. When asked where he was

2 Epictetus,

The Discourses as Reported by Arrian, the Manual, and Fragments, W. A. Oldfather translator (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), Book I. Chapter IX, pp. 64–65. 3 Plutarch, Moralia, Vol. VII, On Exile. Loeb Classical Library, 1959, p. 529 (lines 600–601). 4 Michel de Montaigne, “The Education of Children,” in Essays, translated by J. M. Cohen (New York: Penguin Books, 1985). Montaigne states that “Mixing with the world has a marvelously clarifying effect on a man’s moral judgment. We are all confined and pent up within ourselves, and our sight has contracted to the length of our own noses. When someone asked of Socrates of what country he was he did not reply, ‘of Athens’, but ‘of the world’. His was a fuller and wider imagination; he embraced the whole world as his city…,” 63. 5 Quoted by Rob Riemen, “Cosmopolitanism: Three Etudes in the Quest for a Lost Ideal of Civilization,” The Hedgehog Review, 11 (2009): 97.

2 On Cosmopolitanism

13

from he replied “I am a citizen of the world.”6 This apparently meant that he was at home anywhere among the human tribes; that although he was indeed from Sinope, his most basic identity was with the human family. The Cynic orientation toward a common humanity was assimilated by Stoic philosophers. Plutarch says …we should not organize our daily lives around the city or the deme, divided by local schemes of justice, but we should regard all human beings as our fellow demesmen and fellow citizens….7

Marcus Aurelius is perhaps the most interesting of the Stoic cosmopolitans. Caesar of the Roman Empire, he profited most from the teachings of a slave (Epictetus). Marcus Aurelius argues from the commonality of reason to “the world …as…a city state.”8 Reason enables us to live a life of virtue. Foreigners and other strangers should be treated as friends, and we should, first of all, when meeting them, expend the effort to ascertain their values and beliefs. This is important in judging how we may extend hospitality to the stranger. Reminiscent of Benjamin Franklin’s practice of the virtues, Marcus made cosmopolitanism a part of his daily routine: Say to yourself in the morning: I shall meet people who are interfering, ungracious, insolent, full of guile, deceit….But I…who know that the nature of the wrongdoer is of one kin with mine…the same portion of the divine.—I cannot be harmed by any one of them, and no one can involve me in shame. I cannot feel anger against him who is of my kin….We were born to labor together, like the feet, the hands, the eyes….9

6 Cited in Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, VI, 3. The Greek is kosmopolites. It should be noted that Diogenes was a student of Antisthenes, who studied directly under Socrates himself. 7 Plutarch, On the Fortunes of Alexander, 329A-B; Translated by Martha Nussbaum in her “Kant and Cosmopolitanism,” in Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal, edited by James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Cambridge and London: MIT Press), 29–30. 8 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, I, 14; Translated and quoted by Nussbaum, op. cit., 31. 9 Ibid., II, 1. Translated and quoted by Nussbaum, op. cit., 34.

14

M. H. DeArmey

Humans are humans no matter what their origins. “It makes no difference,” he says, “whether a person lives here or there, provided that, wherever he lives, he lives as a citizen of the world.”10

Modern Cosmopolitanism: The Kantian Project The central figure in modern cosmopolitanism is Immanuel Kant (1724– 1804). Kant retains the ethical dimensions of ancient cosmopolitanism but expands the cosmopolitan outlook in the direction of political and legal theory. For a long time scholars regarded Kant’s political/legal writings as minor compared to the critiques, but now these cosmopolitan writings are regarded as complex, profound, and central to his thought.11 They appeared in the years 1784–1797, and one can determine by comparing these writings over the years that Kant’s thought was not static, but developing, indeed improving.12 For Kant the driving motivation to this more complex and more technically reasoned cosmopolitanism was the evil of war.13 War is a lawless 10 Ibid.,

X, 15. Translated and quoted by Nussbaum, op. cit., 31. exposition here will be confined to Kant’s cosmopolitan writings that appeared in the years 1784–1797. They include “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” (1784); “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” (1784); “On the Common Saying: ‘This May Be True in Theory, but It Does Not Apply in Practice” (1793); and his premiere cosmopolitan writing, Perpetual Peace (1795; enlarged 1796); All of these are in Kant’s Political Writings (hereafter “KPW ”), Hans Reiss editor, H. B. Nisbet translator (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979; 1991). Hereafter this will be referred to as KPW. Kant’s final statements about cosmopolitanism are in the 1797 Metaphysical Elements of Justice: Part I of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by John Ladd (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1999). Hereafter referred to as MEJ. 12 Kant’s views on race, national sovereignty, and the world state changed in these years. On Kant’s changing views of race, see Pauline Kleingeld, “Kant’s Second Thoughts on Race,” The Philosophical Quarterly, 57 (2007), 573–592. On sovereignty and the world state, see the discussion below. 13The list of factors (events and ideas) assimilated by Kant and guiding him toward his profound version of cosmopolitanism are: i. Writings of the cosmopolitan Roman Stoics. ii. The ideas of Abbe St. Pierre and Rousseau for uniting European nations. iii. The American Revolution ending with a federated government. iv. The French Revolution with its unsettling mixture of freedom and the guillotine. 11The

2 On Cosmopolitanism

15

state between nations in which men are used as mere tools, thereby violating their dignity. War creates misery (unhappiness): it costs lives and depletes the national treasury for years and years to come. When the national treasury is diminished, cultural improvement suffers, especially education. What can be done to bring about ongoing, perpetual peace? How can this scourge of humanity be overcome? The answer lies in the formation of a cosmopolitan peace or world federation, whose voluntary members agree to basic ethical and political principles. Kant’s attempt to bring war to a permanent end through cosmopolitan theory and practice is divisible into the main strand and a secondary, “accommodating” strand. The centerpiece of the main strand is the essay, Perpetual Peace, the accommodating strand consists of his claim that we can see through the study of human history that Nature seems to be designed to eventually bring humans to cosmopolitanism.14 Kant intended Perpetual Peace to be an outline, “A Philosophical Sketch” as the subtitle indicates. As the term “sketch” implies, cosmopolitanism is something to be filled out, completed by others (he was seventy-one when he published the essay). The cosmopolitan world federation, along with the theory and practices it involves, will admit of “gradual reform

v. The writings of Prussian-born Anarchis Cloots, who argued that the logic of the social contract necessarily results in a single world state, with the French Declaration as the basis of this new world order. vi. Anthropological and geographical “exotica”: Fascinating reports from travelers, adventurers, anthropologists, and naturalists on non-western cultures. Among these are the reports of the travels of Captain Cook by Captain Cook himself, or the reports published by Georg Forster from his father’s notes of the voyage (cf.: Georg Forster, A Voyage Around the World, in His Britannic Majesty’s Sloop, Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James Cook, During the Years 1772, 3, 4, and 5. By George Forster, …in two volumes; 2 vols.: Stamford, Connecticut: Gale ECCO, Print editions, 2010; Originally published in London in 1777. vii. The military activities of Prussian in fighting the French ended with the Treaty of Basel in 1795. This treaty contained a secret agreement wherein Prussia would collude with Russian and Austria in partitioning Poland. 14 Kant

sets this out in “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” and also in Perpetual Peace. The sphericity of the earth restricts human migration, and we are forced to live with neighbors. We have egoistic impulses which make us want more and more for ourselves, but at the same time we seek companionship and the benefits of having neighbors. This is “unsocial sociability.” This is one of the design components which will drive humanity to a cosmopolitan world order.

16

M. H. DeArmey

according to fixed principles.”15 This may be aptly called pragmatic gradualism, and this book attempts to take additional steps in developing cosmopolitanism. The Original Contract and the Ideal Nation-State. Kant’s cosmopolitanism is based on the social contract. Hypothetically, people in a “state of nature,” without law or government, would want to escape this condition of conflict and fear. They would form a government with a constitution and would agree to laws utilizing coercion if necessary. Thus they would escape the lawless condition. The constitution would represent the original contract, and the will of the people would be represented by a sovereign, which (for Kant) must be the legislative body. Kant says that the original contract is not a historical event but “…merely an idea of reason.”16 A constitution is the framework within which the legislative body passes laws and creates state projects of various kinds. The test of whether or not laws are just is the question of whether or not the law(s) could be agreed upon by the whole people. If so, the law(s) is just, if not, the law(s) is unjust.17 The “whole population” functions in the same way as universalization in the first version of the Categorical Imperative. The best form of government is republican, with a constitution and separation of powers, and with the same legislative body for all the state’s operations and for all citizens. If legislative and executive powers reside in one person or body, then the head of state can go to war “as a kind of amusement,” and while his people suffer in wartime, the despot will continue his banquets and other royal pleasures without interruption. The republic is democratic in regard to sovereignty. People are represented by a legislative body which is the sovereign. Without representation the government is despotic and the people will engage in violence against this. The republic’s laws and projects are implemented by the 15 MEJ,

163. “…Theory and Practice,” 79. I use the expression legislative “body,” but in a despotic government the executor is the de facto legislative body. It is also possible that the constitution is ill-formed and doesn’t represent the will of the whole people. 17 Ibid. An example of an unjust law would be one that arbitrarily privileges one group over another, e.g., higher taxes for potato farmers, less for carrot farmers. Also see footnote, KPW, 79. 16 KPW,

2 On Cosmopolitanism

17

“head of state” or executor. The head of state can be deposed by the legislature, but not punished. Since the legislative body has this power to depose, rebellion by the people is unwarranted. Rebellion would undermine the republican constitution. As long as it is possible to make out a case that the head of state (and perhaps the legislature too) is acting in goodwill, the people must endure crises and hardship from time to time. In a republican nation state every citizen will have as much freedom as possible, consistent with the freedom of others. Since all citizens are free in the same way it follows that all citizens are morally and legally equal. External relations between people are governed by rights. Kant says that “right” is “the restriction on each individual’s freedom so that it harmonizes with the freedom of everyone else.”18 Any hindrance to universal and equal freedom will be met by state coercion: …if a certain use to which freedom is put is itself a hindrance to freedom in accordance with universal laws (i.e., contrary to right), any coercion which is used against it will be a hindrance to a hindrance of freedom, and will thus…be right. It thus follows by the law of contradiction that right entails the authority to apply coercion to anyone who infringes it.19

Kant’s Federation of Peaceful Nation-States. There is an analogy between the lawless state of nature from which people escape, and the lawless relation between nation states in their external relation to one another. The absence of cosmopolitan law means that every nation state is a potential threat to any other nation state, and therefore every nation state must be prepared for war. And war, Kant says over and over again, is an evil thing. Perpetual Peace contains six “preliminary articles” aimed at finally eradicating the conditions which start wars. Kant says these articles are “prohibitive.” They describe the negative duties of nation states— what nation states must not do if human beings are to escape the horrors of war. Article 1 concerns the completeness of peace treaties. If there are hiatuses, reservations, unresolved issues, and predictable future difficulties remaining in the peace treaty, then this “would be a mere treaty, a 18 KPW,

73. 134; from The Metaphysics of Morals. Kant defines a “civil constitution” as “a relation among free men who are subject to coercive laws.” KPW, “…Theory and Practice,” 73. 19 KPW,

18

M. H. DeArmey

suspension of hostilities, not a peace….peace nullifies all existing reasons for a future war.”20 Nation states have a strict duty to work through and finalize a complete cessation of present and future hostilities. The second article outlaws one state acquiring another. Kant’s pragmatic gradualism allows some latitude to this, apparently since state boundaries were not set in 1795 (e.g., Prussia, Poland, Russia, and Austria). Once boundaries are set, a state is not a thing which can be bought, sold, given, merged, traded, etc. Rather, a state is made up of people and is a moral entity (an object of moral consideration). To treat it as something that can be possessed is to violate that people’s social contract, violate their autonomy. Article three gradually abolishes standing armies over time. Only an all-volunteer, reserve army is morally permissible, otherwise soldiers would be mere machines, expressions of force. This reserve force would receive training “from time to time.” The fourth article outlaws incurring debts to a foreign power(s) to conduct war. Article five is a strict duty which bans interference in the constitution and government of another nation state. It is up to the people of a state to conduct their own affairs. To interfere is to violate the autonomy of its citizens. Kant qualifies this, however. If there is civil war, a foreign power can “support” one side against the other. Presumably this is because that nation state has returned to a state of nature, and this cannot be tolerated by its neighbors. No doubt the support would be given to the side most favorable to a republican government. Unfortunately, Kant does not say what constitutes “support.” Generally, Kant thinks the outcome of internal conflict (probably short of war) within a nation state should be left to its people. The sixth article can be read as a qualification of article five. It states that nation states have a strict duty not to interfere with another nation state by sending in assassins, poisoners (venefici), by instigating treason, or by using spies. It also outlaws punishing a defeated nation, for there can be no third-party judge and no relation of superior to inferior. Nation states are equal, even if defeated in war. Punishment could lead to “extermination,” the withering away or self-destruction of both parties and right itself. This despicable action “would not for long be

20 KPW,

93.

2 On Cosmopolitanism

19

confined to war.”21 Presumably Kant has in mind killing and pillaging the defeated population. The preliminary articles are followed by three “Definitive Articles.” These articles concern the formal creation of genuine and lasting peace. The first definitive article sets out an ideal that all nation states have a republican form of government in which the will of the people is represented by the sovereign or legislative body. In particular, it is essential that the will of the people—their consent—be the determining factor in whether a nation state is to go to war or not. If this were operative, then nation states “…will have great hesitation in embarking on so dangerous an enterprise.”22 The people know the misery and horror they would reign down upon themselves. The second definitive article states that nation states must enter into a “federation of peoples.”23 Kant rejects Cloots’s idea of one international or world state. This is because a legislative body represents a specific and distinct group of people, but a world state would have to represent peoples all around the globe, and this is unworkable. Kant thinks an international, single world state is “contradictory.”24 Why it is contradictory is unclear. Pauline Kleingeld thinks that a world state would contradict the original contracts made by people in forming their states. In other words, a world state would violate distinct peoples’ autonomy.25 Kant does say rather cryptically that “…states…. already have an internal constitution and have thus outgrown the coercive right of others to subject them to a wider legal constitution in accordance with their conception of right.”26 The independent nation state “is still to be preferred to a conglomeration of the separate nations [i.e., peoples] under a single power….”27 A world state would lead to a “soulless despotism.” Setting aside 21 Ibid.,

96. 100. 23 Ibid., 102. 24 Ibid. Something can be contradictory and because of this empirically unworkable. 25 See Pauline Kleingeld, “Six Varieties ….” Anacharsis Cloots held that Kant’s cosmopolitanism would lead to a single world state. 26 KPW, 104. It would also be the case that the strongest nation state would set the terms for the world state. In this regard Cloots was head of a commission to force France’s neighbors to accept the rights set out in the French Declaration. 27 KPW, 113. 22 Ibid.,

20

M. H. DeArmey

the idea of one world state, Kant says a federation of peoples will have “a constitution, similar to the civil one, within which the rights of each [state] could be secured.”28 The ideal would be a world republic of independent states governed by “public coercive laws….”29 But each nation conceives of its own majesty to consist “precisely in not having to submit to any external legal constraint.”30 Therefore since nations do not want these laws, one must settle for a “negative substitute.”31 This would be a gradually expanding membership of nation states into a world federation. This federation would protect the security and independence of each member nation state. Thus Kant is a staunch defender of cultural pluralism. Member states to the federation lead their own lives, ideally according to the will of their own people. The third definitive article attempts to create a universal human community as the “complement” to the world federation. Kant states that individuals are world citizens, and must be treated with hospitality when approaching another people’s country (or society). Kant says this is the only cosmopolitan right, but it is inclusive of the right to freely pursue commercial transactions, the right to engage in critical dialogue, and the right to know precisely and in detail what the laws and policies of the visited society are (the same right that should be possessed by the residents of that foreign land). Kant means by the right to hospitality the right to be treated with goodwill “so long as he behaves in a peaceable manner.”32 Kant thought that already during his lifetime a universal community was in the making, and had sufficiently developed such that “a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere.”33 The original impetus toward a universal community with peaceful relations and goodwill was trade and commerce.

28 Ibid., 29 Ibid., 30 Ibid., 31 Ibid., 32 Ibid., 33 Ibid.,

102. 105. 103. 105. 106. 107–108.

2 On Cosmopolitanism

21

The right of hospitality is the right of entry, not the right to be treated as a guest. It is a right of visitation (Besuchsrecht ), not a right of residence (Gastrecht ), someone to be taken care of as you would do for someone whom you invited to your home. For that privilege, special, non-cosmopolitan arrangements would have to be made. Kant has in mind the right of hospitality as the right to enter a foreign land as long as one intends no harm to the country, its citizens, or its material culture. Also, and presumably, that society must have reasons for denying entry, such that any society would find these reasons compelling. So Kant is in favor of opening borders to well-intentioned strangers. For Kant hospitality is double-edged. He is at least equally, if not more so, concerned that the strangers respect the host peoples and their land. No stronger words of condemnation can be found in Kant’s writings than his condemnation of “civilized states of our continent” …the injustice which they display in visiting foreign countries and peoples (which in their case is the same as conquering them) seems appallingly great. America, the negro countries, the Spice Islands, the Cape, etc. were looked upon at the time of their discovery as ownerless territories; for the native inhabitants were counted as nothing….This led to oppression of the natives, incitement of the various Indian states to widespread wars, famine, insurrection, treachery, and the whole litany of evils which can afflict the human race.34

Does Kant intend the right of hospitality to be a moral or legal requirement? Seyla Benhabib raises this question in her chapter on Kant and hospitality.35 She asks whether the right of hospitality consists of “reciprocal moral obligations” or “claims in the legal sense of being enforceable norms…[that would] force sovereign nation-states to comply….”36 She claims that “Kant’s construction provides no clear answer.”37 However, if one keeps in mind Kant’s pragmatic gradualism throughout the 34 KPW,

“Perpetual Peace,” 106. Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 36 Ibid., 29. 37 Ibid. 35 Seyla

22

M. H. DeArmey

cosmopolitan writings, then it is safe to say that republics morally committed to peace and hospitality would lead the way toward a stronger and more robust world federation, one which would eventually have cosmopolitan laws pertaining to entry across borders, with more detail about the rights and duties of both stranger and the host country. These laws, as laws, would require the backing of nonviolent coercion. That is the most apparent meaning of this important passage: The right of strangers…[enables] continents distant from each other…[to] enter into peaceful mutual relations which may eventually be regulated by public laws, thus bringing the human race nearer to a cosmopolitan constitution.38

Overall, the right to hospitality is a right that every person on earth possesses. Secondly, the stranger cannot be turned down for no reason, or for a reason that cannot be universally accepted. Seyla Benhabib states that Kant suggests that to deny the foreigner and stranger the claim to enjoy the land and its resources, when this can be done peacefully and without endangering the life and welfare of original inhabitants, would be unjust.39

Thirdly, movement across borders is an exercise of one’s freedom, and to restrict this requires justification, and this would only come from the perception, by the sovereign or its agents, of potential harm to the inhabitants. Fourthly, the sphericity of the earth puts limits on human migrations and inevitably creates border to border, territory to territory, contact, necessitating the need for goodwill and eventually universally acceptable regulations. Finally, and while not explicitly stated by Kant but assumed, especially in his brief discussion of the cleverness of humans in adapting to environments, is the fact that the resources of the earth are unevenly distributed, thereby creating the necessity for trade with strangers, the original source of peace and hospitality. Indeed, Kant 38 KPW, 39The

106. My italics. Rights of Others, 30.

2 On Cosmopolitanism

23

states that the right to negotiate trade and commerce is a “cosmopolitan right.”40 In addition to the right to hospitality and its corollary, the right to commerce, there is a right which Kant out of practical necessity gingerly puts forward in such a way as to avoid the wrath of the authorities (Frederick the Great). This is the right of philosophers to speak out on matters of public concern, especially laws and policies of the government. It is clear that this right echoes the contentions of the famous essay, “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” In this essay on enlightenment it is the right of every professional to pursue wisdom in his particular profession. Critical thinking can be carried out, not just by philosophers, but by military officers pursuing wisdom in military matters, clergymen discoursing about matters of religiosity, tax collectors pursuing wisdom in finances, and so on. Obey your superiors but think critically and publicly express your best thoughts. This right of public reason can be adopted by authorities without their acknowledgment that they have consented to this right (“secret agreement”). Thus this right to “speak publicly” is not a right for members of the philosophy faculty alone, but of critical thinkers in all professions. Kant states that “…by the public use of one’s own reason I mean that use which anyone may make of it as a man of learning….”41 Moreover, this (“secret”) agreement by the sovereign or head of state is an agreement that “… already lies in the obligations imposed by universal human reason in its capacity as moral legislator.”42 Kant restricts “speaking out” to written documents, apparently because they are fixed (as opposed to a speech before crowds) and can be repeatedly pondered. One wonders about Kant’s political maneuvers here. Did Kant recognize, but shrewdly not call attention to, the fact that if you combine the right to critically assess government actions and other public events, with the right of entry (hospitality), then the door has been opened wide for critically minded people to communicate to the entire world what is going on in any particular society on earth? Did Kant prophetically 40 KPW,

172. ‘…’ What Is Enlightenment?’, 55. 42 KPW, 115. 41 KPW,

24

M. H. DeArmey

and quite cleverly make way for today’s journalists to by right enter a country and by right report what they see? It would appear so. For Kant had already recognized in his own time that “The peoples of the earth have thus entered in varying degrees into a universal community, and it has developed to the point where a violation of rights in one part of the world is felt everywhere.”43 In “…Theory and Practice…” he states that “freedom of the pen is the only safeguard of the rights of the people.”44 The final right which rises to the cosmopolitan level is the right of the public to be aware of any government action which may affect their rights. This is both an ethical and legal principle. Nowadays it is called the “sunshine principle.” How can one determine whether rights are potentially threatened? Kant offers three criteria: If declaring a policy openly would undermine its intention; if authorities must keep a policy secret for it to succeed; or, finally, if there is universal resistance to the policy—“the resistance of everyone … because it is unjust and a threat to everyone.”45 By implication the right to know or sunshine right applies to the foreign policies of states. Nation states have a right to know the foreign (and domestic) policies of other nation states. This is because what other nation states do may affect the rights, and most surely the well-being, of one’s own citizens. In sum, Kant has emphasized four cosmopolitan rights which may be called hospitality right, the right to unfettered commerce, the right to enlightenment by the public exercise of reason, and the transparency or sunshine right. Chapter 4 will amplify Kant’s notion of hospitality.

Other Cosmopolitans in the Eighteenth Century Kant was not the only cosmopolitan thinker in the second half of the eighteenth century. In a fascinating scholarly essay Pauline Kleingeld 43 Ibid.,

107–108. 85. 45 Ibid., 126. 44 Ibid.,

2 On Cosmopolitanism

25

describes the cosmopolitanism of some thinkers writing around the time of Kant. Her essay shows that cosmopolitanism “was not a single encompassing idea”46 but varied in basic orientation. She describes six varieties of cosmopolitanism: Moral, political, legal, cultural, economic, and romantic. There is some insight into the nature of cosmopolitanism by briefly examining these lesser-known varieties. Moral cosmopolitanism during this period is represented by Christoph Martin Wieland (1733–1813). Echoing the theme of ancient cosmopolitans, he says that cosmopolitans regard “all peoples of the earth as just so many branches of a single family, and the universe as a state.”47 The aim of cosmopolitanism is to make life better for all human beings far and wide. Anticipating the theme of this book, Wieland says that cosmopolitans strive “to reduce the sum of evils that weigh upon humanity, insofar as they can do this without wreaking havoc themselves….”48 Wieland is a moral particularist. For a cosmopolitan the correct moral procedure is not to follow universal principles but to extract rightness from each situation in which one finds oneself. By and large, most people are “world-dwellers,” whereas cosmopolitans are those sagacious enough to be “world citizens.”49 Another cosmopolitan orientation is the political one. Kleingeld divides political cosmopolitanism into “weak” and “strong” theories depending upon “The internal cohesion of the federation of states advocated by the theory.”50 It might be more accurate to distinguish an intermediate type as well. Kant defends a weak view, wherein the peace league does not, in its initial phases, possess coercive powers. Fichte and Friedrich Schlegel on the other hand hold to a strong federation, and take Kant to task for not pursuing the implications of his own theory. Fichte’s early theory is strong: there must be a people’s state or state of states with positive laws 46 Pauline Kleingeld, “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth Century Germany,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 60 (1999): 505–524. 47Translated and quoted by Kleingeld, 508. 48Translated and quoted by Kleingeld, 507–508, from Wieland’s “Das Geheimnes des Kosmopoliten-Ordens” (1788). 49 Ibid. 50 Kleingeld, 509.

26

M. H. DeArmey

and courts, i.e., coercion. But later, in his 1796 Foundations of Natural Right, he drops the idea of a state of states in favor of a voluntary league, yet one with coercive powers. Presumably this league would have an original contract like the one recommended by Kant for individual states.51 This contract is conceived to contain three agreements: a property contract, which is the duty to respect each other’s property, which in the case of nation states would be an agreement to respect land and other state holdings; a protection contract, the duty to contribute (money) to the creation of a coercive force protecting property; a unification contract, wherein a new corporate body beyond individuals or individual states is formed, with its own ends beyond individuals or individual states. Once formed this league would have the right and the power to “destroy with united powers”52 the criminal state. Kant had already rejected this on the grounds that the coercion used may stem from unfair tactics of the more powerful league members. Friedrich Schlegel’s political cosmopolitanism begins with a criticism of Kant. He says that Kant’s theory is “impure” in that, instead of proceeding from reason a priori, it incorporates a distorting empirical element. The empirical element is Kant’s assumption that people will continue on occasion to act against the law, and therefore a coercive element is necessary. Schlegel’s pure concept of a state is one in which people are equal in terms of rights and duties and regard each other as such. At the cosmopolitan level states would ideally regard each other as free and equal, and would have friendly relations to one another. Kleingeld rightly points out that Kant did not assimilate an empirical element, but rather the idea of possibly breaking the law is built into the concept of law. Legal cosmopolitanism is represented by Kant and Fichte. Kleingeld cites Fichte as holding that one important cosmopolitan right is the right to have rights, a subject of concern to Hannah Arendt in more recent times. Cosmopolitan right would take the form of cosmopolitan law

51 I am extrapolating from Fichte’s doctrine of the nation state and extending this to a world body. See Fichte’s, Foundations of Natural Right, Frederick Neuhouser editor, Michael Baur translator (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Fichte dwells on the function of police in some interesting pages. 52 Kleingeld, 511.

2 On Cosmopolitanism

27

through a world federation, would give people the right to have rights, a right which would protect people worldwide. According to cultural cosmopolitanism humanity manifests itself in the rich variety of cultures, with common human traits underlying these many cultures. Georg Forster (1754–1794) was a naturalist and student of human nature who accompanied Captain Cook on his famous voyages (1772–1775). His interest was the individual character of human societies encountered on the voyage. His reflections evaluate cultures in terms of their “inner richness” and the respect the members of society display for other humans, including strangers. Forster, like Kant, was fascinated with “exotic” cultures, and his cosmopolitanism, like that of Kant, condemns aggression, slavery, war, and despotism. Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch (1746–1812) represents economic cosmopolitanism in Kleingeld’s essay. Professor of History at the University of Kiel, his vision of a cosmopolitan world is one in which there exists a global sphere of free trade. With unfettered markets worldwide comes peace. People would be free to migrate, move to where the jobs are. And there would be worldwide education of people such that everyone would have multiple skills. Until they find jobs in the state in which they are living government has the duty to take care of the unemployed. Thus cosmopolitan concern for the unemployed and the poor permeates Hegewisch’s vision. Romantic cosmopolitanism is represented by Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), whose poetry and philosophical writing reflect a cosmopolitan vision setting out a human awakening to the arts and philosophical reflection. In one talk given in Jena in 1799 (published in 1826) Novalis represents the unity of mankind through an idealized picture of medieval Europe during the Holy Roman Empire.53 This period he fancies as one of peace, beautiful music, cooperation, and strong currents of spirituality. Novalis regarded human beings as capable of selfgenerated transcendence. He wrote in one essay that “Humanity is the

53 Novalis, “Logological Fragments II,” in Novalis: Philosophical Fragments, edited and translated by Margaret Mahony Stoljar (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 68.

28

M. H. DeArmey

higher meaning of our planet, the nerve that connects this part of it with the upper world, the eye to the heaven.”54

54 Novalis,

“Christianity or Europe,” Novalis: Philosophical Fragments, 68.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

Each species—American eagle, Sumatran rhinoceros, flat-spined threetoothed land snail, furbish lousewort, and on down the roster of ten million or more still with us—is a masterpiece. —Edward O. Wilson

One might expect a robust theory of human dignity in the writings of cosmopolitan thinkers. Cosmopolitans are thinkers who express an abiding interest in the variety of cultures and lifestyles within the human family. But such a theory is not to be found in their writings. One reason for this is that dignity is notoriously difficult to define. Important political and legal documents, such as the United Nations Charter, many of its covenants, and the constitutions of some nation states refer to human dignity as fundamental but fail to define what dignity means. The 1945 Charter of the United Nations states that “… we the people of the United Nations [are] determined … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person.” The U. N. Convention Against Torture …. (1984) states that the rights in the U. N. Declaration of Human Rights “derive from the inherent dignity

© The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_3

29

30

M. H. DeArmey

of the human person.”1 References to basic human dignity are used to overcome discrimination and oppression. The movement to overcome apartheid in South Africa and the appeal to human dignity in the civil rights movement in the United States are two important examples.2 In medicine physicians and nurses embrace human dignity as a goal of their practice.3 While these documents, movements, and practices leave dignity undefined, in philosophical literature skepticism about dignity and impasses in analysis abound. One philosopher goes so far as to suggest that the notion of dignity may evaporate if probed to any extent.4 Like the Stoics of antiquity, this essay sets out a cosmopolitan theory of dignity within the framework of cosmology. The first section examines dignity in some representative cosmopolitan thinkers, beginning with Kant. The second section offers an initial analysis of the concept of dignity, a relational notion with aesthetic, ethical, and metaphysical components. The third section begins an account in which dignity appears when value comes on the scene in an otherwise lifeless cosmos. The fourth sketches what might be called an enhancement or levels 1 Other

U. N. examples in which dignity is basic are: The Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966); Declaration on the Rights of the Mentally Retarded (1971); Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976); Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989); UN covenants may be found on the internet. In print see The United Nations Document Index vol. 5 (New York: United Nations, 2002–2003) published by the United Nations; also, Leland M. Goodrich, Charter of the United Nations: Commentary and Documents, 3rd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). Examples of dignity as basic in the constitutions of nation-states are: Nigeria (1999); South Africa (1996); Switzerland (1999); Finland (2000); Kingdom of Thailand (2007). Dignity (in the English translation) appears only in a sentence pronouncing “the uniformity and dignity of the socialist legal system.” The “Preamble” to The Constitution of Cuba (1992) claims that “… only under socialism and communism … can full dignity of the human being be attained.” National constitutions are online. They are printed in Constitutions of the Countries of the World, A. P. Blaustein and G. H. Flanz editors, 20 vols. (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1971–2010). 2 Dr. Martin Luther King’s remarkable “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” contains the “dream of a positive peace where all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.” Available at: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/letter-birmingham-jail: 10; “… solid rock of human dignity ….: 11. 3 Rebecca Dresser, “Human Dignity and the Seriously Ill Patient,” in Human Dignity and Bioethics. Essays Commissioned by the President’s Council on Bioethics, edited by Adam Schulman and Thomas W. Merrill (Washington, DC: US Independent Agencies and Commissions, March, 2008). 4 Daniel Dennett, “How to Protect Human Dignity from Science,” in Human Dignity and Bioethics, 39–59.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

31

theory of dignity. Dignity may rightly be attributed to living beings at each of three distinct levels, according to the nature of the life forms in question. First is the basic dignity possessed by living beings which seek ends and demonstrate a degree of behavioral plasticity. At the second level is a more enhanced type of dignity manifested by beings that are paired with others and exhibit care or helpfulness. The third level is the ability to self-rule, to freely form intentions and design a life. Transcendence and value are the basis for these levels.

Accounts of Dignity in Cosmopolitan Thinkers Kant. Dignity plays a fundamental role in Kant’s cosmopolitanism. John Ladd, Kantian scholar and translator, states that “The key to Kant’s moral and political philosophy is his conception of the dignity of the individual person.”5 Kant held that persons have negative freedom. Our behavior is not restricted to reactions to sensory stimuli, as are animals. Kant does not think that reason can be reduced to responses to heterogeneous external stimuli because “… the subject would attribute the determination of its power of judgment not to reason but to an impulse.”6 We also possess positive freedom, the power of reason to determine the will, i.e., to determine intentions. Positive freedom is the power to

5 John

Ladd, “Translator’s Introduction,” in The Metaphysical Elements of Justice. Part I of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., 1999), xv. 6 Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Lewis White Beck translator (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Library of Liberal Arts, 1959), 66–67. Background to this remark is Kant’s self-defeating argument against determinism. This argument is not a proof that determinism is false, but rather the claim that, if we do live in a deterministic world, then what you think, say, or do is determined by natural causality. That entails that the determinist could not evoke the power of reason to support his/her determinism. What the determinist or anyone else should happen to claim would be the contingent product of natural causality and not the product of reasoning or logical force.

32

M. H. DeArmey

determine our own lives according to self-imposed rules. Practical reasoning is a matter of employing universals, rules, or laws to the will.7 All rational beings are therefore rule- or law-givers. Such a being may be described as autonomous, or as an end-unto-itself, and it is this which constitutes distinctively human dignity. Kant distinguishes relative worth from absolute or intrinsic worth. Relative worth is worth according to some scale. Market value is one type of relative worth. It is worth based on price, and a key feature of market value is that one thing may be substituted for another. The damaged vehicle can be replaced by another. Labor and skill can be replaced. Affective value is another type of relative worth. It too has a price according to how much pleasure or entertainment it yields. If one comedian is not available then get another. Implied in Kant’s remarks is the fact that the scale of relative worth is determined by how much people are willing to pay for labor, skill, and entertainment (nowadays “shadow price”). But the worth of rational beings cannot be determined by a scale, for they cannot be assigned a price. On the contrary, rational beings determine all scales of worth: “The legislation which determines all worth must therefore have dignity, i.e., unconditional and incomparable worth … Autonomy is thus the basis of the dignity of both human nature and every rational nature.”8 Historically Kant’s position is the most important and influential theory of dignity available. There are, however, difficulties in Kant’s position that necessitate its reworking. First, it overemphasizes reason. What about so-called marginal cases, e.g., infants, the comatose, the insane, and imbecilic? Does human dignity depend upon condition or age? What about animals? Do they not have some kind of dignity (after all, we speak of the wonders of life)? Are their behaviors nothing but responses to stimuli? Would Genghis Khan and Hitler have dignity on Kant’s view?

7The rule-constructing process begins with the understanding in the transcendental analytic section of The Critique of Pure Reason, which shows that concepts are rules, i.e., “horse” refers to all possible sensory configurations of a certain type. 8 Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Moral s, 54. It is difficult to see how utilitarians could make sense of human dignity on their own terms. They claim that pleasures and preferential satisfactions are scalable, but human beings per se are outside the scale, and as Kant says, create such scales.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

33

Is human dignity restricted to morality, as Kant appears to hold? Questions arise as to whether Kant has laid out the full array of capacities necessary in order for the will to be determined by reason (to have autonomy and to form intentions). These concerns are addressed in the fourth section below. The Hedgehog Review: Avishai Margalit and Jeffrey Murphy. The University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture publishes The Hedgehog Review, a journal devoted to topics of interest to cosmopolitan theorists. There are several important insights about dignity in the essays in the Dignity and Justice issue, but the focus here is on just two of the essays. The lead essay by Hebrew University’s Avishai Margalit contains a heavy dose of skepticism about dignity.9 He claims that there is no positive definition or description of human dignity. Dignity is known only negatively, through the phenomenon of humiliation. Although we can’t put our hands, so to speak, directly on dignity, it has value as an “organizing notion.” By analogy, “matter” in physics is an organizing principle of physics, but not a concept internal to physics. So dignity functions to organize our array of moral concepts. Margalit warns of two opposite types of errors theorizing about dignity, the Scylla and Charybdis of dignity discourse. The first is sentimental humanism, in which people are viewed as actual or possible innocent sufferers, and talk about dignity is hand-wringing indulgence of our feelings (“the robber after all had a difficult childhood”). The opposite is deification, in which thinkers make pompous claims about the goodconferring characteristics of human nature. Margalit views Kant as a deifier of persons because Kant claims we are god-like, universal legislators. Dignity, Margalit asserts, is known through humiliation, a path to dignity that steers between the two extremes. “My claim,” he says, “is that we understand the internal sense of respect for humans as humans basically through the negative sense … The negative sense is humiliation.”10

9 Avishai

Margalit, “Human Dignity Between Kitsch and Deification,” The Hedgehog Review: Dignity and Justice, 9 (2007): 7–19. 10 Margalit, “ Human Dignity … , 18.

34

M. H. DeArmey

Margalit does not make explicit the fact that there is an argument embedded in the claim that we know dignity negatively through humiliation. That argument is this: That as long as we say that “x” is capable of being humiliated we presuppose that “x” has worth and should be respected. Humiliation is a sufficient condition for dignity attribution but not a necessary condition. Margalit fails to point out that a being incapable of humiliation could still have dignity (human infants, the comatose). He also does not mention degradation, a different concept from humiliation. A being could undergo degradation without any awareness of being humiliated. A being so degraded would necessarily have dignity. Sticks and stones cannot undergo degradation. At Easter in the United States some farmers’ outlets sell baby chicks, dyed pink, blue, or green. Some have attached ballet tutus. The chick is regarded as a toy, a thing to amuse until disposal time, and this is degradation.11 Margalit’s essay does not say what dignity is. Moreover the idea that dignity is an organizing idea for moral discourse, similar to “matter” in physics, runs the risk of reducing dignity to an organizing fiction, a mere als ob. Jeffrie Murphy’s contribution to The Hedgehog issue contains, like the Margalit essay, a heavy dose of skepticism about human dignity.12 He rightly says that utilitarians fail to account for important matters like justice, integrity, rights, and dignity, which fall outside the calculus of hedonic or preferential satisfactions. Against Kant, Murphy asks whether the perpetrators of the “Final Solution” were “ends-in-themselves,” and whether Kantian ethics could on its own terms morally condemn Hitler’s euthanasia program, among whose victims were those whose reason was not intact. Murphy also raises doubts about the Judeo-Christian account 11 Jonathan Glover cites the dignity-effacing tactic of the British to instill in the Indian population a sense of their own inferiority. At one point Indians in one town were made to crawl rather than walk. Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 23. Steiner describes the Nazi will-breaking technique for destroying Jewish pride in their traditions of scholarship, intelligence, and order. With feigned urgency Jews were lined up and forced at gunpoint to run some distance in the hot sun and without water, from point A to point B, and then back to point A, and then run the same maddening race again, over and over again. Jean-Francois Steiner, Treblinka, Helen Weaver translator (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 22ff. 12 Jeffrie Murphy, “The Elusive Nature of Human Dignity,” The Hedgehog Review: 20–31.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

35

of human dignity, which asserts that our dignity is derived from being created in the image of God. Murphy refers to “… Christianity’s history of coziness with evil ….”13 Murphy asserts that the strongest skeptical doubts about human dignity come from history itself. Murphy cites this startling and disturbing passage from Robert Nozick concerning the Holocaust in Germany: I believe the Holocaust is an event like the Fall in the way traditional Christianity conceived it, something that radically and drastically alters the situation and status of humanity …. Mankind has fallen …. if the human species were destroyed through atomic warfare or the earth passed through some cloud … [there would be] no special loss above and beyond the losses to the individuals involved. Humanity has lost its claim to continue …. has desanctified itself.14

Murphy notes what has already been noted in the cases of humiliation and degradation, that the existence of evil, so far from undercutting claims about human dignity, is the basis for a transcendental argument that establishes the existence of human dignity. For unless humans possessed some significant worth, humans could not be the victims of evildoing. A slight step beyond Murphy is this: since any human being could be the victim of evildoing, it follows that each and every human being has dignity, including perpetrators of evil.15 This latter point clashes with a common reaction to perpetrators of evil—do violence to them, get back at them! But this transcendental argument establishing dignity gives no information as to what this dignity could be. What could this dignity possibly be if it is possessed by the likes of Charles Manson or Heinrich Himmler? Murphy is sympathetic to a view about human dignity which 13 Ibid., 23. Also, see Morris Cohen’s essay, “The Dark Side of Religion,” in The Faith of a Liberal. Selected Essays, in Morris R. Cohen (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1946), 337–361. 14 Murphy, The Hedgehog Review, 24–25; Citing Robert Nozick, The Examined Life: Philosophical Meditations (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 237–239. 15 Socrates notes in the Crito that two wrongs do not make a right. If this is correct, then even someone like Hitler or Charles Manson could be the victim of evil-doing, and from this it follows that evildoers too have dignity as persons. Moreover, if animals can be victims of evil-doing, then animals too have dignity.

36

M. H. DeArmey

claims that if one sees such people “through the eyes of love,” then one might see their dignity under the layers of warped and perverse beliefs and deadened sensibilities. Murphy says, “… we do not know enough and are not good enough to presume to dismiss any other human being from the dignity club.”16 Jesus, Murphy reminds us, said “Judge not lest ye be judged, and let him who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone.” But what is this dignity that one “sees through the eyes of love?” Murphy doesn’t say, but his footnotes indicate the direction of his thinking on this matter. Dignity “Through the Eyes of Love”: Raimond Gaita, Simone Weil , Iris Murdoch and Mother Teresa. There is a more or less uniform theory that human dignity can be revealed not in mundane modes of understanding but only through a special state—love. Murphy’s Hedgehog essay cites with approval Raimond Gaita, who relies heavily upon Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil in setting out this view. Moreover the beliefs of Mother Teresa about human dignity fall within this theory, and were an important part of her care of the sick and dying in Calcutta. Although there are minor differences among these thinkers in regard to human dignity, they share the view that love has special epistemic status in revealing the dignity and worth of individuals. Raymond Gaita expresses cosmopolitan interests in two books, A Common Humanity and Good and Evil. He develops a theory of dignity inspired by several “encounters.” In his youth Gaita worked at a hospital where a nun administered to the needs of patients who had “lost their minds.” These patients were unable to make sense of anything, and as a consequence their friends and relatives had abandoned them. What was striking was that this nun treated these patients as equals, cared for them without condescension. Another encounter was the impartiality of Judge Landau at Adolf Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem. In a setting of strong emotions Adolf Eichmann received the justice owed to him as a human being. Another was the meticulous care extended by

16 Murphy,

The Hedgehog Review, 28.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

37

an Auschwitz inmate to a young boy with typhoid fever who was covered with pus and feces.17 These encounters provided the background for Gaita’s view that love gives access to human dignity: “Were it not for the many ways human beings genuinely love … I do not believe we would have a sense of the sacredness of individuals or of their inalienable rights or dignity.”18 There are saints and geniuses in the “love-world” (to use Robert Soloman’s term), and their behavior sets the standard for epistemic access to human dignity. Raymond Gaita is heavily indebted to the writings of Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil. All three thinkers hold that only a certain type of love reveals dignity. One must put oneself into a certain state of mind to access the person and his/her inherent worth, just as one must put oneself into a different state of mind when playful. To access human dignity, to get under the veneer of appearances, one must cleanse the self, or as Murdoch puts it, love requires the “exercise of detachment” (see below, the epoche), the “checking of selfishness in the interest of seeing the real.” The self must be emptied of stereotypes, preconceptions, fantasies, desires, and analysis of the person in view. Gaita says that a loving orientation toward others requires an impersonal response, in the sense that you “rid … [your] thought of banality, of second-hand opinions, of clichés, of sentimentality, of our vulnerability to pathos .…”19 Simone Weil says that unselfing is “suspending our thought,” and includes stepping back from all role-playing, including viewing oneself as an observer.20 Weil says that this preparation results in a disinterested form of attention not unlike that required in science and mathematics. Cleansed self and proper attention are necessary to access the basic humanity of the person. Then and only then can a gratuitous 17 Raimond Gaita, A Common Humanity: Thinking About Love and Truth and Justice (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). Gaita learned of the conduct of Judge Landau from reading Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem. Primo Levi was the source for the care given the dying boy. 18 Ibid., 5. 19 Raimond Gaita, Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 337. 20 Sian Miles, Simone Weil: An Anthology (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), 5; Miles quotes from Simone Weil, Waiting on God, Emma Craufurd translator (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951).

38

M. H. DeArmey

and generous response be given to the person as a being with dignity no matter what their condition or behavior. For people deeply afflicted and inarticulate one must dwell on what they are trying to say or express and then try to help them with the right words. Again, saintly persons and therapeutic geniuses set the standard. Only a saint, for example, could care about the near mindless or an Adolf Eichmann. This “divine madness” is “more astonishing … than walking on water.”21 Weil says that people, especially the afflicted, are to be treated … As though there were equality when one is the stronger …. Exactly in every respect, including the slightest details of accent and attitude, for a detail may be enough to place the weaker party in the condition of matter which … naturally belongs to him ….22

The activities of Mother Teresa in India mirror the philosophical reflections of Gaita, Murdoch, and Weil. She and those close to her say that in seeing the dignity of people “a certain losing of the self is essential.”23 The self-imposed poverty of the nuns is a way of stripping away egoism, a step or two in approximating the afflicted.24 The destitute and dying have nothing left, no one to care for them, no roles to play, nothing but their humanity per se. They must be attended to as equals and must feel that the nuns or volunteers care for them without condescension. Kind words, the touch of a hand, a glass of water, a sweet, make the afflicted feel that they do indeed have worth. The dignity which the above account purports to reveal is not entirely uniform in Gaita, Murdoch, and Weil. Gaita, echoing Weil, says that

21 Gaita,

Good and Evil, xviii, quoting Simone Weil’s Science, Necessity and the Love of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), 81. 22 Ibid. Quoting from Weil’s “Forms of the Implicit Love of God,” in Simone Weil, Waiting on God, Emma Craufurd translator (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951), 143. 23 Cited by Lucinda Vardey, Mother Teresa: A Simple Path (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), xxxi. 24The nuns and volunteers have for themselves only one pair of sandals, a bucket, a metal plate, a few utensils, and sparse bedding. They work to alleviate people of the five sufferings: physical, mental, emotional, financial, and spiritual. They are not Christian proselytizers, but encourage each afflicted person to seek his/her spiritual relief, whatever it may be.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

39

such attention reveals that each person is “precious” and “irreplaceable,”25 a unique perspective on the world. Weil says that what is “sacred in every human being” is something impersonal, a common expectation “from earliest infancy until the tomb,” that despite “all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed … good and not evil will be done to him.”26 It is not, she says, some aspect of the person that is sacred, “… not his personality. Nor is it the human personality. It is the man .… the whole of him.”27 Mother Teresa seems to have a similar view. It is built in our flesh that we want to be cared for, and being cared for makes us experience our own worth. Owing to the care given by the nuns, a destitute and dying person takes his/her last breath feeling he/she has worth. The theory just explicated seems to be that love reveals the inherent dignity of human beings in that each person is precious and wants to be cared for or appreciated as such. However compelling this view may be to some, it is not without difficulties. Is each person really precious? Gaita concedes that his theory stumbles over cases like Adolf Eichmann—“it sounds grotesque to say that Eichmann is infinitely precious.”28 Another difficulty is that there are self-haters who seem repulsed by care or helpfulness. But it may be that deep in the psyche of self-haters there is an urge to be the object of someone else’s care or concern.29 It is possible, perhaps likely, that this urge has been muffled by warped beliefs and feelings. At another point Gaita says that each person is precious because each person has a “unique perspective on the world.”30 However, he seems to have forgotten his hospital patients, who, having lost their minds, have no perspective on the world.

25 Gaita, 26 Miles,

Good and Evil, 155; A Common Humanity, xviii. Simone Weil: An Anthology, 51.

27 Ibid. 28 Gaita,

Good and Evil, xv. self-hatred see Carl Goldberg’s analysis of negative personal identity in his Speaking with the Devil: A Dialogue with Evil (New York: Viking Press, 1996); Also, Eric Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1992); Robert K. Ressler and Thomas Schachtman, Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993); and Gaita’s Good and Evil, 336. 30 Ibid. 29 On

40

M. H. DeArmey

Although the preciousness part may be inapplicable in problematic cases, the view that care and caring are a constitutive part of human dignity is on the right track. Dignity in Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Theory. For some time two of the brightest stars in the cosmopolitan sky have been Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen. They have developed an approach to world justice which they call capabilities theory. This theory first appeared in a 1980 paper authored by Sen.31 Nussbaum was already leaning in Sen’s direction, having adopted what she interprets as the Aristotelian concept of “flourishing.” Human dignity is one of the wide range of topics to which Nussbaum has systematically applied capabilities theory. The focus here will be on two books in which Nussbaum attempts to articulate a theory of human dignity. The first is The Frontiers of Justice, which addresses those classes of people for whom there is no deliberative place in John Rawls’ contract-making meeting, which determines the basic structure of society.32 The handicapped, the mentally challenged, and nonhuman animals are excluded from participation in the original position. Nussbaum’s capabilities theory is a non-contractarian outcomes theory purporting to be inclusive of the above three groups excluded by Rawls’ analysis. The second, earlier book is Women and Human Development. This book maintains that human dignity is the ground of the moral claims that capabilities exert upon us, whereas in The Frontiers of Justice she seems to be saying that capabilities constitute dignity. Having rejected Rawlsian, utilitarian, and Kantian theories of justice and dignity, Nussbaum turns to “capabilities” as the basis for her theory of justice and attempts to incorporate capabilities into a theory of human dignity. Capabilities are described by Nussbaum as “opportunities” available to a person, and she contrasts them with “functioning,” which is actually doing something.33 Examples would be the opportunity to read as opposed to reading, or “the capability or opportunity to be healthy” 31 Amartya Sen, “Equality of What?” in Tanner Lectures on Human Values 1, edited by S. McMurrin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 32 Martha C. Nussbaum, The Frontiers of Justice. Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2006). 33 Martha C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 14.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

41

as opposed to “actual healthy functioning.” An opportunity to do “x” becomes a function when someone chooses to do “x.” Choice involves freedom, as opposed to forcing someone, say, to eat (people might want to fast). So capabilities theory allows choice to be of significance. She also describes capabilities as “powers” or “abilities” that exert a moral claim.34 By “moral claim” she means that each and every person ought to have this power or ability. Being moral claims basic capabilities are entitlements necessary for a life of dignity. Nussbaum offers an identical list of basic capabilities in each of the two volumes that we are examining.35 These are, in abbreviated form: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

34 She

Being able to live a normal human life span. Bodily health. Bodily integrity. Use of the senses, imagination, and thought in a “truly human way.” Having and expressing emotions. Practical reason, or the ability to critically plan one’s life and develop a conception of the good. Being able to have affiliations with others. Concern for and interaction with other species. Play. Control over one’s environment, which includes both ability to participate in political decisions and control over one’s personal property.

states that there are three types of capabilities, basic, internal, and combined. Basic capabilities are innate, and develop rather rapidly. They are necessary for having “more advanced” capabilities. Seeing, hearing, and language-recognition are examples. Internal capabilities are developed states of a person, mature states ready to be acted upon if one chooses. She offers examples of sexual functioning, language use, religious freedom, and freedom of speech. Combined capabilities are internal capabilities and those external conditions necessary for their functioning. A person in a nondemocratic regime may have the internal capacity to appraise public officials and vote accordingly, but the regime may not allow the exercise of this capability. However, it is clear that all capacities require something external in order to be developed. Even the most basic capabilities require that someone establish the meaning of the world for the child. 35 Nussbaum, Frontiers, 76–78; Women, 78–80.

42

M. H. DeArmey

These capabilities have a threshold of satisfaction, not just for a life, but for a good life, a life of dignity.36 The capabilities are non-fungible.37 A deficiency in one capability on the list cannot be made up for by increasing something else on the list. How did the items on the list get on the list? They are what people of diverse backgrounds and values would agree upon: “an overlapping consensus in a pluralistic society.”38 In Women …. she lacks a consistent theory of dignity. She states that the idea of dignity is “difficult to ponder.”39 It is an “intuitive idea” which has “cross-cultural resonance and intuitive power.”40 She states that the list of capabilities is tied to “underlying ideas of human dignity,”41 but does not say what this “underlying” dignity is. It seems to be Kantian, for she repeatedly refers to persons as “ends in themselves,” as in this passage for example: … all too often women are not treated as ends in their own right, persons with a dignity that deserve respect …. Instead they are treated as mere instruments for the ends of others.42

Surely she has Kant in mind when she says she views people “as having activity, goals, and projects–as somehow awe-inspiringly above the mechanical workings of nature.”43 But surprisingly (and inconsistently!), she states that she is replacing “our principle of each person as end ” with “a principle of each person’s capability …”44 36 Nussbaum,

Frontiers, 181. 166. 38 Nussbaum, Frontiers, 182. Nussbaum confirmed the intuitive importance of items on the list through a detailed, in-person discussion with women in India. See Women … , xvi. Different societies may support the realization of these capabilities in different ways according to their histories. One can imagine that one society offers health insurance, another society offers free neighborhood clinics, yet another village is administered by itinerant doctors and nurses. All in all, the capabilities provide a “moral core” of a political conception, and this moral core is free-standing, independent of any metaphysical or religious or other comprehensive conception. 39 Nussbaum, Women, 91. 40 Ibid., 72. 41 Ibid., 302–303. 42 Ibid., 2. 43 Ibid., 73. 44 Ibid., 74. 37 Ibid.,

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

43

In the later The Frontiers of Justice, Nussbaum claims that her account of human dignity is “non-Kantian” and “Aristotelian.”45 This would mean, it seems, that each person is a bundle of capabilities (or powers or abilities), and that is what constitutes human dignity. Dignity, she asserts, is “intertwined” with the capabilities, and cannot be defined independently of them. The realization of the capabilities, the flourishing of persons, is human dignity. The capabilities “flesh out” dignity and respect.46 For a person not to have one or more capabilities is an affront to their dignity. Nussbaum’s position is sketchy and the concept of capability suffers from imprecision and substantial ambiguity. She does not clearly distinguish inherent or universal human dignity from leading a life with dignity. People lacking in one or more of the capabilities still possess inherent or universal human dignity. Babies, the comatose, Mother Teresa’s sick and dying, possess dignity even though they do not lead a life of dignity. Capability theory stumbles over the fact that “capability” has diverse meanings. A person is (passively) capable of being nourished, housed, or sheltered without that person having the capability of (actively) nourishing or sheltering herself. Babies can be nourished without the capability to nourish themselves. What is of primary importance is that a person be nourished, be sheltered, and secondarily that they are capable of nourishing or sheltering themselves. In yet another sense “capable” can refer to a being’s natural potential. A child, but not a mouse, is the kind of being that can be taught to read although the child is presently incapable of reading. Perhaps it would be better overall to work through the concept of needs and the satisfaction of needs rather than capabilities. Sen himself distinguishes crucially important, urgent, “basic needs” from other capabilities.47 45 Ibid.,

161. Kantian dignity is rejected because the idea of a person as an end-in-itself is tied to his rationalism and would therefore exclude “people with mental impairments” (171). Respect and dignity must be “recast” to extricate them from Kantian rationalism (177). 46 Ibid., 171. 47 Amartya Sen, “Capability and Well-Being,” in The Quality of Life, edited by Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 43. An alternative to capabilities would be to distinguish basic biological needs, cultural needs, and instrumental

44

M. H. DeArmey

Capabilities are rather empty without opportunities, and opportunities are provided by external goods and services, e.g., reading requires books, teachers, schools, chalk, and board; the opportunity to prepare and cook food is provided by the food, utensils, heat, etc. One might be capable of reading, but this would not mean much if the only reading materials were Nazi pamphlets or alchemy texts. So capabilities in this sense are potentials, not identical with actual abilities (or capabilities as actualized but not “functioning”). It would make no sense to say that inherent dignity lies in these external goods. What is true is that such goods are components enabling people to live true to the dignity they inherently possess. Not having these things constitutes a degraded human life, a life inconsistent with possessing inherent, universal human dignity. And since opportunities for choice are provided by external objects, it must therefore be the case that, if there is a concept of universal human dignity at work in capabilities theory, it would consist in choice, the ability to choose which needs are most pressing to a person/people, and to select among opportunities available to us. This takes us back to Kant and the Kantians who use autonomy as the core idea in universal human dignity.48

Analysis of the Concept of Dignity Transcendence, Majesty, Nobility. The concept of dignity is an aesthetic/ethical concept, but as noted at the outset, exceedingly difficult to define. It is clear that there are three types of dignity: (1) “vertical” dignity consisting of social status; (2) horizontal or universal dignity inherent in a kind(s) of living being(s); and (3) dignity in reference to behavior, either by (a) a person manifesting his/her dignity either on special occasions (e.g., funerals) or in the quality of life a person leads; (b) loss of personal dignity, either by behaving contrary to one’s dignity or having one’s dignity assaulted in some way; or (c) assisting, enhancing, and needs. Health would be one of the basic biological needs; ability to critically develop a plan for life would be cultural; having pots to cook with would be instrumental. 48 After all the major impetus behind capabilities theory in both Sen and Nussbaum is personal freedom.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

45

caring for a person’s dignity. Of these three types, the main focus here will be on the second type—inherent, universal, or what may be deemed “natural dignity” (meaning “the way things are” with no reference to a supernatural agency). The strategy is to locate strands of meaning that constitute the concept of dignity at work in these three types. No doubt people began to think of dignity when priests, chiefs, princes, and kings and queens emerged in human societies. This original sense of dignity meant in part something majestic, noble, and transcendent in relation to something else. A king or queen has the dignity of royalty (power, authority) in relation to commoners, and is looked upon with awe. In the scant literature on dignity this is referred to as “vertical dignity,” the dignity of station or office. A king who acted beneath his station by being morally perverse, having temper tantrums, making obscene gestures, or lacking personal hygiene, would be acting contrary to the dignity of his/her office. Such acts diminish or banish the majesty attached to (vertical) dignity. Persons of status emphasize their dignity by embellishing or surrounding themselves with top hats, crowns, towers, steeples, domes, vaulted ceilings, jewelry, seals, etc. All of these enhancers emphasize the transcendence of the king, prince, etc., over all others. Dignity need not include “beautiful” as part of its meaning. There could be a disfigured person of status whose dignity was not diminished by his disfigurement. Hephaestus, the Greek god of technology, was crippled; Kaiser Wilhelm II had Erb’s palsy; Franklin Roosevelt was crippled by polio. Lord Byron had a club foot. Dignity does include “noble” as part of its meaning.49 The Greek kalon ambiguously hovers over concepts like beautiful, noble, and fine. What does it mean to be noble? In the case of vertical dignity, nobility is comportment and behavior appropriate to one’s dignity. As such it can be reduced or lost entirely, either by an agent acting contrary to one’s dignity (immoral or disgusting actions), or by humiliation or degradation imposed by some agent. “Noble” can be attributed to living beings of a certain complexity. Despite the hardships and contingencies that an indifferent nature rains

49 Dignity

and nobleness, are not synonymous. Dignity is something possessed by virtue of a relation to something else, whereas noble refers to behavior which may only be manifested by a being with dignity.

46

M. H. DeArmey

down upon living creatures, they keep striving and struggling, overcoming paralysis and depression from defeat or failure. A wide range of creatures can soar above nature’s obstacles, exhibiting persistence and courage, even heroism, in maintaining their way of life. References to nobility show up in very diverse contexts. In A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold describes the early spring arrival of cranes to the marshes of Wisconsin. He sees the cranes, at that moment, as the realization, the end product, of millions of years of migrating, nesting, and struggling by millions of its kind. He sees their trumpeting, their flailing of wings, their scurrying for food and nesting material, as an expression of their diachronic nobility: An endless caravan of generations has built of its own bones this bridge into the the future, this habitat where the oncoming host may again live and breed and die …. His tribe, we now know, stems out of the remote Eocene …. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men …. a crane marsh holds a paleontological patent of nobility.50

In the case of persons, Martha Nussbaum insightfully remarks that when some terrible contingency in life does not completely extinguish a person, the determination to keep on living shows itself as dignity. She notes that this is a feature of “tragic artworks”: … dignity … [is] the idea that lies at the heart of tragic artworks, in whatever culture. Think of a tragic character, assailed by fortune. We react to the spectacle of humanity so assailed in a way very different from the way we react to a storm blowing grains of sand …. [In such cases] As Aristotle puts it, “the noble shines through.”51

50 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966), 102–103. Alexander Wilson, writing in American Ornithology early in the 1800s states in a similar vein that ivory billed woodpeckers (alas, now extinct) “have dignity” as they soar above their homes high up in giant cypress trees. Cited by Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life (New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 2002), 104. 51 Nussbaum, Women … , 72–73.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

47

Reporters observing the funerals attended by surviving family members of Japan’s 2011 tsunami noted how these survivors conducted themselves with composure and with “solemn dignity and nobility” amidst death and destruction. From this brief examination, some core strands of meaning in the concept of dignity are these: awesome, majestic, noble, absence of moral perversity, potential for triumph and tragedy.52 Straddled across these meanings is the central meaning of dignity, transcendence.53 Dignity is the transcendence of living things, a notion to be given substantial content in the discussion below. In regard to behavior, dignity means the transcending, overcoming, hardships, setbacks, and obstacles. Attempts to locate dignity in reason, responsibility, or a sense of justice are too narrow and set the bar too high for universal dignity attribution. Dignity is a relational concept. In “Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature” David Hume notes that our judgments about dignity “are commonly more influenced by comparison than by any fixed unalterable standard in the nature of things.”54 Hume is correct on the point that dignity is always relational. There is always a background against which dignity is asserted. Some people assert that human beings have dignity in contrast to nonhuman animals. Pascal thought that people have dignity in thinking, against the background of a mindless cosmos. However, Hume’s remark is misleading. Comparisons can of course be made against fixed standards, and the results of such comparisons can be non-fluctuating, invariant. This is the case with dignity attribution. What is this fixed standard? It is a cosmological picture—a cosmos indifferent to life and nearly everywhere hostile to the formation of life. Background of Dignity Attributions: Nature of the Cosmos and the Rarity of Life. A cosmopolitan theory of dignity is one in which we are all equally dignified as citizens of the world order or cosmic city. A short description of this world order as currently understood is a necessary 52 Aurel

Kolnai asks whether dignity has “a categorial status of its own … bordering on the ethical and the aesthetical .…” “Dignity,” Philosophy 51 (1976): 255. 53 By “transcendence” is meant abandonment of a former state in obtaining a new, qualitatively superior state at or approximating a difference in kind. 54 David Hume, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, Eugene F. Miller editor (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985), 80–86.

48

M. H. DeArmey

background for clarifying, estimating, and contrasting the dignity of living beings. Just as the ancient Stoic philosophers pictured man as part of a world order in which energy or “fire” and reason are immanent throughout, so today’s cosmological picture is the background for today’s cosmopolitanism. There is no universally accepted cosmology in the sciences today. Rivalry in explaining existence is between Big Bang, Steady-state, Quantum, String, Cyclic, and Multiverse theories. Despite this chaos, all theories regard energy, events/processes, quantum unpredictability, chance, and singularity as basic cosmic components. Both structure-formation and destruction take place, structures being relative stabilities in waveprobability fluctuations. Process philosophy best accommodates the present cosmic picture. In today’s cosmic picture the universe began 13.72 billion years ago. A sequence of stages developed, the first dominated by radiation, then matter, then the recombination of atomic nuclei and electrons to form a gas, and finally the phase in which galaxies and quasars are formed. During the early stages matter and antimatter are formed. These proceed to annihilate one another, but not completely. Here and there are islands of baryonic matter (matter as defined by the table of atomic elements) which survive, the result of irregularities or tyche. Baryonic or observable matter constitutes only 4.4–4.6% of the total contents of the universe. The remaining content of the universe consists of dark matter (23%) and dark energy (72%). Of the 4.4–4.6% baryonic matter, 50% consists of galaxies, stars, and stellar objects such as planets, asteroids, hot gas, and intergalactic hydrogen. The remaining 50% is somewhat problematic, but on one hypothesis it is thought that it exists in the form of gas filaments around clusters of galaxies or in non-clustered groups of galaxies. On this hypothesis, hidden baryonic gas is too hot to emit photons but not hot enough to produce observable x-rays. Even on the most robust speculations from exobiology, life only appears in the infinitesimally small fraction of baryonic matter, and only

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

49

when conditions are favorable for replication of certain chemical complexes.55 In relation to the totality of existence therefore, life considered as sheer biomass, is the rarest of things, even on the most optimistic calculations. Nearly all of the cosmos is hostile to the formation of life. Despite the millions of galaxies, life forms can exist only in the smallest fraction of what there is. Under what conditions would chemical replications take place that would lead to genotypes and phenotypes? It is thought that organic molecules, nucleotides, must have been synthesized in either water droplets in the air and/or in scattered rock crevices and/or clay particles.56 Lightning probably played a role. Out of these nucleotides a replicating chemical strand that could store and reproduce information about itself evolved, probably an RNA replicator. Assuming variants of the RNA template would occur, those replicators which were more successful in duplicating themselves would eventually displace less successful replicators, initiating the process of natural selection. A giant step, a quantum jump at it were, occurred when some replicators evolved into encapsulated form, i.e., a wall around itself allowing for a stabilizing internal state independent of varying external states.57 Replicators with this protective membrane were more successful than those without it, and thus eventually displaced the latter. Finally, variation occurred within the encapsulating membrane, molecules other than RNA took over inscribing information (DNA), and RNA became the transmitter of DNA information to proteins. At this point it seems that the above processes are not driven by necessity alone but also by chance. If this is so, then how many false starts and failed emergences of life have occurred? How many life-worlds never advanced beyond the stage of unstructured organic chemistry or bacteria? How many life-worlds have succumbed to asteroids, gamma rays, or

55 Some

of these conditions: (1) atomic elements necessary for chemical replication; (2) a stable, external source of energy; (3) water; and (4) absence of crushing gravity, lethal radiation or prohibitive cold or heat; a source of energy such as solar, chemical, or lightning. 56 Richard E. Michod, “Population Biology of the First Replicators: On the Origin of Genotype, Phenotype, and Organism,” American Zoologist, 23 (1983): 5–14. 57This is proto-intentionality, directedness outward. See W. Tecumseh Fitch, “NanoIntentionality—A Defense of Intrinsic Intentionality,” Biology and Philosophy, 23 (2008): 157– 177.

50

M. H. DeArmey

dying suns or other such catastrophic extinction events? How many lifeworlds have reached the stage of development in which living beings can be said by an outside observer to have dignity? How rarer still would be the emergence of beings like us. Although rarity by itself does not imply dignity, rarity plus qualitative transcendence does.

The Basic Dignity of Living Beings Recent scientific research has uncovered a world of near-life forms below the cellular. These subcellular, prelife forms seem to be basically patterns of chemical replication and patterns of interaction with other chemical strands.58 More complex are one-celled life forms which have the distinction of maintaining cellular stability or integrity under fluctuating conditions. The behavior of these one-celled, tiny chemical engines is simple and repetitive. A reasonable hypothesis is that ordinary, natural causation would fully explain the internal processes/movements at the subcellular and cellular level. But in the tree of life there are organisms whose nature and behavior are complex, transcending chemical replications and repetitive behaviors. The behavior of these organisms is goal-directed, plastic or nonrepetitive, persistent, exploratory, and capable of coping with novel situations. In The Principles of Psychology William James sets out the following criterion for both mindedness and truly telic behavior: “The pursuance of future ends and choice of means for their attainment are thus the mark and criterion of the presence of mentality in a phenomenon.”59 James notes that iron filings stick forever to a card placed between themselves and a magnet, whereas an aquarium frog, encountering an obstacle in its rise to the surface, bobs around until it finds a way to the air, just as Romeo tries by 58 See

the relevant chapters in David P. Clark and Nanette J. Pazderik, Molecular Biology, 2nd ed. (Waltham, MA: Elsevier Academic Cell, 2012); Also, see John Baez’s short overview of subcellular ‘life’ on the web, http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/subcellular.html#Viruses. Whether these entities, such as viruses, viroids, virusoids, plasmids, are “alive” or not is problematic. 59 William James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. (New York: Dover Publications, 1950), 8. This is James’ position on knowledge of other minds as well. See Michael DeArmey, “William James and Other Minds,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, XX (1982): 325–336.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

51

every means to get to Juliet. Plasticity, appropriateness, and persistence of behavior characterize a truly telic organism. Mark Bedau has investigated how non-goal-directed systems can be distinguished from goal-directed systems.60 “Deflecting forces” are those obstacles that stand in the way of reaching a goal, such as a pane of glass blocking the frog from rising to the surface. “Restoring forces” restore the system to its goal state. This would be the frog’s exploratory bobbing and subsequent resumption of moving toward the surface of the water. As with James, for Bedau plasticity and persistence are prima facie evidence for a truly telic system. A marble rolling around in a bowl has plasticity (different routes in reaching the bottom of the bowl) and persistence, but does not roll around for the sake of itself or the bowl. It is a non-telic equilibrium system. Compare that to the muscle/kidney equilibrium system which maintains a constant 90% water level in the blood for the sake of the organism. Bedau experiments by adding more and more complexity to the independent deflecting and restorative forces in non-telic systems in the attempt to match the features of a goal-directed system. If successful, this would mean that telic systems are explicable in terms of ordinary causation. However, these additives fail. What is necessary for a system to be telic is the notion of “good.” A 90% level of water in the blood is good for the organism. To say this is to say that the organism has a good of its own. Bedau says that for X to be good for Y means that Y has a good of its own independent of the value that someone places upon it. Bedau contrasts water being good for a plant with … [a] vortex that forms in the bathtub as it drains. A continual influx of water is required to sustain the vortex, but this water is not in the requisite sense “good” for the vortex because the vortex has no intrinsic interests, is not an “end-in-itself ” ….61

60 Mark

Bedau, “Goal-Directed Systems and the Good,” The Monist, 75 (1992): 34–51. For a classic discussion of body ‘hydraulics’ and other internal functions see Walter. B. Canon, The Wisdom of the Body. Revised edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963). 61 Ibid., 46.

52

M. H. DeArmey

Not explicitly mentioned by Bedau is that such plastic behavior appears to spring from within the organism. Recall Aristotle’s description of the voluntary as behavior whose principle of motion is from within. Kolnai refers to this as “ontological value” or “spiritual center of gravity.”62 In a similar vein Paul Taylor argued that organisms are to be respected because they have a good of their own. They can be harmed or benefitted independently of human interference. To be harmed or benefitted necessitates that the organism has a good of its own.63 Behavioral plasticity allows telic organisms to satisfy their needs by moving about. This means that telic life forms have a world in which they move about and have their being. Philosopher and biologist Adolf Portmann describes the life-worlds of such diverse creatures as dragonflies and reindeer.64 It is an amazing and wonderful thing indeed that out of the lifelessness of the cosmos the phenomenon of having a world emerges, beyond just being in the world. Earlier dignity was defined as transcendence in which a kind of being appears majestic, noble, in relation to some other kind of being. The dignity of living beings at the first level is the transcendence of mainly inorganic and repetitive causation, even beyond organic chemical replications. The features that constitute the dignity of living beings at this level, and which give content to earlier, sketchy remarks about transcendence are:

62 Kolnai,

256. Taylor, Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986). I have supplemented Taylor’s theory with need fulfillment/nonfulfillment, which I consider preferable to the language of “capabilities” in Nussbaum’s writings. Let’s imagine that humans and other life forms are now extinct. Amid the objects left in this lifeless world is an antique wooden clock on a shelf in a storage facility. A tremor causes a can of wood preservative to fall off the shelf. It bounces on a lower shelf, popping the lid off, and the wood preservative drains on the clock. This was good for the clock. Does this mean the clock has a good of its own, and therefore should respected if we reintroduce humans back into the world? And what about stalactites and stalagmites? They can be harmed by tremors and benefited by mineral rich moisture. This difficulty can be resolved by positing that something has a good of its own only if it has parts that function to serve its own good. Clocks and stalactites have no movements which can be rightly described as striving to fulfill needs. 64 Adolf Portmann, Animals as Social Beings (New York: Harper & Row, 1961). 63 Paul

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

53

1. 2. 3. 4.

Possession of a good of their own—value comes on the scene. The value or good consists of the satisfaction of needs. The good is realized by persistent goal-seeking behavior. When deflected from a good, appropriate restorative means are used to obtain the goal. 5. Synchronically, beings of this type transcend natural causation by having a world with value. 6. Diachronically, beings of this kind, both individuals and groups over generations, transcend hardships and setbacks (recall the quote from Leopold, cited above). Which particular animal species exhibit genuine telic behavior and are thus fit subjects of dignity attribution is an empirical question. Certainly reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals including human beings manifest it. Some insects might be included. The size, shape, and color of an organism are irrelevant. However that may be, subtract value from the universe, and dignity instantly disappears. Are creatures such as a frog or a cockroach (which is quite “clever”) majestic or noble? I would say they are given the James/Bedau features considered against the aforementioned cosmic background. Seeking a good of its own by means of plastic behavior is amazing. But I cannot rigorously prove that these creatures must be viewed as having majesty and nobility. Is it required that animals with a good of their own and which exhibit the aforementioned plasticity have beliefs? They do on Daniel Dennett’s “intentional strategy.” He cites three strategies for understanding what there is. The purely physical strategy, the design strategy, and the intentional strategy.65 The latter involves the claim that the behavior of humans and animals can be predicted for the most part by understanding them as having reasoned beliefs. Melanie Steinkus has successfully argued that this strategy works best for predicting animal behavior.66 James’ frog cited above is bobbing around the glass because it has the desire to survive and that it believes that there is a way to 65 Daniel Dennett, “True Believers; the Intentional Strategy and Why It Works,” in Scientific Explanation, edited by A. F. Heath (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1981), 53–75. 66 Melanie Steinkus, “Dennett’s Intentional Strategy Applied to Animals,” Res Cogitans, 6 (2015): 29–35.

54

M. H. DeArmey

the surface. The intentional strategy works reliably but less reliably for humans because of the much greater complexity of beliefs and desires. Among cosmopolitans one could not find a sharper contrast on the subject of animal dignity than Raimond Gaita and Martha Nussbaum. Gaita denies that animals have an inner life. They cannot reflect on what happens to them. Since there is no inner individuality, animals cannot be murdered. Nor is it possible to write a biography of an animal.67 This contrasts sharply with Martha Nussbaum’s position. She holds that animals have dignity but thinks “it is difficult to know precisely what that phrase means.”68 She says we know about animal dignity negatively through degradation or humiliation of an animal(s), which occurs when humans diminish or harm their way of life. She thinks that the activities and goals which characterize a species open the door to “a wide range of types of dignity.”69 She cites a high court ruling in Kerala, India concerning the treatment of circus animals in which the court referred to “the undignified way of life they have to live, with no respite … they are beings entitled to dignified existence .…”70 Nussbaum wisely holds that animal dignity consists in animals going about doing those things which they typically do in their natural environment.

67 Raimond

Gaita, Good and Evil, 116–118. These claims are certainly misguided. Telic animals certainly have different personalities. Animals occupy contrary positions in human societies. On the one hand they are merely property, on the other hand laws protect them from human cruelty. Be that as it may, surely Gaita forgets that there are countless human beings for whom no biography could be written other than citing repetitive daily routines and common relationships. 68 Nussbaum, Frontiers, 326. 69 Ibid., 325. 70 Ibid., 325. This was reaffirmed by the High Court of Madras in which Indian Supreme Court Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer was cited as holding that maltreatment of animals goes against the teachings of “… the Vedas, the Bible, the Koran, the Buddha and Mahavire and the Supreme miracle … humanism cannot be halved by denying it to prehuman brethren …. all life is too divinely integral to admit of unnatural dichotomy as man and animal. …” Cited online in K. Madhaven vs. The District Collector on 4 September, 2008. https://indiankanoon.org/doc/ 757246/.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

55

The Enhanced Dignity of Pairing and Caring On Caring and Alterity. The second level of dignity involves the capacity of some life forms to care about others. This enhanced type of dignity is similar to the fascinating “eyes of love” theory discussed previously. In what follows, caring will be shown to be a new form of dignity/transcendence which gives caring animals as a group important survival advantages and in some cases can take a form approximating a moral life of virtues and vices within their community. The reader is asked to indulge what will be a romp through what William James called “wild data,” ethological data ranging from guppies to elephants. All life forms are constituted by their relations to other beings. The mosquito is structured to pierce the host’s flesh and draw blood. The anatomy of the hummingbird is structured to extract the flower’s nectar, the jaws of a hyena to crush bone. In some animals there is a type of constitutive relationship, pairing, in which living beings exhibit care for others. The other’s well-being enters into the constitution and identity of the caring being as a natural characteristic of its species. The caring organism attempts to protect and promote the good of another. “Pairing” here is shorthand for an organism that by its nature associates with or is attached to one or more other organisms in a helpful way. These “pairs” have enhanced dignity not only when viewed against the background of an indifferent cosmos, or that of mere chemically replicating “life” forms, but also against the background of life forms with only the basic dignity previously discussed. Life forms with only the minimal type of transcendent dignity lead a solitary existence, indifferent to other life forms, except perhaps as preying or preyed upon. They go about their business alone. Constitutionally paired life forms on the other hand have a significantly magnified majesty and nobility. Family, social, and communal values appear, along with reciprocal communication. Emotions such as grief, joy, indignation, appear, as well as behaviors like patience, toleration, and fair play. Courage, sacrifice, triumph, and tragedy are possible.71 71Two

examples of the all-too tragic nature of animal life. For weeks I watched a female wood thrush fly back and forth to feed and care for her hungry brood. Then one morning a small

56

M. H. DeArmey

The Concept of “Care” and Types of Care. Just as “respect” has both moral and nonmoral meanings, so likewise with care. In some expressions care figures in indifference (“I don’t care”), and has a nonmoral meaning. Care may express the need for caution (“careful”). Care can also refer to things a person is worried about in some way, things pressing upon a person’s attention. “She hasn’t a care in the world” means she has no worries. Often “care about” has a moral meaning (“She cares about what happens to the homeless”), and “care for” means practical helpfulness (“The hen cares for her chicks”). Care can be used to indicate taking on a role in helping in some way (“caretaker”). The focus here is on “care” in the sense of helpful behavior (care for) or the motivation/disposition to help another (care about). The practice of care may be either unilateral or reciprocal. It may be intermittent (e.g., seasonal) or continuous over a greater or lesser period of time. The recipient or giver of care may be another single individual, for example a mate, or it may be a group, such as a flock or herd. Caring may be instinctive (e.g., a hen’s care for her hatchlings), triggered by an event (e.g., care of an infant chimpanzee is assumed by the deceased

boy walked by, pellet gun in hand, holding the mother wood thrush upside down by her spindly legs, while nearby the poor hatchlings called out for her. The proud smile on the boy’s triumphant face was in sharp contrast with the distressed chirping of the now dying hatchlings. An even more heartbreaking example is this from amateur naturalist and children’s storybook writer Thorton Burgess. For years Burgess had been observing the New England heath hen (Tympanuchus cupido): The female hens nested on a protected portion of Martha’s Vineyard, and were flourishing there until a fire wiped out all the hens, who would not budge from their nests. After the fire only six males survived. The next spring these six returned to the field where they had for untold generations gathered for their courtship ritual. The year after that, only four returned, but those four birds went through all courting rituals as ardently as if the bright admiring eyes of love were in truth watching every move. In 1929 the four had been reduced to one, a heartbreaking picture of utter loneliness .… [he] emerge[d] from the thick cover of scrub oak .…The display, dance and call were repeated many times .… It was a shear, stark tragedy watching that lone bird displaying all his charms, calling for a mate after the manner of his race down through thousands of years …. Thorton W. Burgess, Now I Remember (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1960), 180.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

57

mother’s sisters), or it may be the result of deliberation involving principles (e.g., a person decides she ought to help destitute immigrants). Typically, among animals, and for many human beings, care requires proximity, similarity, and familiarity. Ethological studies reveal various types and degrees of care. “Pre-care” consists of factors that bring life forms closer to one another, a kind of prologue to care. Ethologist and philosopher Frans de Waal cites “synchronicity,” which he considers “the oldest form of adjustment to others.”72 Synchronicity is the spread of a behavior by imitation, resulting in coordinated behavior. Humans are familiar with this in cases of laughter and yawning contagion, and most likely the phenomenon of being drawn into crowds. Synchronicity enhances identification with the other, and, “Identification is the hook that draws us in and makes us adopt the situation, emotions, and behavior of those we’re close to.”73 Another form of “pre-care” is identification with those we see in pain or distress. We are attracted to others in pain (unless it is an unbearable sight). Kropotkin cites helpful beetles and crabs. Mark Rowlands cites a dog that drags an injured dog off the highway. Chimpanzees lick the wounds of injured chimpanzees and swat flies away. Mice not in pain show pain behavior when they see other mice in pain. Although such citations are often anecdotal, such behaviors can be duplicated in controlled experiments. Another form of pre-care not cited in de Waal, Rowlands, or Bekoff is found in biosemiotic communication. The outer surface of an organism contains information about its inner state in relation to others of its kind. Pigmentation, eyespots, feather configurations, and many other factors convey information to others in the animal’s environment. Some of these pertain to pairing.74

72 Frans

de Waal, The Age of Empathy. Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009), 52. 73 Waal, 54. 74 Adolf Portmann did pioneering work in biosemiotics and biosemantics. See Karel Kleisner, “The Semantic Morphology of Adolf Portmann: A Starting Point for the Biosemiotics of Organic Form?” Biosemiotics, 1 (2008): 207–219.

58

M. H. DeArmey

Marc Bekoff and Janet Pierce cite four forms of care proper.75 First, kin altruism is common among a wide range of species, e.g., the warning sounds of ground squirrels increase if genetically related nesting squirrels are nearby. There are many varieties of kin altruism. Cooperative breeding may be found in some species of birds. For example, the grown offspring of a monogamous breeding pair of Scrub Jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) become helpers in feeding and protecting their parents’ hatchlings. In another variation, the Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) lives in groups of 2–15 individuals, with four breeding males and 1–2 breeding females. Both females may lay eggs in a single nest, and all members of the group take part in incubating, feeding, and defending the offspring.76 Mutualism is the second form of care or help in which individuals cooperate to achieve a quick payoff that cannot be achieved alone. For example, a lion pride brings down a water buffalo. Reciprocal altruism is exemplified by baboon grooming. Researchers established that female baboons groom more frequently those females which have given them the most frequent grooming. The payback in this reciprocal arrangement may be delayed. Generalized reciprocity occurs when an unrelated and unfamiliar individual is helped based on a previous experience of being helped by an unrelated and unfamiliar individual. Rowlands cites chimpanzees helping humans with no offer of an enticing reward. Beyond these four, a fifth type is called “commensalism.” This occurs when an organism regularly helps another, but without risk to itself (remora and pilot fish clean sharks without risk to themselves). A sixth type might be called non-regular “no risk altruism.” An example of this is cited by de Waal. A bonobo (cousin of the chimpanzee) picks up a stunned bird that had flown into the glass on the ape’s cage and carries it to the top of a tree, spreads the bird’s wings and releases it. A seventh type is “risk altruism.” This is the standard among biologists for verifiable altruistic behavior. One animal helps another while risking a greater or lesser cost 75 Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce, Wild Justice, The Moral Lives of Animals (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009), 59–60. 76 Stephen T. Emlen and Sandral Vehrencamp, “Cooperative Breeding Strategies Among Birds,” in Perspectives in Ornithology, Alan H. Brush and George A. Clark, Jr. (Cambridge, London and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 94ff.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

59

to itself. Sentinels which give warning cries endanger themselves; one documentary shows an elephant at a water hole going out of its way to protect a rhinoceros from attacking lions. Some emotions and moods in animals are indicators of care. Both Marc Beckhoff and Mark Rowlands hold that emotions/moods such as depression, joy, indignation, loyalty, and behaviors such as toleration, presuppose caring about another.77 Recently, studies in both genetics and neurophysiology provide some explanation of the physical constitution of some forms of care. In 1992 Italian neurophysiologists discovered “mirror neurons.” They found that brain cells in monkeys fire when the monkey sees the experimenter take a peanut, but surprisingly the same neurons fire when the monkey takes a peanut from the experimenter. This means that the behavior of others becomes part of the perceiving organism. A human baby reaches out upon seeing an adult reach out, and reaches out due to the same neurons involved in the perception of the adult reaching out. Mothers, watching their infants chew, often unconsciously mimic the movements of their child’s mouth.78 The Status of Caring in Evolutionary Biology. The encapsulating of replicating RNA and the subsequent development of one-celled organisms with DNA was the first major step in the development of life on earth. The second, equally important moment was the coming-into-existence of value—organisms with ends and behavioral plasticity to achieve those ends. The third major step was the appearance of organisms that care for others. These organisms are structured to have social values and a communication repertoire. Beginning with Darwin, conclusions can be drawn from evolutionary biology supporting the transcendence of care-based dignity over the nature of less sophisticated life forms. In Chapter IV of The Descent of Man Darwin argued that “It is certain that associated animals have a feeling of love for each other, which

77 See

Marc Bekoff, The Emotional Lives of Animals (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2007). Also, Mark Rowlands, Can Animals Be Moral ? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 200. 78 Waal, 52–54 and 78–79; Also, see Dan Zahavi, Self-Awareness and Alterity: A Phenomenological Investigation (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999).

60

M. H. DeArmey

is not felt by non-social adult animals.”79 His observations are anecdotal but significant for the theory of the natural survival value of the group. Darwin writes that solitary animals (animals with minimal, basic dignity discussed above) “perish in greater numbers.”80 Whining, agitation, bellowing, and other behaviors indicate that some animals—he mentions horses, dogs, sheep—are “miserable … when separated from their companions.”81 He cites reports of blind birds (pelican and crow) being fed by their flock, and a monkey risking its life to protect a zookeeper from a baboon’s attack. He cites members of different species living in helpful association—“united flocks of rooks, jackdaws, and starlings.”82 Additional examples appear in Peter Kropotkin’s 1910 Mutual Aid.83 This book, which attempts to rescue Darwin from his misinterpreters, illustrates the range of caring and sociability in the animal kingdom. Kropotkin’s extensive citations include the ability of a beetle to “call upon” other beetles for help; a crab, “calling upon” other crabs to help upright a crab on its back; geese adopting orphans; the phenomena of playing, teasing, or singing together among many species. Caring individuals and their groupings exhibit values that transcend first-level organisms. And there are survival advantages to pairing and caring.84 One may cull from Kropotkin’s examples and ethological 79 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 2nd ed. (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1898), 103. 80 Ibid., 107. 81 Ibid., 101. 82 Ibid. 83 Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, a Factor in Evolution (London: William Heinemann, 1910). 84 Robert Axelrod has shown that in certain cases cooperation increases the chances for survival and well-being over noncooperative strategies for a species. Once started, cooperation tends to grow. It “can get started by even a small cluster of individuals who are prepared to reciprocate cooperation … it can protect itself from invasion by uncooperative strategies.” The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 173. In Unto Others, The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), Elliot Sober and David Sloan Wilson, examine altruism from the standpoint of the biologist, who is not concerned with motivation but only the survival value of behavior in which the helping agent risks something in helping another. They defend the position that nature selects both individuals (faster running zebras over slower zebras) and groups (monkeys with sentinels prosper better than monkeys without sentinels). Mark Rowlands cites interesting example of three different alarm calls among velvet monkeys (200). Sober and Wilson point out that if a group is a mixture of altruists and egoists, then the egoists will benefit from altruistic behavior, multiply and displace the altruists. On the other hand, groups of only

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

61

research generally the advantages of protection and security, sense of belonging, worry-free time to express the joys of life in exuberant play, song, and dance, and the increased longevity of individuals whose accumulated, practical wisdom benefits the family or group. In these attachments care is not restricted to kinship relations.85 Animal Dignity and Questions about Belief and Morality. Animals with enhanced dignity exhibit care/helpfulness and the features of a social world. Does this care reach the level of what could properly be called morality? Can animals be moral agents? Rowlands is doubtful that animals can be moral agents. That would require that animals are responsible and therefore accountable for their actions. They would be the subject of praise or blame. Bekoff and Pierce on the other hand think that animals can be moral agents within their own communities. Wolves may punish aberrant behavior within their pack. Monkeys punish those that give warning calls when no predator is present. Friendly, helpful behaviors elicit positive, reinforcing responses among many species, a behavioral equivalent of praise. Care itself is a virtue within some animal communities. The corresponding vice is neglect or viciousness. If acting morally requires rules or principles, it seems clear that animals cannot altruists outperform mixed groups, which is turn outperform groups of selfish individuals (6 vs. 3 vs. 0). Sober and Wilson cite a controlled experiment with guppies. Guppies preferred as companions those guppies which had functioned to inspect whether a predator was hungry. See L. A. Dugatkin and M. Alfieri, “Guppies and the Tit for Tat Strategy: Preference Based on Past Interaction,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 28 (1991): 243–246. 85 In 1963 and 1964 W. D. Hamilton published articles claiming that altruism exists only in cases involving kin. This became known as “kinship selection.” Subsequent research has shown that kinship selection is not universal. For example, in studies of elephant groups in Amboseli National Part, care/helpfulness was found to exist among unrelated individuals. In times of stress elephants give each other reassuring gestures. They bunch up and encircle their young when threatened. One researcher found that “While kinship explained some of the variability in affiliative relationships, the amount to time two animals spent within 5 m of each other was actually a better predictor of how often they engaged in social rubbing or greeted each other after being separated ….” Elizabeth A. Archie, Cynthia J. Moss, and Susan C. Alberts, “Friends and Relations: Kinship and the Nature of Female Elephant Social Relationships,” in The Amboseli Elephants. A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived Mammal, edited by Cynthia J. Moss, Harvey Croze, and Phyllis C. Lee (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 243. J. Baird Callicott has pointed out to me that while all altruistic behavior may have originated with kin, natural selection may have favored larger groups with affiliations transcending kinship. For an extensive discussion of biological ethics see J. Baird Callicott, Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

62

M. H. DeArmey

act morally or immorally. But rules or principles do not constitute the whole of morality. The question remains, “how animals can have dignity without possessing beliefs?” In a widely cited essay, Donald Davidson maintains there are grave difficulties in attributing beliefs to animals such as dogs. A dog not only does not have language, but does not have the network of beliefs necessary for having a single belief. Davidson states that We identify thoughts, distinguish between them, describe them for what they are, only as they can be located within a dense network of related beliefs. If we really can intelligibly ascribe single beliefs to a dog, we must be able to imagine how we would decide whether the dog has many other beliefs of the kind necessary for making sense of the first.86

If a dog sees a squirrel run up a tree, can we attribute to the dog the belief that the squirrel is up the tree? Not according to Davidson. Mark Rowlands is surely correct in holding that Davidson’s view is “implausible.”87 As noted earlier (page 58), Daniel Dennett’s interesting “intentional strategy” involves the idea that animals have reasoned beliefs because we can make successful predictions about their behavior on this basis. But how could animals could have beliefs without language? A plausible view is that to attribute concepts to a being, it must systematically discriminate Xs from Ys, be able to detect errors it makes, and learn on that basis to discriminate better. A dog pounces on a moving, furry stuffed animal, but quickly learns that it is not alive, and loses interest. The idea that concepts are tied to language is so ingrained in intellectual circles that perhaps it would be best to use the term “universals.”88 The

86 Donald

Davidson, “Rational Animals,” in Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited by E. LePore and B. McLaughlin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 475. 87 Rowlands, 54. 88 A plausible view is that animals develop universals from repeated encounters, e.g., lots of particular trees and the animal acquires the universal, “tree.” Not that it “has” a mental representation of a general tree (whatever that might be), but that a perceived particular is taken as a particular type.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

63

world of animals is basically the world of practice, and the good or bad that the environment affords in the way of doing.89

Human Dignity: Autonomy, Epoche, and Regards The third and most enhanced form of dignity is based on autonomy or self-rule. Among the four conceptions of autonomy distinguished by Feinberg in his widely cited “Autonomy” essay is basic or personal autonomy.90 This is the capacity to create single intentions and more widely to create one’s own design for living, to make changes in that design, even to discard one’s design and “start life over.” Not emphasized in autonomy scholarship but latent within basic/personal autonomy is the expansion capacity of autonomy. Autonomy allows for the “expansion” of what nature has restrictively bestowed upon us in the way of abilities and values. We create new ways of thinking, experimenting, quantifying; new ways of running faster, hitting a ball further, seeing better, eating better, and so on. Importantly, autonomy allows us to expand our care about and for a vast array of beings ranging from ourselves and our neighbors to foreigners, animals, habitats, even the earth as a whole. This expansion capacity shows up in William James’ chapter on the self in The Principles of Psychology. After defining the “ME” as all that one cares about, all that is “dear” to a person, James notes that a person can choose to expand or contract the “ME.” Stoics contract the “ME” and only care about what is under their control, but Sympathetic people proceed by the entirely opposite way of expansion and inclusion … He who, with Marcus Aurelius, can truly say, ‘O Universe, I wish all that thou wishest’ has a self from which every trace of 89 James. J. Gibson, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (New York: Psychology Press Taylor and Francis Group, 1986). J. J. Gibson describes the perceptual field for animals and humans alike as first and foremost a three- dimensional, geometrical “layout” with a collateral appraisal of what the environment “affords.” 90 Joel Feinberg, “Autonomy,” in The Inner Citadel. Essays on Individual Autonomy, edited by John Christman (New York and Oxford, 1989), 27–53.

64

M. H. DeArmey

negativeness and obstructiveness has been removed—no wind can blow except to fill its sails.91

Alfred Mele’s work on autonomy is the most advanced in print.92 The focal point in his analysis of autonomy is intention, and he makes major strides in the analysis of intention beyond the classic work by G. E. M. Anscombe. For Mele, autonomy has the following features: As part of the designing process for one’s life, autonomy involves having intentions. Intentions involve plans to be acted upon, and the plan forms the content of the intention. The autonomous agent uses reason to achieve a plan that is often but not always one’s better judgment concerning what to do. The plan can be complex (with sub-plans, alternate routes, forked trees, etc.) or a simple representation. Intentions with their plans and representations can be distal or proximal, that is, for the future or now. A proximal intention is an executive order to act. Autonomy requires self-control (a hypnotized person lacks control over his/her intentions). It requires that the agent’s beliefs have informational content that is accurate. The plan which is the content of intention must be congruent with the agent’s environment (no one can intend to eat lunch today on the planet Venus). Finally, the autonomous agent must care about what he/she is doing—motivated to act according to one’s judgment. Success in acting upon intentions is greatly enhanced by the use of reason in the deliberative and decision-making process. From a negative perspective the factors which undermine autonomy are mental health problems, compulsions (internal psychological or external, e.g., brainwashing), coincidence and luck, bad reasoning, misinformation, and incongruent environments. Since one’s autonomy is freedom to form one’s own intentions, a significant question is, “what is required for forming intentions?” What are the component capabilities that a person must have in order to have conscious intentions? First, one must have or have had mobility and sensory organs, both being necessary for action. Secondly, one must have memory capabilities (inclusive of recollections, habits, and bodily 91The

Principles of Psychology, Volume 1, 298–299. Alfred R. Mele, Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 92 Sees

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

65

memory). Thirdly, one must be able to hold in mind one’s plan. This is what William James calls “intending the same,” the principle of constancy of meaning.93 The constancy of the plan is necessary for recalling the same bracketed, distal intention and for monitoring the same plan to ascertain whether the intention is being fulfilled. Fourthly, one would not be motivated to act unless one had cares, wants, or desires. Beyond these capacities necessary for forming intentions are two others not commonly cited. Setting aside the comatose and infants, these two appear to be distinctive of human beings and are important elements in the enhanced, third type of human dignity. Human beings can “bracket,” suspend, or put out of play any previous intention, even suspend the whole of the practical world. The mathematician puts out of play the thought of her upcoming root canal. She is completely absorbed in the equations at hand. A carpenter concentrates on sharpening the saw blade, which will be (distal intention) used to cut wood, which he will then (distal intention) use for the door casing. In trying to understand others we bracket our standpoint to put ourselves in another’s shoes. We can isolate and reflect upon “first-order” desires to determine if they are desirable. Aesthetic distancing requires bracketing. Borrowing a term from Husserl, a good name for this ability to put intentions and the practical world out of play is the epoche. The epoche is a most striking feature of autonomy, for it creates a void or “space” in which new intentions can be freely formed. Nonhuman animals apparently do not have this “space.” The Russian primatologist G. F. Khroustov found that chimpanzees were unable to learn to use a tool to make a tool. The chimpanzees could not put out of play the goal of obtaining a banana inside a tube, in order to concentrate on using a stone ax to fashion a stick of mahogany that would enable it to push the banana out of a tube.94 Bracketing has some support from cognitive 93 William

James, The Principles of Psychology, 2 vols. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890), 1, 459. James says “The mind can always intend, and know when it intends, to think of the Same.” 94 G. F. Kroustov, “Formation and Highest Frontier of the Implemental Activity of Anthropoids,” reprinted in Phillip V. Tobias, The Brain in Hominid Evolution (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971), 123. He says “… the decisive step of using a tool to make a tool was impossible for the ape under these experimental conditions.” The neural basis for the epoche may be inhibition of some neural processes by other neural processes. See Bjorn

66

M. H. DeArmey

psychology.95 Bracketing is of course not continuous in our lives. A great part of our lives involves habit and attention compelled by factors in our environment. Because of this human ability to bracket, it is possible for us to have “regards,” the second neglected ability required for autonomy. A regard is a type of intention. It is the way in which something is viewed. It involves how one is viewing the world at any moment. Each regard forms the matrix in which other, more specific intentions are, so to speak, embedded. Most of our conscious life takes place within a practical regard. She drives her car to the theater, waits in line to purchase her ticket, finds a seat that suits her vision and hearing, sits down, looks over the program. When the play begins, she puts this practical regard aside and changes regards: She notices the strikingly rich tones of color in the eighteenthcentury costumes, and how this contrasts with the lacy white cuffs and collars. She thinks of the aesthetics of costume and setting, the formality of speech in the play, etc. As the play develops, one character lies to and thereby cheats a supposed friend, and she begins to think about the moral relations between these characters, and how dejected the victim would be if he detects the lie. A moral regard has replaced an aesthetic regard. She may think about how she would behave if she were in the character’s situation.

Albrecht et al., “Response Inhibition Deficits in Externalizing Child Psychiatric Disorders: An ERP-Study with the Stop-Task,” Behavioral and Brain Functions, 1 (2005): 22. This is an online journal: www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com. Behavioral inhibition may be separated into three interrelated processes called “inhibition of the initial prepotent response to an event,” “‘stopping of an ongoing response,” and “interference control.” ? 95 Peter Gardenfors cites with approval A. M. Glenberg’s theory of detached representations: “The suppression of information coming in from reality … [is] Probably performed by the frontal lobe of the brain where planning, fantasizing, and executive control functions take ? ? says, “quarantine” reality. Peter Gardenfors, How Homo Became place.” We can, Gaardenfors Sapiens: On the Evolution of Thinking (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2003), quoting A. M. Glenberg, “What Memory Is For,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20 (1997): 1–19. It is probable that there are two selective pressures in hominid evolution that created the ability to bracket. Selective pressure directed hominids not only in the manufacture of tools but also to ‘mind-reading’ among interacting members of a group struggling to cooperate in dividing up tasks. Mark Rowlands notes that this latter also opens the door to deception, for him a characteristic of primates. See his The Philosopher and the Wolf, Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness (New York: Pegasus Books), 75ff.

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

67

Regards can be intentionally changed, or they can be triggered by external states of affairs. A regard is sui generis. It is not merely switching attention. Rather it is a vector potential, and consists in a way of looking at something. It is neither the product of the association of ideas nor the work of inference. Constructivists might say that regards create a world, realists that regards open up what is there independently of us. In notes written in 1897–1898 (which later became part of Essays in Radical Empiricism) William James viewed human experience as constituted by subsystems based on “selection,” or what I refer to above as intentional regards. James cites four kinds of subsystems—aesthetic, moral, causal/quantitative, and personal/practical. Each of these subsystems has its own language, that is to say, its own large array of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs, that are internally related. James regarded reality as a plenum and construes regards realistically (pluralistic realism). He states that selection … of certain interesting lines of relations would … appear to be the actual subjective condition which permits experience to fall into so many different systems, whilst the objective condition would be the fact that a plurality of relations are there in the content … .96

The most enhanced form of dignity among all living creatures is the distinctively human capacity to design one’s life utilizing the epoche. We are able to freely create, control, and evaluate our life plans and to freely switch regards. The majesty created by autonomy is that it allows us to rise above restrictions imposed by instinct and stimulus/response. Autonomy allows for unlimited expansion of the restricted primate impulses of sympathy and care. It sets free the imagination and gives us a world with no limits to goodness. But sadly it allows no limits to the array of wrongdoings and evildoings possible for us.

96 Cited

in Ralph Barton Perry, The Thought and Character of William James, 2 vols. (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1935), 2, 369. Hubert Dreyfus would find favor in James as a proponent of “pluralistic realism.” Dreyfus says “I want to be a plural realist .… There are a lot of different descriptions of reality, and several of them … can get it right .…” “Starting Points: An Interview with Hubert Dreyfus,” The Harvard Review of Philosophy, XIII (1) (2005): 146.

68

M. H. DeArmey

Final Thoughts on Enhanced Dignity This essay has set out a three-layer theory of dignity. Human beings are goal-directed life forms, with the aforementioned plasticity features. We also exhibit the more enhanced form of dignity in pairing and caring. Autonomy is a further enhancement. Some important aporia must be addressed. First, is it reasonable to think that, for example, a frog or a housefly has dignity? They are commonly considered “lower” life forms. But this attitude represents a failure to view such creatures against the proper background. Imagine a universe in which the most complex beings are frogs or houseflies and kindred creatures with plastic behavior and the other features cited above as constituting basic dignity. They have a world, a repertoire of behavioral strategies for the “pursuit of future ends.” Considered against an otherwise lifeless world their existence is a wonderful ontological leap, a transcendence which warrants dignity attribution. The enhancement or levels theory developed in this essay makes some headway in answering common objections to theories of dignity. Foremost is the Hitler/Manson objection. How can perpetrators of genocide or vicious murderers have dignity? Earlier it was established that, since it would be possible to do evil to Hitler or Manson (say by capturing them and boiling them alive without a trial), then they must possess dignity (transcendental argument). On the view set out here they possess each of the three levels of dignity. It is of course possible that neither Hitler nor Manson cared about others one bit. It is possible that they were acting out of some psychoanalytic compulsion, and lacked autonomy and selfcontrol. A plausible hypothesis in the case of vicious people is that their capacity to care, and their desire to have others care about them, as well as their ability to exercise self-control and autonomy exist, but are deeply warped and marginalized by factors which researchers are unearthing.97 97 No doubt Hitler and Manson enjoyed receiving compliments. Manson seems delighted in communicating to people how wicked he is, as is clear from prison interviews. As for Kant, in the Metaphysics of Morals (210) he states that one “cannot deny all respect to even a vicious man as a human being.” On the same page Kant states that even a vicious person “… can never lose entirely his predisposition to do good.”

3 Cosmopolitanism and Dignity

69

Childhood upbringing, traumatic experiences, and even genetically or chemically based anomalies could be such factors. Psychoanalyst Carl Goldberg has developed a “recovery ethics” based on a career of studying children and vicious criminals. His analyses support the hypothesis above that vicious people are blind to their need for care from others and often blind to their wish to be able to care for others. He has found that vicious criminals have often grown up feeling unwanted as children, not necessarily due to abuse, but often due to “benign neglect.” This neglect creates in children a sense of personal worthlessness, and as a consequence they are deeply ashamed. For the past thirty years I have treated a number of patients who have committed murder, rape, and mayhem in heinous ways, and like Mike [the subject of one of Goldberg’s case studies], claimed they wished to transcend the, indifference, viciousness, and cruelty that informed their daily existence.98

Goldberg worked to enable Mike and other vicious clients to develop a language adequate to express their feelings. His program, “Basic Emotional Communication,” part of recovery/restitutive ethics, involves teaching vicious people the language of feelings and emotions. He states: Mike required linguistic training in expressing his unacknowledged feelings of shame and hurt to erase the belief that in his essential core he was a brute creature, suffused with only a pretense of civility and sensitivity to others. In short, Mike’s language, heavily infused with aggressive, needoriented words and concepts, reinforced his belief that he had a savage nature. So, whenever he tried to express tender or caring feelings, he generally found at his disposal only crude and emotionally shallow linguistic concepts.99

98 Carl

Goldberg, The Evil We Do. The Psychoanalysis of Destructive People (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2000), 68. 99 Ibid., 82.

70

M. H. DeArmey

As a result of many sessions Mike was able to function in society, working in a soup kitchen and counseling others who lacked feelings of selfworth. The enhancement theory of dignity is the only theory that does justice to nonhuman animals by precisely locating the content and relations of animal dignity. This theory meets the Singer objection to dignity.100 Dignity, he claims, involves non-egalitarian, hierarchical speciesism. It entails “lowering the relative status of all other species.” This essay has presented the case for animals having a least one (end-seeking and plasticity), and certainly two (with the addition of caring and social values in more complex creatures) of the three levels of human dignity. That we possess the autonomy that animals lack does not in the least alter or lower the inherent dignity of animals. In regard to our autonomy, it must be reiterated that this wonderful ability is also under a myriad of conditions a curse that enables every variety of wrongdoing and evildoing—the subject matter of Part II of this book.

100 Peter

Singer, “A Utilitarian Defense of Animal Liberation,” reprinted in Environmental Ethics, 6th ed. Louis Pojman and Paul Pojman editors (Boston: Wadsworth, 2012), 71–80.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

Love and respect … are basically always united by the law into one duty, only in such a way that now one duty and now the other is the subject’s principle, with the other joined to it as accessory. —Immanuel Kant

From the outset Kant’s ethics was cosmopolitan. Universalization, the principle of humanity, the cosmopolitan rights to hospitality and the public use of reason, ethics as determining international law within the framework of a peace federation, are each cosmopolitan concerns. His cosmopolitan ethics incorporates the three constituent elements of dignity—ends, care, and autonomy, even though he singles out autonomy as the most distinctive and fundamental element in human dignity. The argument of this chapter is that Kant’s views on the second level of dignity, care (love, benevolence, beneficence), are extensive and take on a status equal to that of respect. Starting with care and respect as providing the framework for Kant’s theory of cosmopolitan hospitality described in Chapter 2, this chapter includes additional features of hospitality which would advance Kant’s forecast of a world community, the correlate to a world organization (peace federation).

© The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_4

71

72

M. H. DeArmey

Kant’s Ethics of Care Love, benevolence, and beneficence are included in the modalities of care. Love is a good place to begin the examination of the nature and scope of Kant’s theory of care. On his view, love as a feeling is not a duty. It cannot be commanded, and it is an “absurdity” to think so. However, love as a type of conduct is a duty when it takes the form of a maxim of conduct.1 This is the duty of benevolence, or “practical love.” It takes the form of a maxim for action, with anticipated satisfaction in helping human beings as human beings. To feel this satisfaction is a sign (but only a sign) that a person is a “friend of humanity,” one of the defining features of contemporary cosmopolitanism.2 The duty to improve oneself is an instance of the duty of benevolence.3 Kant’s duty of benevolence contains two components. One is “care about,” a motivational and dispositional factor—the maxim of helping others and the satisfaction or delight that would come from acting on this maxim. The other component is “beneficence.” It is the practice of helping others. This practice is the “care for” discussed previously at the second level of enhanced dignity. At first glance Kant seems to advance both a weak and a strong statement about caring for others. The weak statement is that we have a duty of benevolence that is an imperfect duty. Not helping others passes the universalization test but does not pass the approvability test. No one would wish to live in a world in which people are indifferent to the needs of others.4 On this weak statement duties to oneself and duties to others

1 Metaphysics

of Morals, 161.

2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.,

200: “…the law making benevolence a duty will include myself as an object of benevolence.” 150: Wanting your own happiness is part of our nature and is not subject to constraint. But how you go about achieving happiness is subject to constraint. 4 Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and What Is Enlightenment? Lewis White Beck, translator (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959), p. 41: “…it is possible that a universal law of nature according to that maxim [not helping those struggling with hardships] could exist, it is nevertheless impossible to will that such a principle should hold everywhere as a law of nature… [Everyone] at some time will] need the love and sympathy of others….”

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

73

are narrow and perfect in regard to the target —me in the case of selfimprovement5 and you in the case of needing help. But the application of this maxim to myself or to others is imperfect and wide: How could people be treated in accordance with their differences in rank, age, sex, health, prosperity or poverty, and so forth? These questions do not yield so many different kinds of ethical obligation … but only so many different ways of applying it.6

The strong version of beneficence is expressed in Kant’s interpretation of “love thy Neighbor” as “the duty to make the other’s ends my own (provided only that these are not immoral).”7 Contrast this strong statement with what is seemingly another weak construal of beneficence. Under the subsection “What Are the Ends That Are Also Duties?” Kant states: …it is a contradiction for me to make another’s perfection my end and consider myself under obligation to promote this. For the perfection of another human being, as a person, consists just in this: That he himself is able to set his end in accordance with his own concepts of duty; and it is self-contradictory to require that I do (make it my duty to do) something that only the other himself can do.8

But the seemingly weak and seemingly strong versions are together coherent and different facets of beneficence. In the weak version, if the other person is not struggling with hardships, then one has no obligation to make his “perfection” one’s own aim. That would be to usurp his/her autonomy. This does not rule out assistance in helping another person achieve a specific end, for example holding open a door for someone carrying a heavy package, or driving someone to an important meeting if

5The

Metaphysics of Morals, 196. 214. 7 Ibid., 199. 8 Ibid., 150. 6 Ibid.,

74

M. H. DeArmey

their car fails. In the seemingly stronger statement Kant is clearly thinking of people in need, struggling with hardships, as is evident from this subsequent passage: To be beneficent, that is, to promote according to one’s means the happiness of others in need, without hoping for something in return, is everyone’s duty … Consequently the maxim … of beneficence towards those in need, is a universal duty of human beings, just because they are to be considered fellowmen, that is, rational beings with needs, united by nature in one dwelling place so that they can help one another.9

Kant’s doctrine of benevolence allows for latitude in applying the maxim in helping another. This, however, creates several problems. How, in Kant’s ethics, can one distinguish duties to help others in grave need in which the failure to help would be clearly immoral, from certain conditions in which not helping is morally acceptable? There is a wrecked car on a lonely country road, with people moaning and crying out for help. You have a moral duty to help for they are gravely in need. Imagine the same country road scenario, but I’m having severe chest pains and I’m quite sure I’m having a heart attack. I must try to get to the rural hospital five miles ahead (I have no cell phone to call for help). I do not have a moral duty to forego my well-being by stopping to help the passengers (I do of course have a duty to report to hospital personnel that those injured in the wrecked car have an urgent need for help). Imagine the same country road but in this scenario the passengers are out of the wrecked car and have minor cuts and soreness. Today I’ve sat with an elderly neighbor for hours at her doctor’s clinic, helped retrieve a cat high up in a tree, and served as a volunteer at a food kitchen. I’m tired, so I drive on by, as soon as possible reporting the wreck. Was I morally amiss in this? What are the limits to helping others, especially today when mass media reveal suffering from around the world? Another problematic case for Kant is the choice between helping someone severely in need from someone whose need is less severe and unlike the previous example you can’t do both. Since Kant has abandoned consequentialism he has no 9 Ibid.,

202. My emphasis.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

75

rule requiring aid to the more severely in need. If one central function of ethics is to guide people toward wise decisions, what does Kant’s ethics of beneficence have to offer? A number of scholars have wrestled with the problem of obligatory acts of beneficence in Kant’s ethics.10 Karen Stohr suggests that beneficence has two components. In addition to the wide duty to help those in need, beneficence includes a narrow duty—a strict duty—to avoid indifference. To accommodate obligatory aid one must view the failure to help another in need as a violation of this narrow aspect of beneficence. Stohr acknowledges that what the other’s ends are, whether his/her needs are genuine, and what are the best ways to help, are necessarily factors in one’s decision to help. That a person has helped others is not a morally adequate response to this person’s request for help: “I’ve helped lots of other people like you” will not count as a fully adequate response to … [a person’s] need—the one…[a person] has brought before…[you].11 Stohr’s interpretation seems to reduce a violation of the duty of beneficence—indifference to a person as a rational end-setter—to a violation of the respect for person’s principle, even though she thinks that the duty of beneficence just runs “parallel to the narrow duties of respect, which prohibit contempt, arrogance, defamation, and mockery.”12 Manifesting indifference to another could be cited even when another person is only modestly in need. So this doesn’t solve the obligatory problem. In a similar vein Robert Johnson explicitly holds that duties of benevolence are not sui generis but “derived from the basic principle of respect for humanity.”13 But these views are inaccurate, for Kant explicitly distinguishes love from respect. Another thinker, Melissa Fahmy, argues that 10 See

David Cummisky, Kantian Consequentialism (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Brad Hooker, Ideal Code, Real World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); Barbara Herman, “Mutual Aid and Respect for Persons,” Ethics 94 (1984): 577–602; Karen Stohr, “Kantian Beneficence and the Problem of Obligatory Aid,” Journal of Moral Philosophy, 8 (1) (2011): 45–67; Thomas Hill, “Meeting Needs and Doing Favors,” in Human Welfare and Moral Worth: Kantian Perspectives (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 201–243; Thomas Hill, Dignity and Practical Reason (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); and Robert Johnson, “Love in Vain,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 36 (supplement) (1997): 45–50. 11 “Kantian Beneficence…,” 65. 12 Ibid., 61. 13 “Love in Vain,” 46.

76

M. H. DeArmey

practical love is distinct from beneficence. This is surely not supported by passages in The Doctrine of Virtue. Fahmy herself cites this passage from Kant, which clearly identifies practical love with active benevolence, i.e., beneficence: “Since the love of human beings we are thinking of here is practical love, not love that is delight in them, it must be taken as active benevolence, and so as having to do with the maxim of actions.”14 Fahmy holds that the duty of love in Kant functions to cultivate one’s own inclinations to love others. For example, this passage in Kant: “Beneficence is a duty. If someone practices it often and succeeds in realizing his benevolent intention, he eventually comes to love the person he has helped.”15 But cultivating one’s loving inclinations is at best expressed as a causal but important side effect of the duty of beneficence. To make it central would be to render an egoistic interpretation of love in Kant’s ethics. The interpretation most consistent with Kant’s texts is this: 1. In Kant’s text, “beneficence” and “practical love” are synonymous. 2. Beneficence is the active component in the duty of benevolence— acting on the duty of benevolence. 3. The duty of benevolence has as its maxim that people ought to help others struggling with hardships. 4. The duty of benevolence fosters satisfaction, delight, in helping others. 5. The satisfaction, delight in helping others can lead to loving inclinations toward those benefitted. 6. Not to help those in grave need cannot be approved, and is therefore wrong. 7. When considering whether to aid someone in need, one should consider what would happen to that person if one declines aid, and whether this is acceptable to oneself if one were in the same position.

14The

Metaphysics of Morals, 199; Melissa Seymour Fahmy, “Kantian Practical Love,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 91 (2010): 313–331 and 318. 15The Metaphysics of Morals, 162.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

77

The duty of benevolence has a status equal to that of the duty of respect in Kant’s ethics, and therefore caring and autonomy are codefining features of human dignity. Thus, the contentions in our chapter on enhanced dignity have been shown to be Kantian. It should be noted that Kant thinks the duty of love (benevolence) and that of respect go together, and, depending on the case at hand, may alternate with one another as principal duty: …[Love and respect] are basically always united by the law into one duty, only in such a way that now one duty and now the other is the subject’s principle, with the other joined to it as accessory … we are under obligation to help someone poor; but since the favor we do implies that his well-being depends on our generosity, and this humbles him, it is our duty to behave as if our help is either merely what is due him or but a slight service of love, and to spare him humiliation and maintain his respect for himself.16

Kant holds that we are by nature predisposed to do good (care about ourselves and others), and that without this “noble” predisposition humans would not be worthy of respect: “It is only through the noble predisposition to the good in us, which makes the human being worthy of respect….”17 We have by nature receptivity to the other person’s joy or pain. This is natural sympathy, also manifested by some nonhuman animals. It is unfree in the sense that it is a natural predisposition, and, like a contagious disease, it can spread among human beings living in proximity. However, sympathetic impulses can facilitate free sympathy—“make use of them as so many means to sympathy based on moral principles and the feeling appropriate to them.”18 Once again care/love and respect 16 Ibid.,

198. 191; also, 210. 18 Ibid., 205. In the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals natural sympathy is said to be just another inclination, in itself void of moral worth. A man without natural sympathy—perhaps preoccupied with his/her own pain—could act out of duty to another in need, and would have a higher moral worth than a person acting from natural sympathy. I interpret this man as acting on principled or “free” sympathy. Cummisky, Kantian Consequentialism, 30, claims that the ground of natural sympathy is pleasure. The naturally sympathetic person “has the purpose of helping others … because it is pleasant.” This is not supported by anything Kant says. 17 Ibid.,

78

M. H. DeArmey

go together. To cultivate respectful care one must “not avoid the places where the poor … are to be found but rather to seek them out, and not to shun sickrooms or debtors’ prisons….”19

Kant’s Cosmopolitan Right to Hospitality and Recent Advances in Cosmopolitan Theory We need to decriminalize the worldwide movement of peoples, and treat each person, whatever his or her political citizenship status, in accordance with the dignity of moral personhood. This implies acknowledging crossing borders and seeking entry into different polities is not a criminal act but an expression of human freedom and the search for human betterment in a world which we have to share with our fellow human beings.20 —Seyla Benhabib

The rebirth of hospitality theory is due in part to the new globalism. People more than ever are thrown together through mass communications—the internet, cell phones, television, and more affordable travel. New markets have been opened up around the world. This rebirth has brought in its wake renewed interest in Kant’s “cosmopolitan right to hospitality,” as well as advancements beyond Kant, in thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Jelloun, and Seyla Benhabib. In the case of Kant, hospitality is linked to his theory of care, just outlined, for the terms “hospital,” “hospice,” “hospitable,” each refer to care. The right to hospitality also includes the right to fair commerce and trade across borders, as well as the right to the public use of reason as Kant so admirably discussed in his “What is Enlightenment?” essay. Kant. As discussed in Chapter 2, the purpose of the third definitive article of Perpetual Peace is to create a “universal community” that would complement the universal or global “peace federation.” This community would be the realization of ancient cosmopolitanism, a world city 19 Ibid.

This passage could have been written by Mother Teresa! Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 177.

20 Seyla

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

79

in which people have a sense of belonging together, as brothers and sisters. In such a world there would be a network of friendships covering the globe, just and nonexploitive commercial transactions, and the maximization of justice and transparency in the laws and policies of nation states. Unlike other interpreters of Kant, the argument here is that for such a community to come into being, care and respect are central, and hospitality is a part of care and respect. A first step in creating this world community is the establishment of a right to hospitality, the right to enter any foreign country as long as one does not have hostile intent. Kant insists that this right is not a right to indefinite residence. For that would require special arrangements between nation states and between the individual and nation states. This cosmopolitan right was discussed in the previous chapter. Some additional detail about hospitality is worth citing. Implicit in Kant is that a country denying entry must have reasons for denial that any nation state would find compelling. Worldwide and uniform “vetting” principles and procedures would be the analogue of the universalization principle. Evidence supporting the intent to do harm to the host government, its people, or its material culture would be sufficient to deny entry. The host country cannot deny entry to someone if, by denying that person entry, he or she would be destroyed. Since Kant regards hospitality as double-sided, guest and host must be hospitable to one another once entry is granted. Both guest and host must refrain from hostile actions. Since the host country has power—police and other authorities—it must avoid harm to the guest, which include false imprisonment, theft, fraud, enslavement, plundering, debt bondage, starvation, treachery, physical harm to the guest’s body [torture] or property—in short, “the whole litany of evils that can afflict the human race.”21 These are grave forms of misconduct. Ideally, hospitality would also exclude racist aspersions, humiliation, unwarranted detention by state police or armed forces, denial of basic needs such as emergency medical treatment. The cosmopolitan right to hospitality seems to be a right that allows some latitude in interpretation. Kant does not discuss what positive behaviors constitute hospitality. Hospitality itself is a matter of law, of 21 Kant,

Perpetual Peace, in KPW, 106; The Metaphysics of Morals, 121–122.

80

M. H. DeArmey

legal rights. But the positive behaviors internal to hospitality would be those duties set out in the care and respect section above. A portion of right conduct would be partially dictated by custom. Graciousness and dialogue should reign, if, for example, you are offered dog at a meal by the uninformed host, you must explain your avoidance with graciousness as to not offend. Some examples of guests’ ethical duties in a host country would be the following: I am a tourist entering Jamaica, and discover there people living in cardboard houses covered with plastic sheeting. Being unemployed and without government assistance, these people beg for a dollar or two. The duty of beneficence requires I help poor individuals I encounter with money or other assistance to the extent of my ability, and that (following Kant) I do this in a way that maintains respect for that person (you make him think he has helped you with, say, information about Jamaica). Another example has different elements supporting a world community: Suppose I am granted entry into Russia, and find a number of patently false beliefs among Russian people about my home country. I am obligated to graciously correct those misconceptions, and in return I am obligated to learn as much as possible about various facets of life in Russia. I should develop friendships, enjoy Russian food, and absorb Russian culture. These are the things a cosmopolitan would and should do. I can also convey any “professional” wisdom I may have. But now, what if I am a journalist who has been granted entry. Is it part of cosmopolitan hospitality that I be free to report what I experience in this foreign land? The answer is yes, employing professional standards of journalism, with the caveat that I cannot engage in spying either on that country’s military or its secret, inner governmental or corporate workings. Hospitality also dictates that I have the freedom to engage in commerce while in the host country. Trade is necessary because no nation on earth has everything it needs within its own borders. Derrida. The reflections of Jacques Derrida are most timely, given the new globalism. His essay “On Hospitality” has helped revive interest in Kant’s discussion of hospitality. Moreover the theme of hospitality seems to be an important one for him, for it runs through many of his writings. In On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, for example, Derrida claims that there are two modes of hospitality, and that once explicated, Kant’s theory will be found to be flawed.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

81

Derrida contrasts the “Law of hospitality” with “Laws of hospitality.”22 The Law of hospitality, or absolute hospitality, is an ethical matter, sometimes described as “coextensive with ethics itself.”23 It means kindheartedness and full openness to the stranger who comes to your home. At its ideal limit it asks for no name, no conditions, no agreements. It does not begin by interrogating the stranger. The laws of hospitality, on the other hand, are the state’s laws, the customs of its civil society, and dictates of the master of the home.24 Derrida draws the conclusion that hospitality is “paradoxical.” The Law of hospitality transcends the laws of hospitality, yet requires them for its effectiveness.25 Moreover, Derrida suggests that to put hospitality into the domain of rights and duties, as Kant does, is to poison its graciousness, its openness. Even though Derrida praises Kant,26 he finds Kantian hospitality lacking in denying the visitor the right to residence. What about the person seeking asylum? This is of extreme importance today, for the number of people seeking asylum has dramatically increased. According to Derrida, Kant reassigns the residence question to the state bureaucracies and police, thereby, according to Derrida, perverting the Law of hospitality. Derrida’s ideal solution is “cities of refuge,” suggested by the Book of Numbers in the Old Testament. Turning people away from asylum is unjust, and an affront to cosmopolitanism, since we are all equal and all citizens of our one world city.27 Derrida, although acknowledging “the necessity, for the host … of choosing, electing, filtering, selecting their invitees, visitors, or guests,” sees this as “excluding and doing violence.”28 In addition to providing no account of justice or rights in the case of residency and asylum, and for spoiling the graciousness of hospitality by making it a duty, Derrida charges Kant with failing to unfold the 22 Jacques

Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, Rachel Bowlby, translator (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000), 25. 23 Ibid., 151. 24 Ibid., 149. 25 Ibid., 79. 26 “The right to hospitality in the cosmopolitan tradition will find its most powerful form in Kant and the text, Perpetual Peace.” Ibid., 25. 27 Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 11–12. Strasbourg is a leader in voluntary hospitality offered to strangers. 28 On Hospitality, Op. cit., 55.

82

M. H. DeArmey

tensions in the host/guest relationship. Derrida thinks that once the guest has entered, the host becomes guest in his own home. The sovereignty enjoyed by the host is lost when the guest enters. Derrida offers some provocative reflections on hospitality, but it is fair to say that he misses the mark when it comes to Kant. First, Kant’s right to hospitality was proposed as a universal human right, sanctioned by international law, and meant to be binding on nation states. Derrida does not consider Kant’s position at the international level, but thinks this a matter for nation states and their bureaucracies. Secondly, Kant does indeed have a principle of non-refoulement: the asylum seeker cannot be turned away if it would result in his/her destruction. Secondly, the state must grant entry to potential guests of good will. But how individuals or “authorities” greet the newcomer—with open arms, with indifference, or with reservations—is contingent on many factors: what events are occurring in the host country, the psychology and economics of bureaucrats, hotel and hostel personnel, and homeowners who may offer the guest a place to stay. But these contingencies are to be overridden by steadfast duties of respect, care, and hospitality. Finally, it should be noted that doing something because it is your duty to do so does not exclude doing your duty graciously. Derrida does not seem to realize that Kant’s cosmopolitan right to hospitality is not, and was not intended to be, a full-fledged theory of just treatment of guests, aliens, asylum seekers, or stateless people. Rather Perpetual Peace is a “sketch,” written by Kant in the last years of his career as a philosopher. The right to hospitality is a first step in reaching cosmopolitan right: In this way, continents distant from each other can enter into peaceful mutual relations which may eventually be regulated by public laws thus bringing the human race nearer and nearer to a cosmopolitan constitution.29

Derrida and Garrett W. Brown (in his defense of Kant against Derrida’s interpretation), have given insufficient attention to Kant’s duty of 29 KPW,

106. My italics.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

83

benevolence, the duty to help others in distress, those “contend[ing] with great hardships.”30 This duty would apply to those entering as the result of flight from persecution or extreme suffering, and it would also apply to the guest who might be suffering from such hardships on foreign soil as loss of money, no place to stay, no food to eat, medical treatment, etc. Derrida’s interesting revival of “cities of refuge” is already (to use his language) “perverted,” because all cities are located within the territory of a nation state, and as a result cities are subject to state restrictions on visitation. To what extent a large city, such as Los Angeles, could declare itself to be a sanctuary city despite state or federal restrictions is an open question. City officials and its police could elect to be passive and simply not help customs or other officials in their quest to locate undocumented foreigners. Beyond this there could be networks of voluntary associations which offer those granted entry various services—a place to stay, meals, etc. Such “hospitality clubs” already exist all over the world but their membership is small. According to the official web site for such clubs, their aim is the creation of a world community: Our aim is to bring people together—hosts and guests, travelers and locals. Thousands of Hospitality Club members around the world help each other when they are traveling—be it with a roof for the night or a guided tour through town. Joining is free, takes just a minute and everyone is welcome. Members can look at each other’s profiles, send messages and post comments about their experience on the website. The club is supported by volunteers who believe in one idea: by bringing travelers in touch with people in the place they visit, and by giving “locals” a chance to meet people from other cultures we can increase intercultural understanding and strengthen the peace on our planet.31

Ben Jelloun. Jelloun is a Moroccan native who emigrated to France in 1971. France became well-known for its hospitality after the French Revolution, but in recent times it has withdrawn its former generosity, 30 Garrett

W. Brown, “The Laws of Hospitality, Asylum Seekers and Cosmopolitan Right,” European Journal of Political Theory, 9 (3): 17–27; Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Mary Gregor, translator/editor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 31 Access at: http://www.hospitalityclub.org/.

84

M. H. DeArmey

and concern with this withdrawal is the subject of Jelloun’s book, French Hospitality.32 Societies differ in the ways they treat guests. Moroccan hospitality approaches the ideal limit of hospitality captured by Derrida’s Law of hospitality. Having guests is a pleasure for Moroccans—“You have filled up my house” the host says to the guest. Having guests fills the Moroccan with pride, and boosts his/her self-esteem. Jelloun describes the experience in this manner: Every Moroccan—whether Muslim or Jew, emigrant or exile—keeps up the tradition [of hospitality]. The act of entertaining a guest is something that both honors and humanizes the host. But as well as filling his heart, it does something more. It makes the guest recognize me, the host, as someone capable of sharing. It improves my status.33

To have guests is instructive. I learn about myself and my home. The guest “upsets my space and habits and teaches me what I am.”34 Insincere, simulated hospitality can be detected in facial expressions, hesitancy in offerings to the guest, and the like. “My home is your home,” the Moroccan says to his/her guest. And the Moroccan keeps his/her privacy along with that desired by the guest. The guest is a gift. Hospitality, Jelloun says, is not fraternity, not tolerance, not love, but is akin to generosity. Jelloun focuses primarily on the host. Phenomenologically the guest, in crossing the threshold, enters a world strange to him/herself. The home has characteristic odor. One home has a hint of bodily odor from a treadmill. In another home the musty smell of antique furniture mingles with the feathery fragrance of an Amazon parrot. The home of an apartment dweller is tinged with the smell of synthetic carpeting, mingled with the residual odor from Italian cooking, and the dander of a pet cat. New kinds and arrangements of objects, color patterns, places to sit, sleep are present. There is an ongoing subjective synthesis by the guest 32Tahar

Ben Jelloun, French Hospitality: Racism and North African Immigrants (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). Originally published in French in 1984. 33 Ibid., 2. 34 Ibid., 3.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

85

of what this new and strange surrounding means in terms of the identity and personality of the host. The guest keenly surveys his new surroundings, anticipating the place where he/she is going to sleep and have some privacy. The guest receives what the host offers in the way of comfort, shelter, food, sleep, bathing, and possible entertainment. Seyla Benhabib. An important contributor to cosmopolitan science is Seyla Benhabib.35 She goes beyond the hospitality theories of Kant, Derrida, and Jelloun in developing the cosmopolitan right to hospitality for immigrants (both legal and illegal), asylum seekers, and stateless persons. She is concerned with how these people are to be justly treated by governments. In particular she works toward the establishment of a right to membership, citizenship, on the part of the guest. Hence she takes up what Kant left for future generations to develop. As discussed earlier, Kant attaches the “public use of reason” to hospitality theory. Interestingly, Benhabib develops public reason well beyond the sketch offered by Kant in Perpetual Peace and “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’” So on the one hand, she argues for a theory of membership, citizenship, naturalization. On the other hand she develops an ethics for the public use of reason, which she calls “discourse ethics.” Between 1965 and 2000, seventy-five million people emigrated to other countries (the number is considerably higher today in 2020). Millions of people have fled the evildoings of tyrants, rebel militias and the miseries of poverty and malnutrition. Refugees from strife-ridden Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Pakistan, and Mexico have searched for safe havens. How has the international community reacted to this influx of immigrants? The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is the starting point for this question. Three articles—13, 14, and 15—uphold hospitality principles. Article 13 states that everyone within a nation state has a right to movement and a home. Article 14 states that everyone, with the exception of criminals and suspected criminals, has a right to seek and enjoy asylum in other countries. Article 15 states that everyone has a right to a nationality and cannot be arbitrarily deprived of it. It also affirms the right to change nationalities. 35 Seyla

Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

86

M. H. DeArmey

The Geneva Convention (July 28, 1951) and the “Protocol” on refugees (January 31, 1967) set out further principles concerning refugees. The Geneva document defines a refugee as someone who has crossed state borders because of fear of persecution on the basis of his/her “race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group … or political opinion.”36 The Convention sets out a principle of non-refoulement (from the French refouler, to drive back or repel). This asserts that no refugee should be returned to a country if there is a risk he/she would be persecuted there. There is a disclaimer in the Convention. It states that the document “does not deal with the question of admission, and neither does it oblige a State of refuge to accord asylum as such.”37 Nor does it deal with the “causes” of flight. This is an admission that Article 14 of the Declaration was incomplete in terms of reasons (“causes”) of flight. Moreover, it seems to contradict Article 14, because if people have a right to seek and obtain asylum, then necessarily they must be admitted. Kant’s position is that a country must grant admission. Apart from that these articles and protocols are within the parameters of Kantian hospitality. Seyla Benhabib takes up the task of advancing, developing, cosmopolitan hospitality for our time, as Kant would have wanted it. She notes the phases of the emigration process: (1) Emigration and its causes; (2) First entry; (3) Absorption (e.g., visitation, business, study); (4) Incorporation, or residency for a certain duration; and (5) Nationalization or citizenship granted. Referring to the aforementioned United Nations documents, she recognizes that they contain internal contradictions, and this is due to the attempt to simultaneously maintain human rights and Westphalian nation-state sovereignty. Seeking to remove these contradictions and tensions, Benhabib turns to this question: When can a guest become a member of a sovereign state? Who is in a position to justly decide whether someone can be a member of a state? What requirements/criteria would 36 See

the “Audiovisual Library of International Law,” at: http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/prsr/ prsr.html. This definition is one-sided. A refugee could be someone who flees their country not because of persecution but due to starvation (e.g., Ethiopia), lack of water, pollution (Bhopal, India), or other causes. 37 Ibid.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

87

lead to a fair and just judgment? Her central claim in The Rights of Others is that “the right to membership of the temporary resident must be conceived as a human right….”38 Benhabib accepts the Kantian thesis that autonomy is both the basis of human dignity and the basis of human equality, but notes that human rights control the exercise of autonomy. To respect someone, to treat them as an equal, is not to merely tell or command someone to do something, but to give reasons for doing something. And, given the equality of people, people have a right to respond, make out their own case, cite their own reasons. There is therefore a right to discourse or dialogue (in law this is part of due process) and a right to justification. This applies to any person, whether citizen, resident, asylum seeker, or stateless person. Benhabib states: Basic rights … are conditions that enable the exercise of personal autonomy; first and foremost as a moral being you have a fundamental right to justification. your freedom can be restricted only through reciprocally and generally justifiable norms that apply equally to all.39

These norms constitute what Benhabib calls “discourse ethics.” The first norm is justificatory reciprocity: I [as host] must be able to show you with good grounds, with grounds that would be acceptable to each of us equally, why you can never join our association and become one of us. These must be grounds that you would accept if you were in my situation and I in yours. Our reasons must be reciprocally acceptable.40

Reasons for declining membership cannot be based on race, ethnicity, religion, language, or gender. These are the result of chance or the natural lottery, not choice. A nation state may, on the other hand, decline membership based on the applicant’s lack of knowledge or skill, language

38The

Rights of Others, 42. 133. 40 Ibid., 138. 39 Ibid.,

88

M. H. DeArmey

competency, literacy, material resources, or knowledge of the host’s culture. However, it seems that anyone turned down for one or more of these reasons must be told how his/her deficiencies can be rectified for purposes of reapplying. Criteria for membership, citizenship, must be public, readily available, and in multiple languages. The criteria must be such that bureaucratic arbitrariness and personal prejudices are reduced as much as possible. The applicant must have the right to appeal and to be represented by an attorney. The entire process of applying and if necessary appealing, must be carried out in the applicant’s native language. This process is meant to be in part interpersonal dialogue and not merely a matter of filling out paperwork. Participants in this dialogue “should have the same rights to various speech acts, to initiate new topics, and to ask for justification of the presuppositions of the conversation.”41 Benhabib extends discourse ethics to all levels of government, from local to international. She holds to the “discourse principle of legitimacy,” which states that those who are to be affected by the adoption of a norm (and the putative consequences stemming from this) must have a say in the formulation and articulation of this norm. There should be “Democratic iterations” which mediate between the local and the regional, between the regional and the national, and between the national and the cosmopolitan. What are these iterations? They are “complex processes of public argument, deliberation, and learning through which universalist right claims are contested and contextualized, invoked and revoked.”42 Curiously, Benhabib does not refer to the importance of NGOs (nongovernment organizations). However, she does say that the discourse principles of right to dialogue and justification, and the right to participate in framing norms would certainly lead … to multiplication of sites of representation and discursive involvement. For example, the community of those affected by the fall of

41 Ibid., 42 Ibid.,

13. 19.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

89

acid rain cuts across the Canadian/USA border and unites these individuals around shared interests, concerns, and activities. Globalization … results in the creation of new sites and new logics of representation.43

There are worrisome empirical questions that must be addressed. First, someone may object that this upgraded right to hospitality would result in more immigrants. The social services of the host country—medical care, schools, charitable services and the like—would be overwhelmed. Taxpayers would have to foot the bill. Benhabib cites two studies of the economics of immigration, one from Great Britain, the other from the USA: At any given moment, migrants are generally net contributors to the public purse…. A study by Britain’s Home Office estimated that the foreign-born population paid about 10% more to the government than it received in expenditure. However … America’s National Research Council … found that the picture changes if one looks across time…. In that case, the NRC found … first-generation immigrants imposed an average net fiscal cost of $3,000 at present discounted value, but the second generation yielded a $80,000 fiscal gain.44

Of course there are limits on the numbers of immigrants a nation state can tolerate. Open borders would result in massive movements of poor people into rich nations. Therefore a relatively prosperous country must place restrictions on immigration, of the type cited above. The second objection concerns identity. Some writers fear that a nation’s identity would be lost by allowing immigrants.45 Therefore these critics tend to argue for greater restrictions. However, relatively open and democratic societies are ethnically pluralistic. People from different ethnic backgrounds tend to live in the same neighborhoods and enjoy together their cultural heritage. By keeping their heritage intact, these 43 Ibid.,

218. 88. Quote is from The Economist, November 2–8, 2002. 45 Discussed admirably by Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2006), Chapter 7, 101–113. Also, Josiah Royce, “Provincialism,” in Race and Other American Problems (New York: Macmillan, 1908), 57–108. 44 Ibid.,

90

M. H. DeArmey

ethnic groups enrich the national culture and provide for new learning experiences. The Cosmopolitan Epistemology of Kwame Anthony Appiah. Suppose you are a world traveler, a globe-trotter. You enter new cultures, you attempt to understand their ways. The clothing and food are different. Artworks are different. The kinship systems differ more or less. The religious and political beliefs are not your own. You find the natives equally fascinated with your beliefs and behavioral patterns. Or again, suppose you are an anthropologist writing a monograph on the ways of a tribe. You learn something of their language, participate in the style and substance of both their daily and festive behaviors. What kind of epistemology is embedded in successful cross cultural, personal interactions such as these? This is one of the central questions in Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. This work also goes a long way toward amplifying Kant’s brief discussion of the right to hospitality. Reciprocal hospitality, after all, requires some degree of mutual understanding, and Appiah’s epistemology is very useful in this regard. Much of Appiah’s cosmopolitanism is devoted to assembling the right sorts of epistemic concepts and principles suitable for understanding strangers. First, he adopts the distinction between thin and thick moral concepts. Thin moral concepts, such as “good, “ought,” and “right” are universal; thick moral concepts, such as courage and honor, are embedded in the peculiarities of a culture’s history. Recognition of this puts one on guard against premature judgments about what strangers believe and desire. Appiah appears to hold what some call a “centrist” position. Thin moral concepts “may underlie the thick ones.”46 Secondly, to know what the natives mean by a word does not tell you to what sorts of things the word applies. Philosophers call this the “open texture” of some of our language, particularly evaluative language. Appiah cites one ethical principle agreed upon by delegates at the world parliament of religions: “‘We must not commit any kind of sexual immorality’: a fine sentiment, unless we don’t agree as to what counts as sexual immorality.”47 The hospitality lesson to be learned from this is 46 Ibid., 47 Ibid.,

47. 59.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

91

that when people disagree, it is not always a case of one side or the other failing to understand the value involved, rather “It’s because applying value terms to new cases requires judgment and discretion.”48 A third epistemic consideration for cosmopolitans is the matter of weight. People can agree as to what evaluative terms mean, and they can agree on the application of these terms. Yet they may disagree on the weight to be given to reasons supporting or rejecting a piece of practical reasoning. A fourth epistemic principle that should be recognized by cosmopolitan thinkers is the under determination of theories or explanations. This is called Duhem’s underdetermination thesis. From a study of explanations in physics, Pierre Duhem concluded that an explanation of “X” is always conjoined to background beliefs and when an explanation fails, one does not know whether it is the fault of the explanation or the background beliefs. Appiah underscores just how difficult it is to convince someone from a different culture of some basic scientific explanation. Members of the Asante tribe in Ghana believe in witches and the presence of invisible ancestors. An aunt fell ill and everyone knew it was her daughter-in-law practicing witchcraft, so a sheep must be sacrificed to counteract the witches’ work. Westerners would counter this by saying that it was the work of invisible virus, which have a certain molecular structure, and which “attack” certain parts of the body. You cite the authority of science, the Asante cite the authority of the chief or medicine man. You point out that there is no correlation between sacrificing sheep and a person getting well; they cite perhaps degrees of strength found in various witchcraft practices, so sheep sacrifices sometimes work, sometimes not. Appiah points out that it took centuries for Westerners to fully come around to the view that there are bacteria and viruses that cause disease. This is not to say that one couldn’t prove something to someone outside your tradition, but only that it is an extremely complex task. Finally, one must recognize that the selection of what counts as data is itself belief- or theory-laden. Physicists can “see” electrons on a computer screen because their perception is already theory-laden. People not 48 Ibid.

92

M. H. DeArmey

educated in physical theory cannot see these particles. More generally, if what a person finds reasonable to believe is such because of what he/she already believes, and if one cannot examine the reasonableness of what one already believes without an infinite regress (bringing in some other belief assumptions necessary for the test, and so on), then tradition weighs down heavily upon us. Some thinkers, such as Charles Peirce, see this as making impossible intuitions (cognitions not determined by previous cognitions). So Appiah concludes that “There is nothing unreasonable, then, about my kinsmen’s belief in witchcraft. They think only what most people would think, given the concepts and beliefs they inherited….”49 Understanding that there are thick and thin evaluative terms, recognizing that you may not know the range of application of a value term in a foreign culture, or the weights a foreigner gives to various types of reasons, and the recognition of under determination and belief-ladenness should engender in the reflective cosmopolitan a sense of humility. On the other hand, it allows for hope that ongoing conversations between foreigners and a commitment to cultural pluralism make for a peaceful world.

Conclusion: The Cosmopolitan World Community This chapter has argued that Kant’s theory of care is co-equal to respect for persons. The right to hospitality is an extension of care and respect into the arena of international relations. Anyone may enter another country if he or she passes universally accepted vetting principles and procedures. This emphatically applies to refugees fleeing suffering or in danger of being destroyed. They cannot be turned down. Once granted entry both the visitor and the host have duties of benevolence and beneficence. Ideally native residents would extend friendly help for tourists and

49 Ibid.,

42.

4 Cosmopolitan Hospitality, Care, and Respect

93

especially for refugees. Jelloun’s Moroccan hospitality is the ideal. Hospitality clubs are another friendly activity which helps build world community. Here, people open their doors to strangers. Those who have entered illegally, not the result of suffering or fear of death in their native state may take their chances in Derrida’s “cities of refuge.” Once there, goodhearted people may assist them in being taught what they need to know to pass the vetting process, to which they have a duty to submit themselves at some point. All human beings have a right to citizenship, and once granted entry into a country they have a right to apply for membership. Benhabib’s discourse ethics, an extension of Kant’s claim that people have the right to the public use of reason, will accommodate persons seeking citizenship by providing for discussions and procedures in the applicant’s native language. A fluent attorney and the right to appeal are necessary. Additional Contributions to a World Community. There are other, wideranging ways of building a world community. Some countries have a “peace corps” which involves on-the-ground help to struggling peoples in various parts of the world. In the United States the Peace Corps was founded by John F. Kennedy stemming from a speech he gave in October, 1960, at the University of Michigan.50 Young people are often transformed by giving help to people in need, and new friendships may last a lifetime. Needless to say those benefitted by the care and respect of helpful young people acquire a stronger sense of the unity of mankind. Another boost to a sense of belonging to a world community are exchange student programs. Universities which actively attract foreign students are to be applauded. Some universities have quotas for admission—so many Chinese, so many urban blacks, so many eastern European, so many Indians, etc. It is possible but difficult to turn from peaceful studies and acquaintances in a foreign country to hostility toward it. It would also be important to have foreign exchange students at the high school level, provided there are host parents and the foreign students can speak the host’s language. 50 Kennedy

asked, “How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?” Access at: https://www.peacecorps. gov/about/history/founding-moment/.

94

M. H. DeArmey

Another boost toward world community comes from an important curriculum component suitable for both high school and universities. This is the requirement that a student must complete at least one course focused on a non-western country or tribe (or for Asians, a western country or tribe). Bits of information strung out over several parts of a curriculum are inadequate (so-called globalism in education). Finally, one way of establishing a sense of wonder at the diversity of the human family involves the art world. Let there be a counterpart to the Olympic Games. Artists in visual arts, both fine and decorative (painters, sculptors, architects, jewelers, etc.) will compete in each nation state, and winners will agree to circulate their artwork through the capitols of major cities. People who view these works in museums and galleries will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite in each category, and at the end of four years world winners will be announced and a new cycle of competition will begin. Appiah argues for a portion of this cosmopolitan art fest, in that he states that a country should not hoard its own artistic productions but engage in trade with foreign museums so that people can experience the richness of human craft. From a cosmopolitan perspective, great art is held in trusteeship by the state, institution, or private individual. The patrimony idea, that art belongs to its culture of origin, is anti-cosmopolitan. Appiah states that It isn’t peoples who experience and value art; it’s men and women. Once you see that, then there’s no reason why a Spanish museum couldn’t or shouldn’t preserve a Norse goblet, legally acquired, let us suppose at a Dublin auction…. Don’t Spaniards have a case for being able to experience Viking craftsmanship? After all, there’s already an awful lot of Viking stuff in Norway…. If it is good to share art … the cosmopolitan asks, why should the sharing cease at national borders?51

There have been and will continue to be great artworks shipped from city to city for public viewing, so why not a full-fledged Art Olympics?

51 Cosmopolitanism:

Ethics in World of Strangers, 121 and 127.

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes to World Institutions

Traditional approaches to power and authority lay emphasis on hierarchical structures and the ability of those at the top to maintain their authority. On this basis, the only alternative to international anarchy is for all countries to become subject to some higher supranational authority—a world government— that can impose order through an international legal system ultimately backed by centralized use of force. —Peter Willetts

It is clear from what has been described in the Introduction that human history has taken a terribly wrong turn. The future is more uncertain than ever. In what follows cosmopolitan changes are set forth to put our future and the future of the earth’s biosphere back on the right track. This must begin at the highest level. First, the United Nations must be strengthened and a greater role given to peoples of the earth. Second, there must be requirements in basic knowledge for individuals to enter the field as candidates for high government offices, or as CEOs and Boards of Trustees of large national or transnational corporations. Third, there must be actions which facilitate the reduction of the human population, which is expanding exponentially. Fourth, national and transnational corporations are out of control and must be reined in.

© The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_5

95

96

M. H. DeArmey

Transforming the United Nations into a Cosmopolitan Organization The United Nations was formed in response to the ghastly misery and destruction of WW II, just as the League of Nations was formed in response to the horrors of WW I. The first movement toward a new international body took place in June of 1941 at St. James Palace in London. Fourteen nations agreed that “the only true basis of enduring peace is the cooperation of free peoples….”1 So from the outset two hallmarks of cosmopolitanism—cooperation and peoples—were emphasized. Later at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC four nations—USA, China, UK, and USSR agreed to form a “United Nations” with these structural components: a General Assembly, a Security Council, an International Court of Justice, a Secretariat, and an Economic and Social Council.2 At the founding meeting in San Francisco in 1945 the U.N. Charter was created, signed, and put into force on October 24, 1945. Over the now seventy-five years of its existence the United Nations has come under repeated criticism on a number of counts. 1. The Sovereignty Problem. The long-established Westphalian sovereignty of nation states over their internal affairs clashes with the UN imperative to sometimes intervene in cases of significant violations of human rights, genocide, ethnic violence, etc. 2. The Veto Problem. The Security Council is comprised of 15 members, 10 of which are elected by the General Assembly and are nonpermanent members. Five members, USA, China, Russia, UK, and France, are permanent members. Their elevated status was determined by power and influence. Decisions of the Security Council are reached by majority decision of the fifteen, but any one of the five permanent members can veto the majority decision. It is a common complaint that such veto power by one nation often blocks needed action by the

1 Charter

of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice (New York: United Nations Publication Edition, 2015), vi. Hereafter all references to the Charter will be derived from this work. 2 Ibid., viii–ix. The eventual Charter adds a Trusteeship (Article 7).

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

97

UN, opening the door to unchecked violence and other sources of suffering in various parts of the world. The Military Problem. Although the U.N. Charter grants the Security Council the use of sanctions and military force to maintain the peace (Articles 41, 42), the UN has no military force of its own readily available. It does have an advisory “military staff committee” consisting of the Chiefs of Staff from each of the permanent five, but that’s it. Moreover, the UN armed forces (the “blue helmets”), drawn from various nations, cannot engage in offensive actions to maintain the peace and stability of a region. Blue-helmeted military can fire only to defend themselves. The Charter Problem. Another issue is the status of the UN Charter. Is the Charter a world constitution? What kind of legal status does the Charter have? Can member states be punished for not abiding by the Charter, and if so, in what manner? The Peoples Problem. Is the United Nations just that, a strictly nationstate organization, or do the peoples of the world have (or should have) standing within the UN? The Environment Problem. The United Nations Charter is grossly inadequate in regard to the protection and restoration of the environment. The Charter antedates early studies (with their exhortations to environmental virtue) such as Leopold’s Sand County Almanac and Rachel Carson’s writings. There is no single organ of the UN which oversees various scattered UN agencies that pertain to the environment. No single UN organ has the power to compel by sanctions or even by military force terrible breaches of proper environmental conduct. The NGO Problem. The United Nations Charter recognizes the importance of nongovernmental organizations. Articles 70 and 71 of the Charter recognize that the Economic and Social Council may need advice and consultation with entities having specialized expertise or specific concerns, including “non-governmental organizations.” But it remains unclear as to what constitutes a nongovernmental organization of UN importance. According to one report, NGOs are

98

M. H. DeArmey

“all organizations of relevance to the UN that are not central governments and were not created by intergovernmental decision….”3 The UN has established three categories of NGOs: General consultive status, Special consultive status, and roster status. General consultive status allows an NGO to attend meetings of the Economic and Social Council, allows its authorized spokesperson to speak and to circulate statements of 2000 words or less, and permits it to propose a subject for the Council’s agenda. Current Resolution 1996/31 establishes requirements for an NGO to have consultive status: It must have an established headquarters; it must have an executive branch and offices; It must have a democratically adopted constitution; there must be a person authorized to speak for its members; it must be financially independent of governments, and lastly, it must have international standing. But even with these requirements what constitutes an NGO is unclear. Could a bank with “international standing” be an NGO? Are NGOs necessarily representative of regions (e.g., African children) or should all NGOs be international (sometimes referred to a INGOs), such as an international organization for the welfare of children)?4 8. The Question of the Future of NGOs. NGOs are increasingly influential. Their numbers have increased from early beginnings in the 1800s (abolition societies and the Red Cross come to mind), to 37,000 at the beginnings of the twenty-first century, with 2000 having official consulting status. Should there be a greater official role for NGOs to play in the United Nations?

3 Willem

van Genugten, Kees Homan, Nico Schrijver, and Paul de Waart, The United Nations of the Future: Globalization with a Human Face (Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2006), 32. The authors are quoting from a UN Report, “We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations, and global governance.” Access at: https://www.globalpolicy.org/images/pdfs/0611report.pdf. 4The “We the Peoples Report…” triggered a good deal of hostility in that it seemed to downgrade the status of NGOs by lumping all sorts of entities under the rubric “civil society” which, it claimed, would include corporations, religions, etc., and that civil society, so bloated, would participate in “global governance.” One scholar writes that “…it is astonishing that it is still unclear how to characterize an NGO in legal terms.” Kristen Martens, “Examining the Non-status of NGOs in International Law,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 10 (2003): 24.

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

99

A rational response to these seven problems must clearly be beneficial to the human family, and be in principle acceptable to U.N. member states. First the problem of sovereignty vs. intervention must be addressed: 1. Nation-State Sovereignty Does Not Extend to Transnational Evils. The absolute sovereignty of nation states has increasingly been eroded. Cell phones and the internet have reduced the ability of repressive governments to control information. Transnational corporations can escape fair taxation, and are difficult to control. A country’s borders are now permeable, and increasingly so. A decision by one country can have a cascading effect across other countries. To secure economic necessities countries must rely on other countries. The distinction between domestic and foreign is therefore blurred. In this book cosmopolitan law with the backing of sanctions and in some cases the use of military force can rightfully be used to abolish or at least reduce transnational evildoing wherever it occurs. This means that some organs of the United Nations must be strengthened and their resolutions be legally binding on nation states. Non-harmful, ordinary ways of living will not be affected, nothing of major significance will be lost. Destruction of the earth, genocide, torture cultures, slavery, terrorism, and war must be confronted and eliminated, if need be by the use of sanctions, arrests, force. Already the Security Council is authorized to use sanctions and sometimes military action to stop anything that threatens or disrupts world peace and security, and already the International Criminal Court can issue warrants for arrest and imprisonment of those who are convicted of participating in genocide or crimes against humanity. 2. A Two Vote Veto Requirement. In regard to the second problem, it is highly likely that no permanent member of the Security Council will give up its right to veto a majority decision. A rational and beneficial, yet modest, solution to this well-nigh universally acknowledged problem is that two vetoes are required to overturn a 15 member majority decision. The first veto vote would constitute a proposal to veto. Only when this is seconded by another vote in favor of a veto would the veto take effect. The consequence of this modification is to reduce

100

M. H. DeArmey

the power of each permanent member singly without removing completely veto power. Also, this modification would likely entail more discussion and more compromise. 3. A Rapid Deployment Force. Whenever the use of military force is required, the UN, through the Security Council, must request assistance from some member states and this makes the process rather sluggish. The U.N. needs a “rapid deployment force” or RDF of its own. The function of this military force would be: (a) to quickly intervene in cases of incipient genocide (see genocide indicators in the chapter below); (b) To restore order in cases of rogue militias; (c) To assist in the care of refugees, such as the stream of people fleeing Syria, or those in the caravans trying to enter the United States through Mexico; (d) To assist in building infrastructure and sustainability in poor nations; and (e) To allow Blue Helmets to engage in ongoing, offensive military operations once they have been threatened or fired upon. Speculation might put the number of Blue Helmets required at 10–15 thousand. The composition of the RDF would be military units and weapons contributed by various nation states. As a coalition of forces the RDF would be a unit under control of the U.N. It would have its own base of operations and appropriate commanders selected by the Security Council and reporting to the Security Council (see Articles 42 and 43). 4. The UN Charter a De Facto Constitution. Legal opinion is divided as to the status of the UN Charter. The position taken here is that if a country ratifies the Charter, and is subject to punishment for violating the Charter in some way, then the Charter is functioning as a constitution. There is no law without force, and force can take many forms, e.g., sanctions, fines, arrest, military action, expulsion. The mere fact that legal scholars agree or disagree is not relevant. The only question is, “how is the Charter functioning?” The same reasoning applies to the various UN Conventions. That such punishment exists is confirmed by Article 6: “A member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. Article 5 authorizes the Security Council to suspend rights and

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

101

privileges of any country against which the Security Council has had to employ enforcement or preventive action. Article 19 authorizes suspension of voting rights when a country is in arrears on its share of the UN budget. Article 2.6 appears to construe the Charter as a World Constitution, for it asserts that its principles apply to “states which are not Members of the United Nations.” Articles 104 and 105.1 grant the United Nations “legal capacity” in the territory of member states in order to exercise its functions and purposes. Article 103 asserts that the principles of the UN Charter override international treaties whenever the two conflict with one another. There are other arguments for a de facto UN Constitution. Michael W. Doyle notes that constitutional considerations are typically weak at the outset but “grow dynamically,” as exemplified in the European Union.5 It is to be expected that, given the multiple and severe problems which beset us, strengthening the de jure status of the UN Charter will take place.6 No one, from Kant to the present, desires the abolition of nation states because of the unmanageability and despotic threat of one “world state.” 5. The Future of NGOs and a Bicameral General Assembly. From the very outset at the St. James meeting in London, to the “Preamble” to the Charter, the United Nations has been a peoples’ organization, with the governments of nation-states putatively representing their peoples’ interests. The first words of the Charter are “We the Peoples” and people are described as bearers of “dignity and worth.” Kant was the first thinker to establish individual people as the foundation of Cosmopolitanism through the right of individuals to be treated in a

5 Michael

W. Doyle, “The UN Charter: A Global Constitution?” in Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance, edited by Jeffrey L. Dunoff (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 83. 6 It is not necessary that the basic law of a constitution be entirely pervasive and be the foundation of all other law. For example, the USA Constitution is not the foundation or source of the USA’s municipal traffic laws. The UN Charter is the supreme governing body for the entire family of mankind, the ultimate deliberating body for world and nation-state issues. See the discussion in Michael Doyle’s article cited in Footnote 5. For an impressive list of reasons for regarding the U.N. Charter as a World Constitution, see Bardo Fassbender, The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community (Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2009), 173–189.

102

M. H. DeArmey

hospitable manner by nation states. Needless to say, without individuals both the UN and nation states would disappear. This being the case, people are not only citizens of some country, but are “world citizens” as well: Habermas states that the “The point of cosmopolitan law is … that it goes over the heads of the collective subjects of international law to give legal status to the individual subjects and justifies their unmediated membership in the association of free and equal world citizens.”7 As cosmopolitans such as Habermas and Martha Nussbaum assert, there is no reason why a person cannot be both a citizen of a particular country and a world citizen at the same time.8 After all, a person can be a citizen of Massachusetts and the USA at the same time. Historically nation states have been the source of much mischief, indeed, much wrongdoing and evildoing in the world. The behavior and demeanor of government officials is often pompous, arrogant. Corruption is not uncommon. Officials lack forthrightness. Ignorance or indifference to the most pressing needs of their constituencies prevail. Their lack of an understanding of the findings and procedures of the sciences is appalling. How many world leaders can name the gases that cause global warming? How many have spent time in the homes of the very poor? How much money is wasted on the glory of military might? How many world leaders buckle under with fear at the thought of repercussions from attempts to control the activities of corporations? To counteract these faults the General Assembly must be split into two chambers: The traditional chamber representing nation states through their ambassadors, and a new sister chamber representing people.9 People would be represented by NGOs and federations of combined NGOs. The Peoples’ chamber would meet in the General Assembly Hall in New York, or at the

7 Jurgen

Habermas, “Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace, with the Benefit of Two Hundred Years’ Hindsight,” in Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal, edited by James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann (Cambridge, MA, and London, England: The MIT Press, 1997), 128–129. 8 Martha Nussbaum, For Love of Country? Joshua Cohen, editor (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996 and 2002). 9 A people’s chamber would require approval by the General Assembly and the Security Council: See Articles 108, 109 and 22.

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

103

Palais des Nations meeting just prior to the meetings of the General Assembly. An NGO governing body would be formed, and the five most pressing concerns would be voted upon and submitted for action by the General Assembly. The Secretary General will introduce the NGO officers to the ambassadors of the General Assembly and allow NGO presentations of proposals, complaints, and whenever appropriate deserved praise for improvement of nation-state behavior. Whenever a General Assembly approves a resolution, if it should be voted down by a 2/3 majority of NGO delegates, the General Assembly must rescind and table the resolution in order to allow for reconsideration. This would allow more time for NGO participation in the discussion of the issue at hand. How many NGO delegates should there be for the sister chamber? That is an open question. INFUSA is the International Network For a UN Second Assembly and it supports something similar to what is proposed here. However, some of its “principles” are questionable. First, INFUSA envisions the Peoples Assembly as a “subsidiary organ” of the General Assembly. But then the second assembly would not be an assembly in the full sense (but perhaps that is the most that can be expected?). INFUSA suggests that “The Second Assembly would be composed of non-government representatives from participating member states,” and each member state would have the right to decide on its own method of choosing representatives from its country….”10 This is incredibly naïve. Under the INFUSA proposal NGOs would be no more than extensions of nation-state values and policies, and the very existence of a government-chosen NGO would always be in question depending on what the government dictates. People themselves should form their own groupings without government participation or influence.11 10 “Campaign for a More Democratic United Nations,” International Democracy Watch. Access at: http://www.internationaldemocracywatch.org/index.php/campaign-for-a-moredemocratic-united-nations. 11The following should be excluded from consideration as NGOs: Corporations and businesses, religions, Government created NGOs, NGOs representing the people of a country, e.g., American citizens or Ghana citizens, strictly political groups, e.g., USA Democratic National Committee. NGOs must be international, virtuous, and beneficial to human life and the lives of the biotic community. Any non-virtuous NGO (such as the National Rifle Association) must be expelled from recognition by the United Nations.

104

M. H. DeArmey

6. An Environmental Council. The most glaring weakness in the United Nations Charter is the absence of articles protecting the environment. This must be repaired with the utmost urgency. The quality and perhaps even the existence of life is at stake. The various agencies with environmental concerns are scattered and ineffective. Most are found within the Economic and Social Council. Acceptable behaviors in regard to the environment are described in places, but various mandates are not enforced. For example, The Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (adopted Oct. 31, 1995), part of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, has failed to monitor the world’s fisheries, even though the Code itself mandates that it will do so. There is a weak Dumping mandate in regard to the oceans, but again there is a failure to stringently monitor. Where was the United Nations when it became evident years ago that plastic was ruining the oceans? Nation states may rape, destroy, debilitate, their own environment with impunity. But no country owns its territory, nor does the earth belong to the human species. Rather the earth is the home of the entire biotic community. Although the following cosmopolitan recommendation may seem draconian, nothing could be worse than the consequences which will certainly ensue if it, or something like it, is not adopted. There must be a Council for the Preservation and Restoration of the Environment (COPRE). The Council has the important task—the most important task—of saving the earth’s biosphere from the destructive activities of human beings. The mandates of this Council will be international law and enforceable. Just as the Security Council may intervene with sanctions/force when world peace and order are threatened, so the environment Council may intervene when the biosphere is threatened. The Council will consist of fifteen members, five of which are permanent and drawn from international environmental groups, such as the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), The Nature Conservancy, Union of Concerned Scientists, the International Union for Conservancy of Nature (IUCN), the World Health Organization (WHO). Ten other members are drawn from countries with threatened environments, such as Brazil or Indonesia, but these members must be long- and good-standing members of an international NGO. COPRE will have divisions: A

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

105

Corporate/Business Division which monitors the behavior of businesses; a Tropics Division; an Ocean Division; A Clean Air Division. Each division will have investigators who will be assisted by local and regional NGOs in gathering information and assistance in environmental restoration. Mandates by COPRE will be international law. For example, corporations must refrain from buying water sources in various parts of the world, or arranging or attempting to arrange concessions from a country to harvest its prime forests; or manufacturing single-use plastic bags or straws. Evidence of violations of environmental mandates are to be submitted to a strengthened International Court of Justice. The ICJ will have the power to issue subpoenas and arrest warrants, order property seized (such as ships, logging equipment, etc,) fine corporations, and invoke sanctions against violating countries. If necessary the ICJ will have the right to call upon the RDF to prevent environmental catastrophes or to overcome forcible resistance to COPRE’s mandates. What has been outlined here are changes in the United Nations which will establish a strengthened, cosmopolitan United Nations.

Requirements of Basic Knowledge The actions of government leaders and CEOs affect the well-being of millions of people, yet their ignorance of basic knowledge is abhorrent. In one poll in the USA, 70% of Republicans in Congress deny humaninduced climate change. Many governors and legislators think the same. USA anti-science President Trump bases his rejection of climate change on what he calls his “natural instincts.” Many corporate executives and members of boards of trustees continue with policies and practices which degrade ecosystems. What do government leaders in the United States, Mexico, South America, China, and the various African countries know about their environments? A former President of Indonesia, when asked how his country could pay off its tremendous debt, replied that “we can

106

M. H. DeArmey

cut all our timber and pay it all off.”12 But there is more.13 What do most government leaders and corporate executives know first-hand (apart from pages of “data”) about living in poverty? What do most government leaders know about child development? Nutrition? What do they know about economics and the dangers of capitalism? Cosmopolitan changes will address these problems. A rational and beneficial proposal is that, for a person to become a candidate for public office, he or she must have taken a seven day, eight hour a day, workshop in basic knowledge. Successful completion will earn that person a permit or license to run for office. Corporate executives and members of boards of trustees must also fulfill requirements for a permit or license, for after all their decisions, so the quip goes, affect more lives than the Caesars of ancient Rome. Persons required to have a permit to run for political office are state legislators, governors, national legislators, Presidents, and appointed cabinet members. These workshops will be held at universities and colleges and will be conducted by experts in various fields. Opening remarks will explain how science works, comments on correspondence, coherence, and pragmatic theories of truth, followed by lectures and discussions on topics such as ecology and environmental ethics, child development and nutrition, and economics. An important component of the workshops will be a practicum. For one full day, from morning to evening, those seeking to run for public office will live the daily routine of an extremely poor family. The same requirements apply to corporate heads and boards of trustees, but not small

12 Cited by Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World (Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2007), 77: “Indonesian President Suharto, a great friend of globalization, put this clearly after being slapped with a Structural Adjustment Program. No need to worry, said the amiable leader of the world’s fourth largest nation, Indonesia could always exchange its forests for the money owed to the banks.” 13 Susan George has shown in detail how the debts of nation-states result in environmental destruction. The 1970s was a decade of enormous loans to nation-states, resulting in a tremendous repay burden. One cause of environmental destruction is a government’s plundering and selling off its natural resources (forests, seafood, minerals, etc.) to pay on its enormous debt. Attempts at growing cash crops to pay debts resulted in depletion of soil fertility. No money remains for improving/rescuing the environment. Poor people are marginalized even more. See her The Debt Boomerang: How the Third World Debt Harms Us All (London: Pluto Press, Transnational Institute, 1992).

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

107

businesses.14 The actions of physicians collectively affect millions of people. And it is eminently rational and beneficial that they have a license to practice medicine, and moreover that this license must be renewed every few years through additional workshops in which advances in medical knowledge are assimilated. The same is true of social workers, who must every few years renew their license through workshops. Therefore the licensing requirement for government and corporate officials has justifiable precedence. Recognition must be given to that fact that, just because candidates have acquired basic knowledge, that does not guarantee that this will be translated into the appropriate behaviors. Knowledge is one thing, motivation another. But any opposition to the basic knowledge will be severely weakened by the force of explanations contained in the lectures.15

Overpopulation There are far too many people. John Michael Greer is surely correct when he states that “Among all the forces driving us toward an ugly future, the raw pressure of human overpopulation, with the huge and rising resource requirements it entails, is among the most important.”16 On January 19, 2019, there are over 7.7 billion people. Readers are encouraged to look online at the “World Population Clock.”17 Estimates of sustainability range from 6.0 to 6.5 billion, but this assumes sustainable behaviors on our part. The estimate of 10 billion people by the year 2050 is probably low. E. O. Wilson has some insightful comments about this. He notes that 14These

requirements will not affect small businesses. Executives and board members of all companies on the New York Stock exchange, or their counterpart stock exchanges in other countries, will be required to have a permit. 15The permit or license requirement is a descendent of Plato’s contention that only those who possess basic knowledge should rule. Universities would issue a certificate indicating successful completion and this will be the basis of the permit or license issued by the state (for state elections) and the federal government for federal candidates/appointees. 16 John Michael Greer, Dark Age America: Climate Change, Cultural Collapse and the Hard Future Ahead (Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2016), 41. 17 http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/.

108

M. H. DeArmey

On or about October 12, 1999, the world population reached 6 billion. It has continued to climb at an annual rate of 1.4 percent. The rate although beginning to slow, is still basically exponential: the more people, the faster the growth, thence still more people sooner and an even faster growth, and so on upward toward astronomical numbers…. When the number of children per woman stays above 2.1 even slightly, the population still expands exponentially.18

What does this mean for the future? Wilson calculates the numbers: If … fertility continues to fall at the current rate, the population will reach 10.7 by 2050 and continue steeply upward for a few more decades before peaking. If it holds to the present growth rate, it will reach 14.4 billion by 2050.19

With our bloated human population common actions are magnified on an enormous scale. Someone drops a plastic bag on a beach and the tide drags it into the ocean. Now, multiple this by hundreds of millions of such acts and marine life is destroyed and the beauty of the beaches and oceans is lost. Another consequence of the destruction of the earth’s biosphere, already underway, is the increasing scarcity of resources, ranging from phosphates to edible seafood to copper to water. Irregular weather patterns (drought, floods, etc.) will reduce crop output. It is imperative that the human population be reduced—not just zero population growth, but significant decreases in the number of human beings over time. How can this be achieved? First, the United Nations and Peoples Assemblies must provide, free of any cost, so-called morning after pills (ulipristal acetate) for people in every poor nation. Wealthier nations must do the same for that segment of their population which cannot afford to purchase these pills. People both poor and non-poor must be educated on sexual matters and the benefits of fewer children.20 Better to have a healthy biosphere and good public health. Better to have fewer 18 Edward

O. Wilson, The Future of Life (New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 2002), 28–29. 19 Ibid., 31. 20The Vatican must rescind polices restricting birth control techniques. Saving the world overrides such matters.

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

109

children with a better life than to struggle with raising more children who are in various ways deprived of a better life. Rather than reward large families by tax deductions for each child, rewards should be given to one-child families. Having two children, for example, would result in fewer deductions/rewards than having one child. Humans have lost the freedom to procreate without regard to consequences. A 50% reduction in the present human population by 2100 is desirable, reasonable, and achievable. Without recommendations set forth in this book, or something similar to them, there will be a violent ending to life as we know it, with much suffering, mass extinction, and universal shame at what we have done to the natural world. A person would be hard-pressed to find an ethical corporation. What are the reasons for this? First, there is a widely circulated claim that the only moral duty corporations have is to their shareholders. This view is mistaken and pernicious. Duties on the part of corporations are stationin-life duties. Duties to shareholders are not duties for people outside the corporate structure, just as the duties of a physician, nurse, attorney, firemen, etc., are not duties for people outside those professions. It is an ethical requirement, however, that station-in-life duties cannot override duties based on moral principles. Station-in-life duties must be consistent with such general duties as to be just, trustworthy, to exercise reparation for wrongdoing, and to help those in dire need (to mention just a few). To deny this would open the door to any type of immoral conduct so long as shareholders are benefitted. Second, shareholders are scattered about, and are typically not directly affected by corporate decisions. So Hercules, a chemical company based in Delaware, can emit pollutants in one of its factories in Hattiesburg, MS, without affecting most of its shareholders. Even when shareholders do become aware of corporate misconduct, they rarely succeed in changing corporate decisions/policies. Third, there is a culture indigenous to each corporation. This is described in detail in sociologist Robert Jackall’s book, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers.21 Jackall was allowed free and unrestricted access to the internal workings of several large corporations. 21 Robert

Jackall, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

110

M. H. DeArmey

His book describes two dozen or so features of a number of large corporations, and these collectively comprise the culture of corporations. Irrationality, waste, injustice, lying for profits, effacement and humiliation, indifference to environmental consequences, credit for success going up to the CEO while pushing down failure and blame to lower employees, loyalty to those above you in rank, from workers on the floor all the way to the CEO—these and more comprise corporate culture. In corporate land, the CEO is king over his (infrequently her) empire.22 Fourth, the personalities generated by capitalism are frequently lacking in a sense of a common humanity. Just listen to the now infamous memo sent by Lawrence Summers when he was a vice-president of the World Bank: “I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable … I’ve always thought that under populated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted….”23 Major international companies are moral monsters, hiding their conduct behind advertising which is meant to entice, charm, and delight the public. For example, the polar bear company, Coca-Cola, is attempting to buy up water supplies from native villages. A former president and CEO of Coca-Cola, Douglas Ivester, stated that friendship and respect are “not my priority. This is what I really want. I want your customers, I want your space on the shelves, I want your space of the consumer’s stomach.”24 Wendy’s is abusive to its fast food employees, timing their movements down to seconds25 ; McDonald’s conceals its ingredients. Its 22 Some of these are: discouraging moral or political questions; avoidance of long-term planning; everyone sees him/herself as an object to be moved, replaced, ordered about, etc.; self-deceptive language, e.g., cotton dust is airborn particulate matter, acid rain is poorly buffeted precipitation; deferring capital expenditures for buildings, machinery, even safety devices, etc. in order to show greater return on assets (ROA); bureaucratic separation of people from awareness of the consequences of their action; loyalty to those above you, especially the CEO, such that if he plays golf everyone who can takes up golf; fear of whistle-blowing—you might lose your job. 23 Published in The Economist, February 8, 1992. 24 Quoted by Kovel from an article by Nikhil Duogun in the Wall Street Journal, May 5, 1997. 25 See Kovel, 60–61, citing J. Ordonez, “An Efficiency Drive: Fast Food Lanes Are Getting Even Faster,” The Wall Street Journal, May 28, 2000. A Wendy’s manager, Mr. Tomney, is monitoring the seven drive-through employees: “The bun grabber retrieves buns from the warmer the instant she hears a customer order through her headset…. Mr. Tomney [notices] her hands aren’t positioned … [her] manager demonstrates, hands against the wall, legs slightly spread.” Every second saved is more profit.

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

111

hamburgers and other food increase body fat in people wherever it opens new outlets.26 The computer giants Apple and Microsoft employ child slave labor in China and the Congo (see the chapter on slavery below). Automobile manufacturers are sluggish in admitting that malfunctions in their cars are causing deaths and injuries. Cosmetic companies, popcorn companies, and many others buy palm oil from harvested forests in Indonesia. Fifthly, CEOs and other top corporate executives receive outrageous salaries and golden parachute deals, while the hard-working employees at the bottom strive to make ends meet for their families.27 And of course these corporations exploit poor workers all over the world by offering subsistence wages. Corporations must expand and create new markets in order to keep paying dividends to their stockholders. The law of diminishing returns is another factor. Once your target market has purchased your blender, stove, computer, textbooks, etc., you must keep adding new gadgets, new features to entice customers to discard their present product in favor of the new “fancy” one. Everything is measured in exchange value and money. Money, an artificial product not found in nature, becomes the measure of everything. There is a rupture between capitalism and nature. The ticking of clocks replaces the rhythms of nature that once were prominent in human societies. Capitalism is, Kovel says, a “time-obsessed society,” and as Marx noted, in the force-field which is capitalism, “Time is everything, man is nothing; he is at the most, time’s carcass.”28 Corporations must be constrained by doing what is necessary to make them ethical institutions. First, as already indicated above, CEOs and Board Members must have a permit or license, earned by a workshop in basic knowledge and first-hand encounters with poor families (renewable every 3 years). Secondly, national and transnational corporations are 26 Kovel,

55–56. As a result of McDonald’s 2000 outlets in Japan, per capita fat tripled; Hong Kong has 25 of McDonald’s top outlets worldwide, with a 13% increase in the weight of teenagers and the beginning of the menstrual cycle at 12, as compared to 17 on mainland China. 27 Ibid., 86: Fired executives at AT&T, Disney, Apple, and Smith Barney received payoffs of 26, 90, 7, and 22 million dollars, respectively. A fired CEO of Home Depot was given 211 million dollars upon leaving. 28 Ibid., 62–63. Quoting Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) (New York: International Publishers, 1963), 41.

112

M. H. DeArmey

subject to international law in their operations affecting environments (alas, corporations reduce ecosystems to “resources”). Violating mandates from COPRE can put a corporation in the International Court of Justice where the company and/or its executives may be fined, arrested, offending equipment seized, and sanctions levied against the nation state that permitted the violation(s) in its territory. Thirdly, the massive poverty that exists worldwide can be reduced in the following ways. Populations must rise up against government leaders which ignore their plight. The personal income of corporate executives cannot exceed 10 million dollars a year. Annual personal income above that figure is to be taxed at 90%. This new source of revenue, collected by each nation state, will be used for alleviating poverty within that nation state. People with large incomes should not complain. It could be rightly said, that if you can’t have a good life on 10 million a year then you are an egoist suffering from a severe case of the vice which Aristotle called acquisitiveness. A final recommendation is the holistic reconstruction of failed or extremely poor states.

Holistic Reconstruction of Failed States A sound cosmopolitanism concerned with justice will aim at holistic reconstructions of impoverished and/or failed nation states. This is a better strategy than repeated temporary aid. This seems to be the implication from Appiah’s remarks on this topic: Part of the reason UNICEF or OXFAM … can keep sending those letters is that they have to save the same children over and over again … [But] you are not thereby making a serious contribution to the real improvement of their life changes. Death isn’t the only thing that matters. What matters is decent lives.29

Everything within such a nation state must be examined: the relation of its human population to the availability of water; how water is delivered; what soils within its boundaries can grow which crops in a sustainable 29 Cosmopolitanism:

Ethics in a World of Strangers, 167.

5 Cosmopolitanism, Necessary Changes …

113

way (e.g., crop rotation, terracing, planting between nitrogen-fixing trees and bushes); how nutrient-depleted soils can be reinvigorated; movement away from granular fertilizers and reestablishment of the animal manure/crop relation. All important is the establishment of zones in which ecosystems can retain (or return to) a state of self-renewal—that is what ecological health is. On the human side of this reconstruction, institutions such as the IMF and The World Bank, the United Nations, and wealthy western nation states will provide funds for the creation of local school buildings, teachers, and supplies. NGOs may help in various ways in the reconstruction. Local clinics, both stationary and mobile, will be created, along with necessary medical personnel and supplies. Creation or repair of the country’s infrastructure, with careful attention to its ecological impact will result in adequate wells, pipes, sewerage, bridges, and roads. Architects and artists will make sure the designs of visible infrastructure are aesthetically pleasing and elevate the population’s self-esteem. Reconstruction will also involve “elimination of the negative.” The following problems must be addressed: (1) The safety of reconstruction workers and their equipment; (2) The existence of military weapons among civilians; A provision for funds necessary for buying up weapons at a price significantly above the underground market price will be included. This will encourage people to turn in their AK-47s, mortars, explosive materials, etc. (3) If necessary, periodic payment in lump sums to corrupt presidents and military leaders, so that they will not raid or extract reconstruction monies. This can be categorized as “internal administrative cost.” Too often leaders are so infatuated with their own power and majesty that they resist outside assistance. Reconstruction negotiations will utilize the “discourse ethics” cited previously. Rational estimates of the sustainability of resources will be measured against the country’s real and projected population.

Part II Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects…to indicate the truth roughly and in outline….for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits. —Aristotle

The question, “What is evil?” may be an inquiry into what sorts of things are evil or it may be a request to clarify what is meant by the term “evil.” This chapter analyzes the concept of evil, a necessary propaedeutic for identifying and classifying types of evil. Before the analysis of evil is undertaken, the notions of bad and wrongdoing are examined, a necessary step in order to avoid confusion with evil. Overall this chapter will be a taxonomy of bad, wrong, and evil, something not found elsewhere in print. Generally thinkers avoid this subject for various reasons. The subject is unpleasant and depressing, and it tends to foster misanthropy. The procedure here is to first examine “bad,” the most general term for disapproval. Next, the types of wrongdoing are delineated, followed by the analysis of evildoing. Evil is something that goes beyond lesser wrongdoings, and represents the very worst of human behaviors. Hopefully some taxonomic order and perhaps some insight will illuminate this murky realm, the dark side of human behavior. © The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_6

117

118

M. H. DeArmey

The Concept of Bad There is little doubt that during the time of Aristotle the debate over the status of the good was still ongoing. Earlier Plato and later members of the Academy defended the notion that there is something common to all instances of goodness, and this is the form, perfect pattern or template, the eidos of good. Plato’s star pupil, Aristotle, rejected the monism of the good and defended pluralism. According to Aristotle there is no common thread to all forms of goodness. What could good weather, good flute playing, and a good person have in common? Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s form of the good is devastating. But what about the bad? Apparently Plato did not elevate badness or any form of negativity to the status of a form. Aristotle, although he discusses wrongdoing and the vices, has little to say about bad per se. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle seems to imply that there can be no science of the bad: Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, and good to that of the limited), while to succeed is possible in only one way… For men are good in but one way, but bad in many.1

He does classify the vices, and he recognizes forms of wrongdoing: wickedness per se (false major premise in a practical syllogism), bruteness (lacking morals altogether, nowadays amorality), akrasia (weakness of the will). He does not cite various forms of badness. Farmer McDonald says that bad weather is approaching—an early freeze. But Ed at Ed’s Clothing Store thinks an early freeze is good (he stocks a lot of winter apparel). Does this imply that good and bad are subjective? Not in one important sense. Bad here means what defeats one’s purposes, in this case harming crops; good fulfills purposes. Bad business might refer to failure to promote one’s products by neglecting advertising or overpricing. Secondly, bad may mean something offensive to the senses either by quality, excess, or deficiency. Harsh or inadequate lighting, foul odors, loud noises, rough clothing, are referred to as bad lighting, bad 1 Aristotle,

The Nicomachean Ethics, David Ross translator (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 38.

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

119

odors, etc. These offending qualities frequently appear in torture scenarios. Bad as dysfunctional is the third type. A bad gear in a transmission, or a bad electrical connection, are examples. Bad as a threat to a person’s well-being is a fourth type. A bad dog may refer to a dog that will bite you. A bad storm is one that can harm people and property. Bad circulation in a person can be construed as bad in function as well as bad as a threat to one’s well-being. Bad as falling short of a standard of goodness is the fifth type. Bad art, a bad swimmer are examples. A sixth type is bad in reference to the character of a person. This refers to a person whose character is corrupt as evidenced by repeated intentions and/or acts which are immoral or deeply offensive. Seventhly, bad may refer to acts or deeds that are immoral. A guest who insults a host is behaving badly, i.e., “merely” offensively; a guest stealing silverware is bad behavior because it is wrong, not merely offensive. Eighthly, bad may function as an intensifier. Someone who says she is in bad pain has gone beyond saying she is in or has pain. “I am badly depressed” is worse than “I am depressed.” Some states of a person may be bad “by name,” as Aristotle puts it. Some things are bad by name because of disliked bodily feelings, e.g., pain, discomfort, torment, starvation, dehydration, shock. Other things bad by name are affronts to one’s image of oneself, one’s self-respect or self-esteem. These include humiliation, degradation, defamation, betrayal, alienation, boredom, manipulation by lies or secrets, snubbing, and affronts. Felonious acts like murder, rape, theft are also bad by name and bad because wrongful. Counting these as bad by name does not preclude the possibility of accepting any of these for a greater good, e.g., to save someone’s life you steal a life-saving medicine from a person who doesn’t need it but yet won’t give it up, or accepting pain at the dentist for better dental health. Two questions arise in connection with the bad. First, is pain always bad? Secondly, what is the relation between the bad and likes and dislikes? In regard to pain, it seems to consist of four components: a nasty quality, degrees of compulsory attention, emerging distress, and torment for a greater or lesser time. To anyone who claims that pain can be good, that in some situation S, pain is liked, the correct retort is “would you prefer to be in S without the pain?” A man falls off a ladder and fears he has broken bones. But he joyfully discovers he has only a slight pain in his

120

M. H. DeArmey

little toe. But the correct retort is, “wouldn’t you rather have fallen with no pain at all?” Some people, it is said, enjoy the painful pricks at the tattoo parlor. Some writers offer the example of a mother who affectionately pinches her little boy on the rear and the boy giggles in response. However, in these cases some features of pain are missing. First, little or no compulsory attention exists in the fall, tattoo, and pinch cases. There is neither distress nor torment. Even the nasty quality is reduced to a mild sensation, merely an irritation. Therefore it can be concluded that all pain, as defined by the four features above, is bad. Michael Stocker has argued that people can desire the bad when in certain moods or emotional states.2 A person who has failed in some task to which he has worked doggedly may beat his head on the wall in frustration. An external observer may think he desires the bad (pain), but the frustrated person is not thinking of his head-beating as bad or good. Stocker’s essay falls short of making a case that a person P knows X is bad and P desires X per se, because it is bad. Nonetheless, as Aristotle argued against Socrates, there is no necessary connection between cognition and motivation. The existence of malignant or preferential wrongdoing is certainly a case of desiring what one knows to be bad (see below). Some bad things can happen to a person unknowingly. Sudden loss of intelligence due to a massive stroke comes to mind. A dead person may be slandered after death, or have a dying promise broken by a relative or friend. A person may be victim of some absurd compulsion (talking to asparagus). Finally, someone may unknowingly participate in some odious act (recall the blindfolded child with the assault rifle in the film, Blood Diamond ). The varieties of badness sketched in this taxonomy show up in major forms of wrong- and evil-doing.

2 Michael

Stocker, “Desiring the Bad: An Essay in Moral Psychology,” The Journal of Philosophy, 76 (1979): 738–753.

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

121

Moral Standards and the Taxonomy of Wrongdoing Bad behavior which is immoral behavior or wrong (as opposed to “merely” offensive behavior), and bad behaviors which have “risen” to the level of evildoing, are behaviors that violate some standard of moral decency. The first question is, what is a moral standard? Violation of aesthetic standards, e.g., standards which constitute good poetry or architecture, result in no harm and are distinct from moral standards.3 Violation of technical or instrumental standards are not immoral unless they result in harm (e.g., a collapsed building due to intentional violation of building standards in an earthquake-prone zone). Moral standards are not commands (e.g., open the door), although they have a compelling feature. “You ought to return the lost camera” and “You must return the camera” are equivalent statements in which the speaker is prepared to give reasons, reasons which would directly or elliptically refer to another’s harm (in this case loss), and these reasons are meant to justify the returning of the camera. A distinction must be drawn between moral principles and moral rules.4 Moral principles determine moral rules. Moral principles are fundamental, universal, general, and override other considerations. Moral rules on the other hand assert that certain kinds of actions are morally right or wrong. A moral rule can be overridden only if strong reasons can be given for violating the rule. Moral rules are either mandatory (A is required or dutiful) or permissive (it is morally acceptable but not

3A

prohibition not to step on the lines on the pavement because these are a thing of beauty, as opposed to a prohibition not to step on these lines because it will detonate a bomb in a crowded theatre. See Ronald Milo, Immorality (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 197. Milo states “Moral considerations …must include considerations of harm and benefit….” 195. 4 See Marcus Singer, “Moral Rules and Principles,” in Essays in Moral Philosophy, edited by A. I. Melden (St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1958), 160–197. Also, P. R. Foot and Jonathan Harrison, “Symposium: When Is a Principle a Moral Principle?” Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume, 28 (1954): 95–134.

122

M. H. DeArmey

required to do A). In classifying types of wrongdoing it is not necessary to defend some specific moral principle.5 Thirteen types of wrongdoing are identifiable. Ronald Milo discusses six types, which he divides into “conscious” and “unconscious” wrongdoing. Unconscious wrongdoing occurs when an agent acts immorally but is unaware that her act is immoral. One type of unconscious wrongdoing is Perverse wrongdoing. This occurs when an agent has a moral rule which he mistakenly thinks is true. “Might is right,” “all infidels must be converted or killed,” “nature exists solely for human use,” are examples. Aristotle claims that ignorance of the universal or major premise in a practical syllogism is wickedness, like a state with bad laws. Amorality is another type. The amoral person is unaware that his/her actions are right or wrong because he/she does not think in moral terms. S. I. Benn states that such a person is lacking in a basic human capacity, namely, the ability to understand the feelings of other people. He states that the amoral is therefore not morally responsible and is just a force in nature, like a maneating tiger.6 Included under amorality is psychopathy. Recent research indicates that the psychopath puts even extreme wrongdoing on the same plane as such conventionalities as chewing with your mouth open, or littering the street.7 Unlike the psychopath, even incarcerated criminals and autistic children distinguish between wrongdoing and conventionalities. Moral negligence occurs when an agent is unaware that some specific act of his violates his own moral rules. Referring to a woman as “chick,” or “baby,” or “girl,” may violate a man’s moral rule that people are not to be disparaged. Neither Ronald Milo nor S. I. Benn discusses unconscious wrongdoing from the standpoint of psychoanalysis. Such wrongdoing

5The three principles favored here are the Kantian universalization principle, the respect for persons principle, and the kingdom of ends principle. It is to be noted in Chapter 4 on care and hospitality that a consequentialist principle can be used as an auxiliary principle in the case of imperfect duties such as benevolence. 6 S. I. Benn, “Wickedness,” in Doing and Being, Selected Readings in Moral Philosophy, Joram Graf Haber editor (New York and Toronto: Macmillan Publishing, 1993), 378; First published in Ethics 95 (1985), 795–810. 7 See the excellent article by Shaun Nichols, “How Psychopaths Threaten Moral Rationalism,” in The Monist, 85, #2. Evil (2002), 294–295. This tells against Benn’s view that psychopaths lack the capacity to empathize.

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

123

could stem from one or more of the various ego defense mechanisms, such as projection or reaction formation.8 Conscious wrongdoing admits of three types. Moral indifference occurs when an agent knows the difference between right and wrong but just doesn’t care whether his action is right or wrong. Moral indifference has increased significantly during the last century due to the rise of bureaucracies and the looming threat of job loss under capitalism.9 Weakness of the will occurs when an agent knows that a certain act is wrong, but cannot resist doing it. Intemperance, procrastination, and irresolution are three modes of weakness of the will. Typically such acts are followed by regret. Aristotle discusses akrasia or incontinence in the context of refuting Socrates’ contention that no one does evil voluntarily. Preferential wrongdoing occurs when a person knows that if she does A, she will be doing wrong, but she does A, preferring the immoral act to doing right. Milo misconstrues preferential wrongdoing as moral indifference. However, the morally indifferent person has no motivation to do wrong (or right either—he doesn’t care), whereas the preferential wrongdoer desires to do wrong for the very fact that it is wrong.10 Here S. I. Benn has the better analysis of preferential wickedness, which he deems “malignity.” Benn quotes Schopenhauer on “very bad men” who project outwards their own inward torment in making others suffer as “an end in itself.”11 Claggart in Melvillle’s Billy Budd is just the sort of fellow to whom Schopenhauer refers. He plots to destroy the good-natured Billy Budd just because he has no access to Billy’s fine qualities. Pure malignity can be found In Richard Wright’s Black Boy. Gloating white bosses at an 8 George

E. Valliant, Adaptation to Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1977). Also Carl Goldberg, The Evil We Do: The Psychoanalysis of Destructive People (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2000). 9 “Moral indifference has been called, appropriately, the ‘modern sin.’” Warren K. Thompson, “Ethics, Evil and the Final Solution,” in Echoes from the Holocaust, Philosophical Reflections on a Dark Time, edited by Alan Rosenberg and Gerald Myers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 188. 10 Milo, Immorality, 236–237: “Perhaps the agent desires to torture someone because the sight (or even the thought) of someone in pain gives him a certain thrill….[he] prefers to get this thrill (or to feel dominant and powerful)…, 236; also, 237, 7, 8n. It is a mystery how he construes this as moral indifference. 11 Benn, “Wickedness,” 386. Quoting Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea in The Philosophy of Schopenhauer, Irwin Edman editor (New York: Modern Library, 1928), 293.

124

M. H. DeArmey

optical factory conspire by lying innuendo to have two black men hate each other, leading to a vicious boxing match between the two employees.12 Hate crimes are often due to sheer malignity rather than revenge. S. I. Benn also offers a typology of wickedness. He conceives wickedness as the evil that humans bring into the world. Self-centered wrongdoing occurs when a person’s moral rules and moral sensitivities extend only to oneself, one’s family and friends, and one’s community. Others outside this orbit are looked upon only through the eyes of self-interest. Theodore Roosevelt’s Winning of the West regards native Americans as savages to be civilized and Christianized by Euro-Americans. In his “Manifest Destiny” John Fiske envisioned the United States extending from pole to pole, overcoming every trace of “barbarism.” Moral fanaticism is another form of wrongdoing. Chairman Mao’s “great leap forward” and “cultural revolution” attempted to wipe out all traces of bourgeois elitism and exploitation. Although it is a good thing not to have exploitation (recall the British importing massive amounts of opium into China), Mao’s programs nearly destroyed Chinese agriculture. Red guards terrorized towns and villages. Mathematical and scientific projects were destroyed. Religious monuments and relics were defaced.13 On a lesser scale some of Lyndon Johnson’s well-intended Great Society projects replaced “ghettoes” (which in some cases were not ghettoes to the residents) with their familiar barbershops, alleyways, pool halls, meeting rooms, etc., with sanitized housing projects. As a result the number of cases of alcoholism, disorientation, depression, and suicide rose.14 Benn also discusses what he calls “heteronomous” wrongdoing. This occurs when a person gives up his willpower and critical thinking to another person. Rigidly authoritarian personalities are exemplary. Truncated willpower often occurs in war. Some Nazi elite were convinced Hitler was incapable

12 Richard

Wright, Black Boy (New York and London: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1945), 205–213. 13 A brief but excellence account of Mao’s fanaticism in instituting the good is Chapter 30, “Mao’s Utopian Project,” in Jonathan Glover, Humanity, A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 283–298. 14 Dale Jamieson, “The City Around Us,” in Morality’s Progress, Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 244–281.

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

125

of error. Rudolf Hess stated that “…National Socialism…is anchored in uncritical loyalty, in the surrender to the Führer that does not ask for the Why….”15 Albert Speer voiced the same line, “My inclination to be relieved of having to think….In this I did not differ from millions of others.”16 The tenth form of wrongdoing is moral fragmentation in which a person has conflicting motivations, some of which stem from moral precepts which haven’t been prioritized. Lt. Calley who commanded the US soldiers in the massacre at My Lai, Vietnam, had moral precepts which clashed: Love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, always follow orders, get higher body counts, appear tough to your men. The problem of weighing alternatives is common in assessing the texts of folk religions like Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Which of their many moral precepts have greater weight? Other forms of moral fragmentation include doubling and the wavering will. Passive wrongdoing is yet another type. The passive wrongdoer is aware of another person’s suffering or imminent suffering and can alleviate or prevent it without a significant loss, but she does nothing. Failure to be a good Samaritan is wrong under these circumstances. Another type of passive wrongdoing is moral drift, which occurs when a person fails to redress someone’s wrongdoing and as a result that type of wrongdoing increases quantitatively. Failure to act in rooting out a drug dealer in a neighborhood may result in the demise of a good neighborhood due to the proliferation of drug trafficking, weapons, and increasing presence of criminal types. Being morally sullied is a twelfth form which can lead to wrongdoing. It consists of a weakening of motivation to do what is morally right because a person has already committed some kind of wrongdoing and therefore cares less about not doing it again. Laurence Thomas illustrates this by noting that a person who tries to keep his new white pants looking new may care less about that once his pants have been stained. Moral discrimination is a thirteenth form of wrongdoing. Direct moral discrimination occurs when a group is in some way disadvantaged compared to a group whose life advantages serve as a measure. 15 Quoted 16 Ibid.,

by Glover, Humanity, 328. 361.

126

M. H. DeArmey

So for Hobby Lobby, a USA crafts store, to deny women employees’ reproductive health care is both to disadvantage this group and also to denigrate its members as well. Indirect moral discrimination occurs when a government, an institution, or corporation has policies or a structural arrangement which indirectly allow for unjust and demeaning moral discrimination by others. A final type of wrongdoing is violent behavior resulting from a psychoanalytic complex. Beginning with childhood abuse or “benign neglect” there is a progression over time and under certain conditions to an adult’s violent, felonious acts. Carl Goldberg has outlined the “primary factors of destructiveness.” Benign neglect is deprivation of compassion, parental guidance, and proper socialization of a child leading to the child’s negative sense of his/her identity and shame over oneself. Concomitant with this is a poverty-stricken language of feelings and emotions. Shame and negative identity constitute self-hatred, which is followed by indifference to others. Wishing to escape this condition, the young adult may create the fantasy of his/her superiority to others, ending with proof of superiority by acts of domination and violence against others.17 Eric Fromm focuses on a different psychoanalytic complex, but one which overlaps that of Goldberg. Violent destructive behavior in adults may stem from chronic boredom, in which greater and greater stimuli are necessary for a person’s feeling that he/she is alive. This may begin in childhood with destructive behavior in regard to other children, animals and the child agent her/himself.18 Many acts of wrongdoing spring from vices. John shoots the new boyfriend of his ex-fiancée Mary. Although he may have within his dossier of moral rules one that says people shouldn’t be harmed, he need not be thinking of it at the time of the shooting. Perhaps John has grown up habitually using threatening or violent behavior to get what he wants and this overrides his (unstable) moral rule against harm. Or, he may not even have a moral rule prohibiting harm to another. He may live his life on the basis of behavioral dispositions. We, as external observers, may 17 Carl

Goldberg, The Evil We Do: The Psychoanalysis of Destructive People (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2000), 72–74. This book is full of fascinating insights from his case studies. 18 Eric Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1973).

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

127

classify his wrongdoing as lack of self control (akrasia) or preferential wrongdoing, but that does not mean that John’s motivation instantiates either of these. Vices may rule the day. The theory of vices is beyond the scope of this chapter. Provisionally I am skeptical about a taxonomy of the vices. It is unclear what counts as a vice. To be sure a vice is a repetitive behavior which manifests a character flaw. Vices represent human weaknesses, and virtues are virtues because of these background weaknesses. Aristotle thought the vices were constituted by either excessive or deficient behavior (behaviors bad by name have neither excess nor deficiency). I have asked my students on occasion to describe a worst roommate based on the four worst vices they can think of. One repeatedly chosen vice is bad hygiene, the “stinking” person who doesn’t bathe, attend to their toilet properly, etc. Is this a vice? What about secretiveness? Arrogance? What would the corresponding virtues be? What would Aristotle say about these candidates? Interpreters of Christianity refer to seven “deadly” sins, and Judith Shklar has a book on the important vices. But the question of what counts as a vice is not addressed in either. Shklar has it that cruelty is the worst vice, and that brings us to the examination of evil.19

The Concept of Evil Insights and Errors in Selected Thinkers. There are fundamental clarifications that must be emphasized before a more detailed analysis of “evil” can be undertaken. First, evil exists whether there is a god or not. Did not Socrates in the Euthyphro rightfully suggest that god(s) love or hate human behavior because of the nature of that behavior itself? That being the case we humans can identify bad things independently of the existence of god(s). Second, evil requires an agent. S. I. Benn is surely mistaken when he asserts that there are evils in nature: Diseases, deformities, earthquakes, and floods that destroy crops and wreck cities—these are, for anyone, …instances of what I shall term ‘evils 19 Judith

Shklar, Ordinary Vices (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1984).

128

M. H. DeArmey

in nature’….I take evil in nature to be a simple fact. It is a feature of the world that animals and human beings alike suffer pain, that there is ugliness as well as beauty….20

His argument establishing this counter-intuitive position is that something is evil if “it would be a better state of affairs if that object et cetera did not exist or occur.”21 Against this, it would be better if we could fly without the aid of technology, or perhaps be better if we could be in two places at once, or had four arms like Aristophanes’ original race of humans in the Symposium. But their absence certainly does not constitute evil. It is a misfortune, not an evil, to be a victim of disease, an earthquake, etc.22 Third, contrary to many distinguished writers “bad” and “evil” are not synonymous. It is probable that Benn uses “evil” when he should be using “bad.” Diseases are not evil but bad. Joel Feinberg uses bad and “evil” synonymously, and has a “taxonomy of evils” based on an inadequate definition of evil: Let us mean by an evil, in the most generic sense, any occurrence or state of affairs that is rather seriously to be regretted. To say of such an event or condition that it is an evil is to say that it would be better (in some objective sense) if it did not exist or had never come to exist, that the universe would be a better place without it.23

Under this definition the destruction wrought by a tsunami would be evil, the same error committed by Benn. Raimond Gaita fails to define evil, although it is a major category in his Good and Evil. Sometimes it is a synonym for wrongdoing. He claims that it is evil to believe certain things, such as the belief that good and evil are illusory.24 This is a mistake. Some beliefs may indicate character flaws but are surely not evil. 20 Benn,

“Wickedness…,” 374.

21 Ibid. 22 A person would be a victim of wrongdoing if someone intentionally gave that person a disease; Likewise, a builder who knowingly violated building codes resulting in damaged buildings and injured people (and animals) would be a wrongdoer. 23 Joel Feinberg, Harmless Wrongdoing (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 18. 24 Gaita, Good and Evil, 22.

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

129

Like Benn Gaita mistakenly thinks “Nature brings evil through necessity and chance…,” while human causality can produce evil intentionally, not by necessity or chance.25 Laurence Thomas on Evil. The best discussions of evil are the systematic and detailed studies of evildoing. Laurence Thomas has an excellent discussion of evil in his book, Vessels of Evil.26 He compares the evils in the holocaust in Germany to slavery in the United States. Chapter 4, “Characterizing Evil” sets out the defining characteristics of evil. An evil act is wrongdoing performed by an agent which causes harm, and the agent does so intentionally. He correctly notes that an agent could intend to frighten someone as a practical joke, and as a result the frightened person dies of cardiac arrest. This would not be evildoing because the consequences must be foreseen (Thomas should have said “foreseen or should have been foreseen” to account for the possibility of evildoing which is the result of moral negligence). Accidental harm to someone caused by an agent is not evil. Evildoing, he says, has a certain magnitude. He illustrates this by noting that someone who avoids buying a subway token by intentionally jumping the turnstile has done wrong, but the act lacks the “magnitude” of evildoing. Magnitude means grave wrongdoing, hideous in nature. Hideousness has “two vectors,” qualitative and quantitative. He does not explicitly say so, but qualitative hideousness is cruelty. Gang members skinning someone alive is hideously cruel above and beyond murder. He exemplifies quantitative hideousness by a gang murdering a hundred people on a killing spree. He appears to hold that an evil act is also one in which the perpetrator takes delight: “An act is evil only if the agent both intends to harm and delights in harming the person in question.”27 This is a mistake. Some members of the SS Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing units, often grudgingly shot Jews, eventually experiencing

25 Ibid.,

65.

26 Laurence

Mordekhai Thomas, Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993). 27Thomas, Vessels…, 76–77. Colin Ginn also claims that evil-doers take pleasure in their acts. See his Ethics, Evil, and Fiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 74ff.

130

M. H. DeArmey

various mental pathologies. Finally, Thomas thinks evil acts can be forgivable, as his comment on torture illustrates.28 This too is a mistake (see below). Stephen De Wijze on Evil. De Wijze’s essay in the post-9/11 issue of the Monist (“Defining Evil: Insights from the Problem of ‘Dirty Hands’”) attempts to define evil. He says that it is the qualitative aspect of evil that interests him. He sets out three conditions for the attribution of evil. Each of these three conditions is a sufficient but not a necessary condition. An act is evil if it meets one or more of these conditions. First, any act which intentionally dehumanizes a powerless person is evil. But there are two errors in this. First, one or more people can be victims of dehumanization without it being evil. People who work in bureaucracies can be treated like cogs in a machine. Wrong yes, evil no. Even the case of British officers in India forcing Indians to crawl rather than walk is terribly wrong, but is not evil. Describing an act as evil requires that the agent cause or allow to happen severe harm to the victim. The other problem is the implication that people who are not powerless (i.e., can defend themselves) cannot be victims of evildoing. In 416 B.C.E. the Athenian army and navy committed genocide in slaughtering all males of military age of the island of Melos. The Melians were armed and, although weaker as a military force, were not powerless. The second sufficient condition for evil attribution is gratuitously inflicting upon one or more people great harm, such as death, disease, severe pain, starvation, destruction of home or habitat, etc. This correctly addresses the harm side of evildoing. On the perpetrator side “inexcusably” or “undeservedly” are perhaps more accurate than “gratuitously.” The third condition is that evil acts annihilate or seek to annihilate the “moral landscape.” The “moral landscape” is the morality of civilized peoples whose moral rules, or a part of their moral rules, protect the weak. De Wijze has a genuine insight here, one which will be elaborated upon below.

28 Ibid.,

81.

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

131

Claudia Card on Evil. Claudia Card’s Confronting Evils 29 is certainly one of the best discussions of evil available. Anyone in any discipline who endeavors to understand evil must read Card’s book. Substantial portions are well thought out, even though there are exaggerated claims (e.g., about terrorism), major omissions (e.g., the evil of slavery), misnomers (e.g., sperm as a WMD), and several contradictory claims. To begin, the title of her book is unfortunate. Her book does not “confront evils.” It explores the nature of evil. Only victims of evildoing, such as Treblinka survivors, “confront” evil. Facing Evil is not an appropriate title either.30 Card defines evil as inexcusable wrongdoing that reasonably foresees intolerable harm.31 Evil acts differ from lesser wrongs because of the severity of the harm.32 The severity is what makes the harm intolerable. “Intolerable” in her view means something that prevents an entity from doing minimally well, or what a decent life cannot include.33 This, however, is the meaning of “intolerable harm” not “intolerable” per se. Later on, in Chapter 4, she states that intolerable and wrong are distinct. In the case of disease-carrying animals and poisonous plants, she says they “can be intolerably harmed…[but] Can they be wronged?” Contra Card, isn’t “intolerable” a moral term already? Doesn’t intolerable mean to morally condemn a practice and be disposed to stop that practice? Does “intolerable” capture the nature of the harm? Intolerable can apply to wrongdoing that is not evil. My next-door neighbor plays intolerably loud punk rock music all night, which reverberates through my house, causing loss of sleep and poor performance at work. On the other side of the coin, to say that the death of six million Jews in Nazi concentration camps caused intolerable harm is to use too mild a term of condemnation. Horrific harm is what continuously occurred. 29 Claudia Card, Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). This book reworks some of the claims made in her earlier The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 30 Paul Woodruff and Harry A. Wilmer eds. Facing Evil: Light at the Core of Darkness (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1988). 31 Confronting Evils, 5. 32 Ibid., 9. 33 Ibid., 8.

132

M. H. DeArmey

Card states that evildoing involves “inexcusable wrongdoing.” In the case of evildoing, metaphysical excuses (compulsion, ignorance) are not present. Moral excuses are either absent or too weak. The Nazi proclamation that Germany needed Lebensraum is an example of a weak moral excuse. Card misses out on what Wijtz sees, namely, that the evildoer is “blind and deaf ” to the powerful reasons for not doing the evil deed. Given the fact that most people have learned from childhood basic differences between right and wrong, something more is at work in the psyche of those so blind and deaf to these basic moral precepts. And what is at work is self-deception. Reasons for not doing the evil deed are blocked out, suppressed, due to some external cause (fear of punishment or ostracization). Interestingly, Card fails to even mention self-deception, much less theorize about its role in evildoing. She claims that a practice that is evil may be an improvement over a previous evil practice. A slave “owner” might decrease the hard labor of “his” slaves from 7 days a week to 6. She claims that such a practice might be defensible “for a while.” For the sake of clarity, the reduction is what is morally defensible but the practice remains evil as before. Card claims that rules can be evil when their implementation results in reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm. She even claims that a rule can be evil “even if no one deliberately chose to institute it….”34 But this cannot be correct. Evil is attributed only to the actions of agents, or to those who do evil (evil agents, or perhaps more appropriately “wicked” people), not to instruments, natural events, texts, motives, rules, etc. Evil is a form of wrongdoing, and rules per se are not doers. A rule has to be first interpreted and then become a motive of someone. At that point a character flaw can be said to exist in the agent-to-be, but wrongdoing or evildoing has not occurred until the motive is acted upon. She borders on inconsistency when she says that evil acts are inexcusable, yet states that there are degrees of blame. Her example is that of two torturers, one who reluctantly tortures for money to feed his family, the other enthusiastically tortures just because he delights in it. Both she says are equally culpable and equally liable to blame, but not equal in degrees

34 Ibid.,

19.

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

133

of blame. But if they differ in degrees of blame, then there is some mitigating excuse that lessens the degree of blame. But how is this consistent with her major claim that evil acts are inexcusable? If there is less blame then there is a mitigating excuse. If it is in fact a mitigating excuse then it must carry some weight of reasonableness. Is this consistent with her insistence that evildoers have no good excuse? There is lack of clarity in regard to “foreseeable.” She says foreseeable means that anyone, no matter whom, could appreciate the harm an act would do.35 It is unclear that Heinrich Himmler, walking about holding his nose among Auschwitz inmates, both alive and decaying, appreciated the harm that his final solution was doing, anymore than someone who wouldn’t give a passing thought to killing vermin. “Anyone” here should be qualified by saying any healthy-minded person(s) who tries to follow standards of moral decency. Card is on firmer ground in realism about evil. She notes that a practice can be evil if no one could then foresees the harm it does. What she might say about indigenous peoples who are outside both the Western and Asian moral traditions is unclear. Were the Aztecs doing evil in their human sacrifices? Finally, what is Card’s position on the nature of the harm involved in evildoing? In the chapter on Kant she switches emphasis from “intolerable harm” to “radical harm.” Radical harm occurs when an act “gravely, irreversibly, or irreparably jeopardizes access to basics that are ordinarily needed to make a life (or a death) tolerable or decent.” Card’s Chapter 4 takes up the question, “who or what may be harmed?” She introduces a modification of Joel Feinberg’s “setback theory” of harm. Feinberg maintains that there are four kinds of harm: elliptical or extended (frost harms crops); derivative (harm to things that are central to the well-being of the owners of the things); harm as setbacks to ulterior interests (major interests humans have, especially life projects, such as becoming a good artist, teacher, parent, etc.; in animals ulterior interests are survival and reproduction); harm to welfare interests, such as mental and physical health, liberty, possessions, security. Apparently within each of the four categories there are both instances of agentbased, moral harm, as well as non-agent, nonmoral harm. The moral 35 Ibid.,

29.

134

M. H. DeArmey

harms are “unjustifiable and inexcusable.” Both nonmoral events, such as a tornado, and immoral harms could involve harm to any of the four types. Feinberg seems to hold that desires or wants are preconditions for having derivative, ulterior, or welfare interests.36 Card takes Feinberg to task for his requirement that an entity have desires or wants in order to have interests and hence be harmed. Plants, ecosystems, and even the earth per se can be harmed, but no desires are present. If Card’s reading of Feinberg is correct, then her setback theory is superior to Feinberg’s. Plants, ecosystems, and the earth itself each have a good of their own.37

A New Theory of Evil The discussion here recognizes two levels of evil. First, there are evils such as murder which occur at the local level. A man is shot and killed in a hijacking. A sex offender rapes his victim. These individual evils do not rise to the level of evils of cosmopolitan concern. They are not international in scope. Transnational evils, evils of the world, are evils supported by governments or religious, ethnic, or political groups. Their agents exist in multiple places. Their behavior can be so destructive and terrifying that migrations spill into other countries. For this reason no one nation state by itself can stop these evils. Rather, it requires the cooperation of all nation states, hopefully led and encouraged by the United Nations, to prevent (or at least reduce) their occurrence. That cooperation is the subject matter of cosmopolitanism. Evil as the Inversion of Civilization and the Disfiguring of Life. Evil acts invert civilization. Instead of the worldwide ideal of compassion, cruelty takes its place. Instead of being recipients of goodwill, victims of evildoing including their loved ones are disrespected, tormented, accentuated by varying degrees of helplessness, whether it be in concentration 36 Harm

to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 31–35. 37 Defended by J. Baird Callicott, Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Also Joel Kovel, The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World (Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2007).

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

135

camps, enslavement in the charcoal camps Brazil, or the target of terrorist attacks. Instead of trust in others, fear and suspicion takes their place. Instead of creative, constructive work or play, senseless destruction takes their place. Lives lost, families broken, property lost, historical monuments, and works of art destroyed. Artifacts of benefit to mankind are inverted and become instruments of destruction. Airplanes become bombs, water becomes a torture instrument, light blinds the eyes, work-bondage drains the victim’s life away. Instead of pride in human achievements, the existence of world-status evil produces misanthropy. The world is not what we thought it was. Instead of examining oneself and gaining self-knowledge, evildoers engage in various degrees of self-deception. Instead of language revealing truth, language masks, conceals evildoing (“special treatment,” “enhanced interrogation,” etc.). Evil acts concomitantly disfigure life. Human and animals lives are altered by the aforementioned acts, both in the sense of bodily physiology and metabolism and in the sense of patterns in the way organisms lead a life. Species gene pools are severely reduced. Destruction of ecosystems and the astounding variety of plant and animal life forms are carried out in development projects worldwide. Pollutants and alteration of atmospheric gases, destruction of microorganisms in the soil by agribusiness, overpopulation and consumption, continuous war—now here now there—all these result in the disfigurement of all life on earth. Definition of an Evil Act. What is evil at the level of an individual act? First, as noted in the section on wrongdoing, evil acts violate an acceptable standard of moral decency. Ways in which such standards may be violated were cited previously in the taxonomy of wrongdoing. Stephen De Wijze is certainly correct in saying that evildoers are “blind and deaf ” in regard to assessing the array of strong reasons supporting not doing such an act. This would include all those moral precepts and reasons that the agent may have assimilated growing up as a child. Secondly, evil acts elicit horror in the victim and/or morally decent observers because the perpetrators’ perverse acts cause severe, cruel/destructive harm. Realism about evil is correct. Fourthly, the agent must foresee the consequences of his/her act, or should have foreseen the consequences of his/her act), otherwise the harm done is unintentional (not by design) and accidental. Fifthly, evil acts result in undeserved grave harm. Grave harm is cruelty

136

M. H. DeArmey

and/or senseless destruction. It must be remembered that passive evil is the choice not to act to prevent evil, but it is an action—standing there, turning away, etc. Evil acts are unjustifiable (of course if they were justifiable they would not be wrong), but the perpetrator may have reasons for committing the act. However (sixthly), these reasons are either irrelevant or are pathetically weak, especially when compared to reasons for not committing the act and therefore do not count as mitigating excuses. Contrary to Card’s assessment, the person who tortures for money to feed his family is no better than the unpaid torturer who tortures to gain sadistic pleasure. Moreover, because the act produces severe harm, the perpetrator(s) most likely engage in some degree of self-deception which sets aside the process of assessing reasons for not doing the act. There are psychological effects on both victim and perpetrator. Since evil acts are so gravely wrong, so horrific, they are unforgiveable. They go beyond the limits of forgiveness. Could anyone forgive Hitler or Himmler? The 15-year-old girl on the Pacific coast who was kidnapped, raped multiple times, and released after the vicious man cut off her arms— could she rightly forgive the evildoer? It would not matter if these barbarians had confessed to their crimes and on their knees had begged forgiveness. To forgive would be to find acceptable the worst human behavior by reducing moral rules to something weak like rules of etiquette. Forgiving, after all, is like pretending. You can pretend anger up to a point—growl, frown, clench fists, curse, etc.—but if you hit someone hard in the face you’ve gone beyond the limits of pretending. So likewise with forgiving. Evil, unlike lesser wrongdoing, goes beyond the limits of forgiveness. The victim of evildoing will forever feel resentment (which forgiving would wash away), and that is another layer of torment. This is what nagged Jean Amery, like the Furies in the Oedipus plays, eventually leading to his suicide. On the side of the perpetrator it may be the case that there is no sense of guilt, no feeling of lost integrity, and no regret for these horrific acts. But it is probable that even in such a person the evil acts must be compartmentalized, set aside from the acts of the everyday self, otherwise doubts about one’s self-esteem would creep in. In more pathological cases

6 Bad, Wrong, and Evil

137

there is “doubling,” a phenomenon discussed by Robert Jay Lifton in his book on Nazi doctors.38 Collecting together these defining characteristics the following summarizes our definition of evildoing: Evil is a violation of any commonly accepted moral principle(s) and rule(s) by an agent who foresees or should have foreseen that his/her action or inaction will result in entirely undeserved, severe harm of an horrific nature, and who, through selfdeception, fails to dwell on strong reasons for not doing the evil deed. Such actions invert features of civilized life and disfigure life processes. Lesser wrongdoing, as opposed to evildoing, lacks many of these features, most prominently horrific harm done with foresight. Lesser wrongs are typically forgivable under certain conditions (e.g., remorse, reparation, etc., by the perpetrator). On the basis of this definition and the array of characteristics enumerated previously, those transnational evils that invert civilization and disfigure life are surely genocide, torture, enslavement, terrorism, destruction of the earth, and wars of aggression. The task ahead is to examine the first five of these transnational evils. Desiderata consist of a gain in conceptual clarity and theoretical precision; an explanation of their evil nature; and finally cosmopolitan ways of reducing their incidence.

38The

Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 1986), 418–465. His five characteristics of doubling are: necessity of a second self that functions to do evil contrary to one’s everyday ethical self as father, husband, professional; second self is inclusive of all things related to evil-doing; second self enables one to survive in an environment of evil-doing; avoidance of guilt, which is pinned on the second self; finally, an alteration of conscience which is numbed by the second self. Laurence Thomas, Vessels of Evil, 99, points out that doubling differs from multiple personality disorder and common compartmentalization in that the agent doubles in an environment of silence. The SS and others were ordered never to speak about the camps or the activities of the Einsatzgruppen.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

For in all natural things there is something marvelous…in every one there is something natural and good… If someone considered the study of the other animals to lack value, he ought to think the same thing about himself as well. —Aristotle Several billion years’ worth of creative toil, several million species of teeming life, have been handed over to the care of this late coming species in which mind has flowered and morals have emerged. —Holmes Rolston III

All that we think, imagine, desire, remember, all that we do and everything that we are, comes from the earth, the beautiful blue orb that we share with all other living beings, in an intricate and interdependent biotic community. Even thoughts of heaven are idealized versions of the earth—springtime, flowers blooming, birds chirping, peace, and tranquility. Yet our species has damaged the health of the biosphere, reduced the vitality of ecosystems far and wide, extinguished plant and animal species never to be seen again, and if that is not bad enough, scientists now forecast catastrophic declines and extinctions. Our perplexity on what to do about the complex harm we have done to the earth as a © The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_7

139

140

M. H. DeArmey

biosphere is comparable on a practical level to being up to our necks—all of us—in quicksand: Climate change presents perhaps the most profound challenge ever to have confronted human social, political, and economic systems. The stakes are massive, the risks and uncertainties severe, the economics controversial, the science besieged, the politics bitter and complicated, the psychology puzzling, the impacts devastating, the interactions with other environmental and non-environmental issues running in many directions.1

The deleterious impact of human activities on the biosphere has been evident to the reading public and governments since the writings of Rachel Carson in the 1950s and early 60s, as well as Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac first published in 1949.2 It is unsettling that, sixty years later, the response of the human community has been so inadequate. This chapter has three major concerns. First, an overview of the damage that now exists to the earth’s biotic community will be assessed, relying on data from rigorous scientific inquiry. Forecasts into the future will be included, whenever possible. Secondly, some important cosmopolitan recommendations will be enumerated in response to the central question, “Can these deleterious effects on the biosphere be stopped or perhaps reversed?” Finally a brief argument will establish that the completely inadequate responses to biotic decline constitute passive wrongdoing and in some cases evildoing on our part. First, however, a word about science. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, science began to replace religion as the source of knowledge about the world. Charles Peirce made

1 John

S. Dryzek, Richard B. Norgaard, and David Schlosbert, “Climate Change and Society: Approaches and Responses,” in Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3. 2 Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). First published in 1952. Also, Silent Spring, Fortieth Anniversary ed. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin First Mariner, 1962). First published in 1962. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Random House Publishing Group, A Ballantine Book, 1966). First published by Oxford University Press in 1949 under the title A Sand County Almanac with Sketches Here and There.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

141

these observations about science in his essay, “The Fixation of Belief.”3 It is the only method of gaining beliefs that involves testing beliefs against reality, submitting the results of inquiry to a community of researchers focused on the same precise subject, correcting errors in the submitted results (the falsification part of science), and situating those corrected results in the provisionally established body of human knowledge. It creates the only reliable platform for action, and yields innumerable practical benefits from technology. The great thing about science is that it is a self-corrective method, unlike beliefs derived from intuition, revelation, witchcraft, religious doctrine, authority, etc.4 With these thoughts in mind the conclusions reached by scientists about the state of the oceans, air, forests, and soil will be examined. It must be emphasized that people who deny these conclusions are (in a democracy) free to do so, but they are whistling in the wind and do not have epistemological legs to stand on.5

The Oceans It is important to bear in mind that the oceans are an integral part of the Earth system and as such…[their] functions in maintaining conditions for all life on the planet are critical, a framework first put forward in the Gaia hypothesis…

3 Charles

S.Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief,” The Popular Science Monthly, 12 (November, 1877): 1–15. 4That is why Peirce defines “Truth” as what the community of inquirers are ideally destined to reach over time. Peirce also recognizes that human beings are fallible and we should always keep the door of inquiry open. Implicit in the Fixation essay is that newly confirmed results raise new questions, new frontiers, of scientific research. 5 An example of the denial of environmental destruction, at just the time when major steps could have been taken to stop biotic harm, is Allan K. Fitzsimmons, Defending Illusions: Federal Protection of Ecosystems (Lanham, Boulder, New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999).

142

M. H. DeArmey

International Programme on the State of the Ocean The earth has sixteen oceans, but worldwide there is at present only 13% of marine wilderness remaining (defined as relatively free of stress from human activity). If carbon uptake is included as a stressor, then marine wilderness no longer exists. Already there is almost no marine wilderness left along coastal areas. This is the consensus in numerous scientific studies. One scientific paper states: Our results follow recent terrestrial analyses that debunk the myth that wilderness is not threatened as we show only 13% of global marine wilderness remains. International policies are often blind to the benefits that flow from intact, functioning ecosystems, and there is no text within the CBD [Center for Biological Diversity] or the United Nations World Heritage Convention that recognizes the importance of retaining large intact landscapes or seascapes.6

Only a fraction (4.9%) of marine wilderness is protected. The most devastating anthropogenic effects are on coral reefs which are being bleached worldwide. This is a terrible disaster, for coral reefs have the richest biodiversity of marine ecosystems in the world. In what ways are the oceans being damaged? Sometimes these are referred to as the “Deadly Trio”—warming, acidification, and deoxygenation.7 The major cause of these three is CO2 . Oceans absorb about 30% of the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. Higher amounts of carbon dioxide react with the saltwater producing large amounts of hydrogen ions, and this chemical event acidifies the ocean, leading to deoxygenation. Deoxygenation in turn leads to hypoxia—not enough oxygen getting to bodily tissues. In addition to CO2 , other deleterious effects

6 Kendall R. Jones et al., “The Location and Protection Status of Earth’s Diminishing Marine Wilderness,” Current Biology (July, 2018). 7 Alex D. Rogers, “Editorial: Introduction to the Special Issue: The Global State of the Ocean,” International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2013. Access at: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul. This issue contains papers from 2011 and 2012 conferences at Oxford.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

143

from human activity include overfishing, fertilizers and pesticides entering the oceans, sewage, invasive species, cement production, and dumping. Dumping, though outlawed, continues to occur through privately owned barges and freighters.8 The decimation of forests worldwide also contributes, for forests are “sinks” which absorb carbon dioxide.9 Forest sinks are not robust enough to absorb the massive amount of carbon from the burning of fossil fuels. No oceans are unaffected by the deadly trio. Acidification erodes the calcium carbonate structure of shellfish, mollusks, and marine invertebrates. Evidence from core drilling leads to the conclusion that “…current acidification is potentially unparalleled in at least 300 million years.”10 Combined with other factors mentioned above (including overfishing), “scientific evidence that marine ecosystems are undergoing degradation as the result of human activity is overwhelming.”11

8 On

dumping, access the London Protocol at: https://www.epa.gov/ocean-dumping/oceandumping-international-treaties. “The London Protocol is intended to be more protective of the marine environment. The London Protocol expressly prohibits incineration at sea and the export of wastes and other matter for the purpose of ocean dumping. Under the London Protocol, dumping of all wastes and other materials is prohibited except the following materials listed in Annex I of the London Protocol (‘the reverse list’), which may be considered for dumping but a permit must be obtained, and annual reports from all London Protocol signees must be submitted:

• • • • • • •

Dredged material. Sewage sludge. Fish wastes or material resulting from industrial fish processing operations. Vessels and platforms or other man-made structures at sea. Inert, inorganic geological material. Organic material of natural origin. Bulky items primarily comprising iron, steel, concrete and similarly unharmful materials for which the concern is physical impact, and limited to the circumstances where such wastes are generated at locations with no land-based alternatives. • Carbon dioxide streams from carbon dioxide capture processes for sequestration in sub-seabed geological formations.” 9 See

Melanie Friedel, “Forests as Carbon Sinks,” Loose Leaf. Access at: https://www. americanforests.org/blog/forests-carbon-sinks/. This essay contains the chemistry of carbon absorption through photosynthesis. 10 Jelle Bijman, Hans-o-Portner, Chris Yesson, and Alex D. Rogers, “Climate Change and the Oceans—What Does the Future Hold?” Marine Pollution Bulletin, 74 (2013): 495. 11 Rogers, “Editorial…”.

144

M. H. DeArmey

Extrapolating from what is now known, the forecast for the future is dim. By 2037 there will be no Arctic summer ice. By 2050 there will be significant venting of methane gas embedded in the ocean floor at the Arctic area. By 2050 there will be a loss of 60% biodiversity in marine fish and invertebrates. There will be “numerous local extinctions in the subpolar regions, the tropics, and semi-enclosed seas.”12 Sea creatures will become invaders in migrating to new areas. Coral reefs will become extinct by 2050, along with those marvelous fish and plants adapted to coral reefs. Dead zones in which there is deoxygenation will double every 10 years.13 What about rising seawater? Studies show that ocean levels have risen 2–9 inches since 1992, depending on factors such as the variable depth of the ocean floor. Scientists have confirmed that ice in Greenland and West Antarctica melts in pulses, what they term “global meltwater pulses.” But the major concern is the rate at which the ice in Greenland is melting. Greenland’s ice sheet is 660,000 square miles and one mile thick. The more the ice in Greenland and the arctic melts, the less sunlight/heat is reflected back into space. Once this process begins, the more the reflecting capacity of the ice is lessened, the warmer Greenland and the Arctic become, which of course means less ice and greater warmth still. It is, as it were, a self-exciting circuit. Because the coastline of Greenland is so irregular—hundreds of inlets and fjords—it is difficult to determine the rate at which the ice melts. One study launched in 2015 utilized aircraft which measure nearly all of Greenland’s coastline, and gather data from 250 sensors dropped along the coastline. These will measure temperature and salinity. Too much freshwater from melting ice can affect the Great Conveyor or “AMOC” (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation), which powers the Gulf Stream. In a detailed study using paleoclimate data, multiple climate models and observations, scientists Hansen, Sato et al. note that a system is out of equilibrium when more energy is coming in than going out. Such is the case with climate change forced by CO2 , which traps heat. From their detailed study they state: 12 Bijman 13 Ibid.,

et al., 498. 500.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

145

Our analysis paints a very different picture than IPCC for continuation of this Hyper-Anthropocene phase, if GHG [greenhouse gases] continue to grow. In that case, we conclude that multi-meter sea level rise would become practically unavoidable, probably within 50–150 years. Full shutdown of the North Atlantic Overturning Circulation [the Great Conveyor or AMOC] would be likely within the next several decades in such a climate forcing scenario. Social disruption and economic consequences of such large sea level rise, and the attendant increases in storms and climate extremes, could be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts, arising from forced migrations and economic collapse might make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.14

Ten of the largest cities on earth would be inundated. But this deeply troubling forecast is not all. It may well be that we have entered the sixth mass extinction of life on earth. A major extinction is defined as a loss of 75% or more of species. The last three mass extinctions are associated with high levels of carbon and probably acidification and ocean warming. The Permian mass extinction which took place 251 million years ago had carbon concentrations of 1–2 gigatons per year. A gigaton is 1 billion metric tons, “equivalent to 1 billion mid-sized cars.”15 Or, a gigaton is equal to 100 million African elephants. The most recent major extinction event was the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum extinction (“PETM”), 55 million B.P, in which carbon concentration was 0.3– 2.3 gigatons per year. Present-day carbon concentration is 30 gigatons per year, more than 10 times the amount in the PETM event. Some scientists believe that we are now entering the sixth mass extinction event, perhaps 25% of the way into that disaster.16 These figures represent a threat to the quality of human life, even perhaps to human existence. Sewage along with the warming of the oceans create a breeding ground for pathogens (e.g., vibrio cholerae in oyster 14 James

Hansen, Makiko Sato et al., “Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms: Evidence from Paleoclimate Data, Climate Modeling, and Modern Observations That 2 Degrees Celsius Global Warming Could Be Dangerous,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 16 (2016): 3761– 3812; 3799. 15 Bijma et al., 502. 16 See Anthony D. Barnosky et al., “Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived?” Nature, 471 (2011): 54.

146

M. H. DeArmey

beds). The fishing industry, along with local fishing along coastlines, has experienced a decline. One scientist writes: “For the past 10 years, fisheries worldwide have been generally reported as being in an extremely poor state with almost no improvement in sight.”17 The United Nations passed a Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (adopted October 31, 1995) which sets out guidelines for creating sustainable fisheries. Unfortunately this is not international law, and conformity to the guidelines is voluntary. Moreover, the United Nations has failed to monitor the behavior of fisheries, even though, as Pitcher and Cheung note, monitoring is mandated by the Code itself.18 The fishing industry has failed to monitor itself and failed to pay the cost of monitoring. Here are some of the depressing figures. First, 70% of all world fish populations are unsustainably fished, the worst depletions being in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean, and both north and south regions of the Pacific. The Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea are nearly fished out. In addition to industrial overfishing, trawling the ocean floor wreaks havoc on that ecosystem. Ocean mining and lost fishing equipment are additional culprits. If fishing continues to decline, local villages and tribes along the coastline that are heavily dependent on fishing will experience malnutrition among its members, and eventually starvation. If a sixth mass extinction comes to pass, a large segment of the human population will undergo mass starvation. It is obvious that fishing must be monitored and regulated. As the human population increases, marine life decreases. Fishermen and the fishing industry cannot claim an absolute right to fish. If you trout fish on the White River in Arkansas, there is a strict limit on the catch. Breaking the law can result in the permanent loss of boat, tackle, and even your automobile. There are various nation-state contracts with indigenous peoples which are legally binding and which put fishing under tribal control. 17Tony

J. Pitcher and William W. L. Cheung, “Fisheries: Hope or Despair?” Marine Pollution Bulletin (2013). Access at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016. 18 Ibid. The Code is part of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, Fisheries Department. Access at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x9066e/x9066e01.htm. It states that the U. N. “....will monitor the application and implementation of the Code and its effects on fisheries….”

7 The Destruction of the Earth

147

A tragedy for the oceans of the world which does not get the attention and action it deserves is consumer waste in the oceans. Plastic, one type of waste, is non-biodegradable. All the plastic in the ocean since the invention of plastic is still there. It is said that, given current trends, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish by 2050.19 The reader is encouraged to look at the ghastly pictures of beaches, completely covered with debris as far as the eye can see; magnificent sea creatures mutilated by plastic straws, plastic bottles, plastic bags (an unforgettable photo of a large green sea turtle suffocating with plastic caught in its throat)— the list of such avoidable abominations goes on and on. While 70% of consumer litter sinks to the ocean floor (harming marine life that dwells there), plastics and other buoyant material are ingested by marine life or it entangles marine life. The amount of plastic entering the ocean from shorelines each year is somewhere between 4.8 and 12.7 million tons. Twenty countries account for 83% of ocean litter. One NGO dedicated to decreasing ocean litter has provided a list of the top ten types of litter in the oceans: (1) Cigarettes and cigarette filters; (2) Paper and plastic bags; (3) Caps and lids; (4) Food wrappers/containers; (5) Plastic utensils; (6) Plastic beverage bottles; (7) Glass beverage bottles; (8) Beverage cans; (9) Straws/stirrers; (10) Rope. These top ten amount to 103, 247, 609 items.20 Research by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and London College reveals that 60% of all seabirds have plastic in their guts. Some seabirds have up to 200 pieces of plastic in their gut. This leads to sickness and eventually death.

19 Center

For Biological Diversity, “Ocean Plastics Pollution. A Global Tragedy for Our Oceans and Sea Life.” Access at: https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/. So-called biodegradable plastic refers to plastic that will degrade only in places like landfills where the temperature is at or above 112 degrees. 20 Marine Litter Solutions, “What Is Marine Litter?” Access at: https://www.biologicaldiversity. org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/.

148

M. H. DeArmey

Researchers say that by 2050, 99% of all seabirds will have ingested plastic.21 Reason dictates that single-use plastic items be banned by international or cosmopolitan law, in favor of paper or plant products and glass containers (poor people could collect empty glass containers for the deposit money). Some glimmer of hope for cleaner oceans comes from two NGOs, 4Oceans and The Ocean Cleanup. 4Oceans has engaged people in several countries (mainly young people) to collect ocean plastics, and they have collected over a million tons of plastic. However, 4–10 times that amount goes into the oceans each year. The Ocean Cleanup, headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has recently outfitted a seagoing vessel to collect plastics. As yet it remains to be seen how this will work without capturing marine life.22

The Atmosphere and Gases We no longer breathe the same air as Socrates, Emerson, Susan B. Anthony, or even William James (died 1910). We breathe anthropogenic air. The atmosphere is made up of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and the remaining 1% contains argon, water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. These last three have increased significantly beginning with the industrial revolution. About 1950 there was a quantum jump in carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulates owing to increased burning of gas and oil from the massive increase in the number 21 Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, “Almost all seabirds to have plastic in gut by 2050.” Based on research by Dr. Chris Wilcox, Dr. Denise Hardesty, and Dr. Erik van Sebille, 1–5. Access at: https://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2015/Marinedebris. Just as I type this footnote news from Jakarta, Indonesia, is that a sperm whale was found dead with over 1000 pieces of plastic in its gut, including rubber sandals (“flip-flops”): “Indonesia: Dead Whale Had 1,000 Pieces of Plastic in Stomach,” The Guardian, November 20, 2018. Access at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/20/indonesia-dead-whalehad-1000-pieces-of-plastic-in-stomach. 22 Access 4Oceans at: https://4ocean.com/. Access The Ocean Cleanup at “Controversial Plastic Trash Collector Begins Maiden Ocean Voyage,” Science, September 11, 2018. 4Oceans puts the amount of plastic entering the oceans annually at 16 million tons; Another estimate is 8 million tons per year: Laura Parker, “Eight Million Tons of Plastic Dumped in Ocean Every Year,” The National Geographic, February 13, 2015.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

149

of automobiles, trucks, and buses. 97% of all scientists who have examined global warming and more than 200 scientific organizations affirm that human activity has increased the temperature of the earth.23 Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have earned the name “greenhouse gases” due to their capacity of trapping heat in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is responsible for 75% of the warming of the earth’s atmosphere, and lasts 20–200 years. It is released from the burning of coal, gas, and oil.24 Methane (CH4 ) is responsible for 14% of the warming impact. 17% is generated by ruminant livestock, the rest from landfills, rice fields, and decaying organic matter. Billions of tons of methane are trapped beneath rock on the ocean floors and may escape should ocean temperatures rise 4.0–4.5 degrees. Methane released in the air lasts about 12 years. Nitrous oxide (N2 O) has a powerful impact on increasing global warming, accounts for 8% of global warming, and stays in the atmosphere for 114 years.25 The most recent international focus on global warming is the Paris Agreement, hammered out by December 12, 2015 and ratified November 4, 2016. The central commitment on the part of the (eventual) 195 ratifying nation states was to keep global warming at or below 2 degrees Celsius and the document held out hope for a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius.26 Having ratified the agreement, each nation state is obligated to contribute to this reduction. International meetings will take place every 5 years to assess the progress made by each country. Overall, participation 23 NASA,

access at: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle. is a “fast” carbon cycle and a “slow” carbon cycle. The fast cycle is the absorption of carbon dioxide by the cells of plants and plankton. With energy from the sun and water and CO2 , sugar is formed for the plant’s energy and oxygen is released (CO2 + H2 O + energy = CH2 O + O2 ). The slow cycle is carbon stored in rocks through water and CO2 forming carbonic acid and weathering rock eventually forming limestone; this carbon can be stored for millions of years. See NASA earth observatory on the carbon cycles. Access at: https:// earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle. 25 “How Long Do Greenhouse Gases Stay in the Air?” The Guardian, January 16, 2012; “What Are the Main Man-Made Greenhouse Gases?” The Guardian, March 21, 2011. Access at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/feb/04/man-made-greenhouse-gases; and NASA, “Global Climate Change: Vital Signs for the Planet. A Blanket Around the Earth.” Access at: https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/. 26 “Paris Agreement,” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, access at: https://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/convention/application/pdf/english_paris_ agreement.pdf. See Article 2.1(a) and Article 4.9. 24There

150

M. H. DeArmey

is voluntary in that no penalty can be assessed for failure to contribute (other than condemnation) and no penalty results from pulling out of the agreement. On behalf of the United States, President Donald Trump vacated the Paris Agreement. This, combined with Trump’s revocation of policies which protect the environment, make this man at the time of this writing the greatest threat to the health of the environment of any single person on earth outside the major polluters. In addition to the greenhouse gases the atmosphere is affected by particulates, particles from dust, automobile and power plant emissions, sewage, and new particles from pesticides, plastics, and fire retardants— an array of new “techno-chemicals” never previously seen on earth. One scientific study focuses on those pollutants which harm the endocrine systems of animals and human beings. These are called endocrinedisrupting compounds or EDCs. Some of these are heavy metals, PCBs, PBDEs, organic pesticides, and nitrates. Very small particles (2.5 mille microns or less) work their way from air and water sources and penetrate tissues and accumulate there. These fine particulates adversely affect the reproductive systems, fetal development, and immune systems. The most widely known effects of these pollutants are thinning of the eggshells of birds, the effects of “agent orange” during the Vietnam war, and the effect of marine paints and varnishes on marine gastropods. In addition the evidence is accumulating that human beings are adversely affected. According to one scientific study of EDCs …evidence of possible side effects of EDCs on human fertility is beginning to accumulate …The importance of EDCs with respect to declining sperm counts in humans is debated …but it is becoming clear that human sperm quality and fertility are declining…while an increased incidence of testicular dysgenesis syndrome, premature menopause and reduced female fertility have been reported.27

27 S. M. Rand, “Anthropogenic Pollutants: A Threat to Ecosystem Sustainability?” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Sciences, 10 (October 15, 2009): 1–25.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

151

Every human being on earth has techno chemicals in their bloodstream. EDCs accumulate in tissues but measurements for a safe toxicity level do not reveal this. Experiments with sheep and another with rats confirm EDCs’ terrible effects on reproduction and fetal development. In the sludge experiment, sheep were confined to grazing on pastures treated with sludge, an assortment of materials from industry, agricultural, and human compost. They were exposed to a “cocktail of pollutants.” Significant effects resulted from multiple applications of sludge over varying periods of time, as compared with a controlled group of sheep. Scientists found altered rates of hypothalamus and pituitary activity, changes in fetal organs, lowered reproductive ability due to cellular changes, lowering of testosterone in the blood, and reduced number of healthy ovarian follicles. In the second experiment with rats, exposure to EDCs resulted in perturbations of the reproductive system that was carried through offspring as far as the fourth generation, even though these generations were not exposed to EDCs.28

Forests Deforestation is a major contributor to global warming, accounting for 10–15% of the total heat-trapping yearly emissions.29 This is equivalent to the yearly emissions from 600 million cars.30 31% of the land on earth is forest, yet we are losing 18.7 million acres of forests annually. Those landmasses with the greatest losses are tropical rain forests, which presently hold 210 gigatons of carbon. Data from the World Resources Institute indicate that the 10 countries with the greatest loss (in hectares) of tree cover in 2017 are:

28 S.

M. Rand, “Anthropogenic Pollutants.… Sheep and Rats,” 6–8. Wildlife Federation, “Deforestation,” 2018. Access at: https://www.worldwildlife.org/ threats/deforestation. 30 Union of Concerned Scientists, “What’s Driving Deforestation?” Access at: https://www. ucsusa.org/global-warming/stop-deforestation/whats-driving-deforestation#.W3mcZhu0XX4. 29 World

152

M. H. DeArmey

1. Brazil, loss of 4, 519, 833 hectares; 2. Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1,467, 957ha; 3. Indonesia, 1, 300, 719ha; 4. Madagascar, 510, 357ha; 5. Maylaysia, 483, 416ha; 6. Bolivia, 463, 194ha; 7. Colombia, 424, 870ha; 8. Paraguay, 360, 058ha; 9. Mozambique, 359, 011ha; 10. Ivory Coast, 357, 273ha.31

Only 15% of the world’s forests are intact (“Primary Forests”). 30% of the world’s forests have been cleared, 20% degraded, and 35% fragmented. Four commodities account for 3.83 million hectares of deforestation per year. Beef from raising cattle is the largest cause, with 2.71 million hectares lost from tropical rainforests per year. Slash and burn is often used to clear the forest, as well as bulldozers.32 A glimmer of hope, at least in Brazil, is that some companies were persuaded not to buy beef products from cattle raised on cleared rain forests.33 Soybean agriculture causes a loss of 480,000 hectares per year. Most of the soybean harvest goes to feeding pigs, chickens, and dairy cows. Palm oil harvest results in a deforestation loss of 270,000 hectares per year, mainly from Indonesia, Malaysia, and some other southeastern Asian countries: Palm oil is extracted from the fruit of the oil palm tree, Elaeis guineensis, which thrives in humid climates. The large majority of palm oil production occurs in just two countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, where huge swaths of tropical forests and peatlands (carbon-rich swamps) are 31 World Resources Institute, Mikaela Weisse, and Elizabeth Dow Goldman, “2017 Was the Second-Worst Year on Record for Tropical Tree Cover Loss,” June 26, 2018. Access at: http:// www.wri.org/blog/2018/06/2017-was-second-worst-year-record-tropical-tree-cover-loss. Data was derived from research from the University of Maryland. I have modified their chart from a column to linear paragraph. “Tree cover” is not the same as deforestation; tree cover loss refers to removal of a canopy from human or natural causes, whether it be a plantation or natural growth. A “hectare” = 2.47 acres. 32The opening scenes of the movie “The Emerald Forest” vividly depict bulldozers lined up with heavy steel chains near the ground, linking the bulldozers together, in order to clear a swath of trees and vegetation. 33 Union of Concerned Scientists, “What’s Driving Deforestation?” McDonald’s Corporation issued a sustainability report claiming it buys beef from tropical rainforest land already cleared. But is this a tactic to deceive the public? What is to stop others from clearing the rainforest and then sell/leasing it to McDonald’s? Access their sustainability report at: https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/content/dam/gwscorp/scale-for-good/McDonald%27s-BeefSustainability-Report.pdf.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

153

being cleared to make way for oil palm plantations, releasing carbon into the atmosphere to drive global warming while shrinking habitats for a multitude of endangered species. …One huge source of global warming emissions associated with palm oil is the draining and burning of the carbon-rich swamps known as peatlands. Peatlands can hold up to 18 to 28 times as much carbon as the forests above them; when they are drained and burned, both carbon and methane are released into the atmosphere—and unless the water table is restored, peatlands continue to decay and release global warming emissions for decades.34

Palm oil is used for food, personal care and beauty products, and biofuel. One glimmer of hope is Indonesia. The government did pass a national peat drainage moratorium, but some companies got concessions under the wire, just before this legislation. In addition, Indonesia’s president established the Peatland Restoration Agency, tasked to restore 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres). This act also banned land clearing and canal building. The fourth major source of deforestation is the use of trees for wood products. Data here indicate a loss of 380,000 hectares per year. The World Wildlife Federation tracks companies for their progress or lack of progress in regard to sustainable wood sources.35 Of the 128 companies reviewed, 27% “are still taking only limited action,” while 23% are entirely failing to disclose their policies and performance. Of these latter, more than half are furniture manufacturers. On the other hand, 50% of companies in construction, homebuilding, and printing are making good progress toward sustainability. The United States, once a progressive country, lost 36.1 million hectares from 2001– 2017, accounting for 2.58 gigatons of CO2 put into the air. The five worst states are Alabama, a 29% increase in deforestation, with 2.67 million hectares lost; Georgia lost 29%; South Carolina 28%: Mississippi 27%; and Louisiana 27%. 34 Union

of Concerned Scientists, “Palm Oil.” Access at: https://www.ucsusa.org/globalwarming/stop-deforestation/drivers-of-deforestation-2016-palm-oil. 35 World Wildlife Federation, Jon Grayson consultant, “Timber Scorecard 2017: Sustainability Progress Among Buyers of Timber and Wood Products.” This is an analysis of companies conducting timber and wood business with the United Kingdom. Access at: https://www.wwf. org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/Jul17/WWF_Timber_Scorecard_2017_0.pdf.

154

M. H. DeArmey

Often overlooked in the discussions and analyses on deforestation is the role of primary forests.36 A primary forest is a mature, intact forest, free of significant human degradation. One-third of remaining forests on earth are primary forests, but only 12–22% of these are protected. Most of the primary forests are in the Amazons, northern boreal areas, the Congo basin, Indonesia, and the far eastern part of Russia. These forests hold 30–70% more carbon than logged or otherwise degraded forests. They constitute habitats for millions of species (70% of all terrestrial species). They do everything better than non-primary forests—regulate water, temper forest fires, preserve biodiversity, benefit air, and are homes to large numbers of indigenous human tribes. Primary forests are in dire need of protection. One strategy is to build up a buffer zone of restored forest as a buffer around primary forests.

Soil: Destroying Ecosystems Beneath Our Feet Our lump of earth contains [DNA] information that would just about fill all fifteen editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica. —Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia

Many farmers, conservationists, and environmental thinkers are aware of the importance of “rich” soil for plants and animals on the surface. Underneath your feet is an ecosystem made up of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and micro arthropods existing in an interdependent relationship—microbe towns, as it were. In the United States the Rodale Institute is a leader of research on organic farming, employing scientists, technicians, and farmers. They offer a useful summary of the life forms which make up farmland:

36 International Union for Conservation of Nature (UCN), “Praising the Profile of Primary Forests and Intact Forest Landscapes,” March 23, 2018. https://www.iucn.org/theme/forests/ our-work/slowing-global-deforestation-rate-and-primary-forests/raising-profile-primary-forestsand-intact-forest-landscapes. IUCN is comprised of 1300 member organizations and 1300 scientists.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

155

…bacteria and fungi take nutrients from the soil which are “nonavailable” (meaning plants can’t use them)…Their waste products (from the decomposition of plant material or residues) also retain those nutrients in non-leachable forms. The bacteria and fungi are then consumed by predators, releasing soluble or plant-available, nutrients…. 37

According to soil type and the types of plants on the surface, there is a certain ratio of fungi and bacteria which is best for each soil/plant context (called the F:B Ratio). The “predators” referred to above are protozoa, nematodes (microscopic worm-like creatures), and micro arthropods (tiny insects). Protozoa eat bacteria releasing nitrogen, nematodes recycle nutrients, and micro arthropods, the top of the underground food chain, eat what is below and provide food for earthworms and other insects. In addition to the nutritive function, the structure of the soil is created by the five life forms whose function has just been described. Again, the Rodale Institute provides an instructive summary: Bacteria also build microaggregates, the smallest units of soil structure. If we think of the soil as a city being built, microaggregates act as the bricks. Fungi are the mortar that binds the individual bricks together, forming walls, ceilings, and floors. The larger organisms like protozoa, nematodes and microarthropods construct the buildings. …All these organisms congregate around plant roots acting as a castle wall, and protecting the roots from disease organisms and/or pests.38

The purpose of this brief tour of under-surface ecology is to secure a background for the human activity that destroys the environment by deforming this micro-ecology. The major culprit in destroying the health of soil worldwide is industrial farming. Heavy farm equipment causes soil compaction. This inhibits the spreading out of root systems. Soil compaction causes erosion because water cannot percolate down to where it

37 Mary

Edmonds and Natalia Pinzon, “Soil Life: Microbiology on the Farm,” The Rodale Institute, December 12, 2012. Access at: https://rodaleinstitute.org/soil-life-microbiology-onthe-farm/. 38 Ibid.

156

M. H. DeArmey

is absorbed by root systems so it runs off carrying soil with it.39 When some corporate agribusinesses purchase small farms, they often maximize acreage by cutting down trees, tilling meadows, etc. This greatly destroys or reduces an environment for birds and pollinating insects, often leaving insects that feed upon crops. Hence the need for pesticides. Since acreage is massive, heavy equipment is a necessity. Tractors and other large farm equipment destroy the microcommunity that has been described. Therefore granular, “hot” fertilizer must be used. And this in turn further destroys microorganisms. Companies such as Monsanto in the United States are leaders in destroying soil around the world. They must secure greater and greater markets for their stockholders and this translates into the spread of corporate agribusiness as remote as India. They boast of their hybridized seeds (patented) which produce greater yields for a growing population, but of course these “super plants” require hot fertilizers, also a product sold by Monsanto. Soil compaction is a function of how much water is in the soil, how much resilience the soil structure has, the weight or “load” placed upon the soil by equipment, and the type of tires on the tractors and other equipment. Another important factor is how many passes the equipment makes over the soil—the more passes the greater the compaction.40 The Union of Concerned Scientists has issued a statement on corporate agribusiness and its monoculture. Agribusiness, they say, does not maintain natural soil fertility, but sees it as a cheap resource which they invade by clearing of trees and vegetation. Mid-sized farms and the associated way of life that has existed for generations are destroyed. 39 See

the studies of soil in Brazil published in Revista Brasileira de Ciência do Solo. On soil compaction: Vanderlei Rodrigues da Silva, José Miguel Reichert, Dalvan José Reinert, Edson Campanhola Bortoluzzi, “Soil Water Dynamics Related to the Degree of Compaction of Two brazilian oxisols Under No-Tillage,” Revista Brasileira de Ciencia do Solo, 33 #5 (September/October 2009). The authors state that “For adequate percolation of water into the soil, there should be no layers in the profile that impede water dynamics, since the steady-state water infiltration rate depends on the hydraulic conductivity of the layer of greatest impediment. The closer to the surface the obstructive layer, the greater will be the delay in the process of water infiltration….” 40 Michael Mazurana, RenatoLevien, Alberto Vasconcellos Inda Junior et al., “Soil Susceptibility to Compaction Under Use Conditions in Southern Brazil,” Ciencia e Agrotechnolgia, 41 #1 (January/February 2017). “Resilience can be defined as the intrinsic capacity of the soil to return to its equilibrium state or a new state, after some form of disturbance (for example, pressure application).” The pressure deforms the soil structure.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

157

In addition to damage by agribusiness cited above, UCS notes that water tables and town water supplies some distance from fields are polluted by fertilizers and herbicides: Industrial agriculture can pack an economic wallop hundreds of miles from its origin—just ask local governments and utility managers who must install expensive equipment to remove fertilizer by-products from public drinking water supplies. Or ask people who make their living from fisheries or tourism on the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, where “dead zones” and toxic algae blooms caused by farm runoff do damage with an annual price tag in the billions.41

They note that pesticides and herbicides “have been associated with both acute poisoning and long-term chronic illness.” Livestock agribusiness necessarily uses antibiotics to prevent cattle, pigs, and other livestock from disease, because of the threat that disease will spread among the overcrowded and confined animal population. This in turn winds up in human intestines causing long-range health problems. Beyond Pesticides is an online journal which tracks and archives pesticides dangerous to human beings, animals, and plants.42 It maintains a long and rather frightening list of such toxic pesticides, along with eye-opening news about dangers to public health and ecosystems. The reader is encouraged to examine some of these findings and dangers. Some examples are loss of smell to farmers43 ; sharp decline in lobsters in eastern seaboard due to “methoprene, sprayed by neighboring New York State as part of its West Nile virus (WNV) control program…;”44 illnesses or injuries from aerosol “bug bombs” according to the CDC45 ; “58% of fungicides persistently linger in the soil, and destroy honeybee

41 Union

of Concerned Scientists, “Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture.” No author or date cited. Access at: https://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/our-failing-food-system/industrialagriculture/hidden-costs-of-industrial.html#.W4bklBu0XX4. 42 Beyond Pesticides. Access at: https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/category/chemicals/ methyl-isocyanate-mic/. 43 Beyond Pesticides, January 23, 2019. 44 Ibid., July 27, 2012. 45 Ibid., Wednesday, February 14, 2018.

158

M. H. DeArmey

populations”46 ; The pesticide Paraquat, is “a neurotoxic herbicide with a well-established body of literature linking it to Parkinson’s disease”47 ; if one thinks “going organic” is unimportant, the United States Department of Agriculture’s findings on pesticide contamination in common produce at supermarkets is a wake-up call: EWG [the Environmental Working Group] analyzes testing conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Pesticide Data Program to arrive at its annual assessment. Its report for 2018 found that nearly 70% of conventional produce is contaminated with residue and/or breakdown byproducts of one or more of the 230 pesticides that USDA evaluated. The top items on the 2018 Dirty Dozen list include strawberries, spinach, nectarines, apples, and grapes. One-third of all the strawberry samples harbored 10 or more pesticides, and one sample showed residue of 22 different compounds. Pesticide contamination was found in 97% of spinach samples, 94% of nectarines, 90% of apples, 96% of grapes, and 99% of peaches. Topping the 2018 Clean 15 list of the least-toxic conventionally grown produce items are avocados (99+% of samples tested negative for pesticides), sweet corn (98+%), pineapples (90%), onions (90+%), and cabbage (86%)….48

Much of this toxicity is due to corporate agribusiness and chemical corporations. What can be done to halt and reverse the damage that corporate agribusiness has done to soil, ecosystems, and public health? Cosmopolitan remedies for this worldwide problem are federal, state, or even municipal bans on pesticides and the same bans for every nation. The city of Portland, Oregon, has completely banned pesticides, why not the rest of the country? The world? In regard to the soil, less herbicide is necessary if the soil is not compacted. Some immediate relief can be obtained from partially deflating tractor tires, which would result in less pressure on the soil and therefore

46 Ibid,

November 30, 2018. December 21, 2018. 48 Ibid., April 26, 2018. 47 Ibid.,

7 The Destruction of the Earth

159

less compaction. Altering tire tread could be beneficial.49 Another cause of compaction is the more passes heavy equipment makes over fields, the more compaction. In the UK a project is underway to reduce the number of passes by using robotics to weed fields. This also reduces the use of herbicide. One reporter describes one project in the development of agricultural robotics: One prototype…[is] a robotic weeder that utilizes a laser to target and desiccate the specimen. The plan in the U. K....is to develop a fleet of these units that could go into a field, generate a map of all the targeted weed plants and log which of them have been desiccated. It’s a vision system that utilizes technology that already exists in the automotive industry, and relies on the creation of a database of target weeds in the memory program, similar to an electronic eye.50

Another important factor in retaining soil health is for farms to have uncultivated trees, shrubs, grasses next to fields, thus preventing erosion, enabling pollinators to have a home, along with insect-eating bats and birds. Planting crops like clover in the post-harvest season, along with crop rotation, are beneficial to soils. A final recommendation is sharing among owners of mid-sized farms. UCS illustrates this by swapping livestock manure for feed crops or other items and sharing farm equipment.51 All of these measures would be economically sound, promote healthy soil and biodiversity, and be of greater benefit health-wise than methods and products from industrial agriculture. A final consideration is the spread of deserts brought on by human behavior. In some locations it has been possible to transform deserts into farms and orchards, as the Israelis have done through development of

49 Michael

Mazurana, “Soil susceptibility…,” He notes that “…most mechanized assemblies…have diagonal type tires which have a higher tire inflation pressure and transmits [sic] more pressure to the soil, as compared to radial tires….” 7. 50 Ralph Pearce, “What’s the Deal with Soil Compaction?” Country Guide, October 4, 2016. It is estimated that “it costs the U. K. 2 billion per year in yield losses attributed to compaction.” 51 Union of Concerned Scientists, “Healthy Farm Practices: A Landscape Approach,” 1–4. Access at: https://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_agriculture/solutions/advance-sustainableagriculture/landscape-approach.html#.W4xA5hu0XX4.

160

M. H. DeArmey

salt-tolerant plants and “fertigation” (water and fertilizer in one application, computer-controlled). In other cases sand storms would cover the newly planted trees (assuming that the right kind of tree could be found). In the case of the Sahara and its movement south, there have been two proposals: one would pipe water from salinization plants to places into the Sahara where vegetation could be planted. Another proposal would be to create a barrier of trees and vegetation contiguous to the edge of the Sahara to stop the migration south.52 Advanced desert-transforming techniques from Israel can also be used.

Gone Forever: Plant and Animal Extinction Humanity has so far played the role of planetary killer, concerned only with its own short-term survival. We have cut much of the heart out of biodiversity. —Edward O. Wilson

The International Union for Conservancy of Nature (IUCN) is the acknowledged source for tracking the existence of plants and animals worldwide. The IUCN “Red List” for species is divided into the following categories: Least concern (LC); Near Threatened (NT); Vulnerable (VU); Endangered (EN); Critically Endangered (CR); Extinct in the Wild (EW); and Extinct (EX). In addition to estimated numbers for tens of thousands of species, their extensive web site also contains many subsections, i.e., trends, causes, contributing scientists and naturalists with references to their publications, etc. 52 On the transformation of the Negev Desert in Israel, see Jonathan D. Auerbach, “Turning Sand into Land. Desert Farms in Israel Grow Lush Crops from Sand and Salty Water.” The Christian Science Monitor, May 19, 1987. Access at: https://www.csmonitor.com/1987/0519/ dsand.html This southern region of Israel has underground salty aquifers, but Israeli agronomists have developed salt-resistant plants and used plastic tubing to release brackish water with fertilizer. Because the soil is sand and the computer controlled “fertigation” uses far less water, there are far fewer insects. Unmentioned is what happened to any indigenous fauna or flora. On tree planting in the Sahara and Australian Outback using desalination plants and Eucalyptus trees, see David Adam, “Forests in the Desert: The Answer to Climate Change?” The Guardian, Wednesday, November 4, 2009.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

161

Scientists employ diverse methods to understand the status of species in their given environments. Three primary methods are used. First, the “area-species principle,” which is a confirmed mathematical relationship between the size of habitat loss and the size of species decline in that habitat. This method is applied to islands and other relatively insulated habitats. Edward O. Wilson describes this as follows: …as the area shrinks, the sustainable number of species falls by the sixth to third root of the area. A common intermediate value found in nature is the fourth root. At the fourth root, the reduction of a habitat to one tenth its original area eventually causes the fauna and flora to decline by about one-half. The classic example of the principle is the drop in the number of species of reptiles and amphibians found on West Indian islands in descending order of size, starting for example with Cuba (44,164 square miles, about 100 species) and proceeding downward through Puerto Rico (3,435 square miles, 40 species), Montserrat (33 square miles, 25 species), and finally to tiny Saba (5 square miles, 10 species) and Redonda (1 square mile, 5 species)....removal of the final 10 percent [of the habitat] can wipe out the remaining half in one stroke.53

The second method is to track the status of species over a span of years on the IUCN Red List. Given the present destruction of the earth many species are passing from “Least Concern” to “Threatened,” or “Vulnerable” to “Endangered,” or “Endangered to Critically Endangered,” etc. IUCN figures are based on the best scientific methods, field research, and just plain hard work. In the period from 1996–1998 to 2018, 30 additional mammals were added to the critically endangered list; for birds over the same period there was an increase of 55 species to the critically endangered list; the worst increase was amphibians, from 18 to 547 critically endangered species. Chief causes for the downward spiral of 53 Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 58–59; See the pioneering work on the area-species principle in R. H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, The Theory of Island Biogeography (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967). Reprinted 2001, Princeton University Press. This spawned a great deal of research. Eric D. Dibble and Sidinei Thomaz, for example, use fractal math and 5th root analysis: “Use of Fractal Dimension to Assess Habitat Complexity and Its Influence on Dominant Invertebrates Inhabiting Tropical and Temperate Macrophytes,” Journal of Freshwater Ecology, 2009; Access online (2011): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ pdf/10.1080/02705060.2009.9664269.

162

M. H. DeArmey

amphibians toward oblivion is moist skin, which absorbs pollutants, and ultraviolet rays from the sun through a diminished ozone layer around the earth. The reader is encouraged to examine the IUCN data over time for the various categories, ending with “Extinction in the Wild” and “Extinction.”54 The third method for appraising the status of species is the ecological analysis of species on the Red List: What is the size of the population? What is the rate at which a plant or animal species reproduce themselves? How much does a population normally fluctuate over time? How vulnerable is a species to climate change and the worsening of climate change? What other threatening factors is the species subject to (farming, pollutants, invasive species, etc.)? Many of the causes of the decline of ocean species have already been described. For land flora and fauna ecologists often refer to HIPPO, which is an acronym for the causes of species decline. “H” refers to habitat destruction causing species decline; “I” refers to invasive species causing the decline of indigenous species; “P” represents pollution of soil, air, and water, which brings about species decline; the second “P” means more people who consume anything and everything useful to them. Plant and animals get crowded out and lose their needed resources. “O” represents overharvesting—hunting and fishing in excess produces dwindling numbers. “H” in HIPPO: Clearing of forests, whether tropical or temperate, has already been cited as a major cause of habitat disturbance. Often the cause is difficult to locate. Wilson describes the plight of the Vancouver Island marmot (Marmota vancouverensis). Toward the end of the twentieth century the marmot’s numbers had dwindled to 70 individuals. At first no causes were immediately present. Humans rarely disturbed them. No disease was present. Their typical predators had been present for millennia without a decline in marmot numbers. Eventually it was discovered that cutting forests below their home habitat was leading to their demise. The fluffy creatures would go down their mountain slope to make their way to meadows, where they would burrow and hibernate. But they mistook the cleared forest for meadows and were unable to ward 54 http://www.iucnredlist.org/about/summary-statistics#Dynamic_Red_List.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

163

off predators as well as to hibernate successfully.55 In another example mentioned by Wilson, Ecuadorean farmers cleared forests on Centinela Ridge over an eight-year period, “extinguishing as many as seventy kinds of plants found nowhere else.”56 Land development is devastating. Take some town in the United States, nearly any town, and map its expansion over the decades. What was once countryside is now filled with suburban homes, streets, traffic, shops, etc. Forests and meadows are wiped out, migration patterns of birds are affected. Other countries without restrictions on development experience the same expansion. “I” in HIPPO: Invasive Species. Introduction of an alien species can wreak havoc on a habitat and its species. There are four kinds of invasiveness. One is the unintentional, accidental introduction of an alien species into an ecosystem. When Europeans first came to the North American continent they brought with them in their boots seeds from Europe. These seeds germinated quickly and Old World grasses spread, leaving only patches of native prairie grass. Old World animals, such as the European starling quickly established themselves and displaced native birds. Another type of invasiveness is the intentional introduction of an alien species with lack of foresight of the ecological disaster that would ensue. In the 1800s ranchers brought livestock to California’s Santa Cruz Island with near-catastrophic results: Over the next century, these novel species would wreak havoc on the natural environment, pushing native animals to the brink of extinction. Most of the ranchers left the island by the 1980 s, and what was left behind was an ecological nightmare. Cattle and huge numbers of sheep overwhelmed the native vegetation. Feral pigs altered the physical and biological composition of the island.57

55 Wilson,

The Future of Life, 51–52. 58. 57 Sarah Kaiser, “Restoring Santa Cruz Island Means Removing the Invasive Species,” Island Conservation, September 2, 2016. Access at: https://www.islandconservation.org/restoring-santacruz-island-means-removing-invasive-species/. Restoration of this island is a major success story. Native plants are now flourishing, bald eagles are nesting here again, the Santa Cruz fox is increasing its numbers. Also see The Nature Conservancy, “Santa Cruz.” Access at: https:// www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/santa-cruz-island-california/. 56 Ibid.,

164

M. H. DeArmey

The third type is the intentional introduction of an alien species to control or eradicate a native species which is harming an ecosystem, or an alien species introduced to kill off another alien species harming a native ecosystem. Several species of Asian carp were introduced into catfish ponds in the United States in order to reduce the algae that was spreading in the ponds. Particularly harmful is the silver carp: Plankton-eating silver carp can weigh as much as 60 pounds and grow to a length of 3 feet. They have the distinction of being the only species of carp that jump from the water, sometimes as high as 10 feet into the air when startled. These so-called “flying carp” have been known to damage boats and injure people when they jump. The rapidly reproducing species is considered a bully and can consume up to 40 percent of its body weight of plankton each day, devouring the food relied upon by native species …58

The silver carp is causing dwindling numbers of indigenous fish, and is now ensconced in the Mississippi River, the Tennessee River, and other southern waterways. In Hawaii some homeowners introduced the giant Africa snail, Achatina fulica into their gardens as an ornament. These snails entered Hawaii’s native ecosystem and began eating native snails and farmers’ crops. By the 1950s these snails had become a major threat, and as a consequence a predatory snail, Euglandina rosea or rosy wolf snail, was introduced to kill off the large African snail: “The exercise was supposed to be a model case of biological control, in which a harmless species is introduced to whittle down a harmful one.”59 The result? The rosy wolf snail ignored the giant African snail and voraciously consumed Hawaii’s beautiful banded tree snails, causing more than half of their species to go extinct. The fourth type is invasiveness caused by changes in a species ecology. Cowbirds (Molothrus ater ) were indigenous to the Great Plains of North 58 Pam Wright, “Invasive Carp Species Killing Off Native Southeast Fish, Threatens Great Lakes Fishing Industry,” The Weather Channel News, April 24, 2018. Access at: https://weather.com/ science/environment/news/2018-04-24-invasive-carp-killing-off-native-southeast-fish. 59 Wilson, The Future of Life, 53.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

165

America, but when eastern forests were cleared they began to move east. They are called “brood parasites,” for they do not build nests but the females lay their eggs alongside the eggs of other birds, thereby putting stress on the nesting bird.60 The numbers of new invasive species will increase with continued climate change. Studies indicate that forests are moving north, with fewer germinated at their southern borders and more at northern, hitherto non-germinating areas.61 North American birds are moving north due to increasing warm winters.62 Marine life is moving north. The oceans are warmer now since record-keeping began in 1880. Lobsters and crabs have moved from Chesapeake Bay to the Gulf of Maine. Portuguese fishermen are catching 20 species of fish not caught before.63 Virtually the world over animals are on the move. Ecosystems are being disrupted. The first and second “Ps” in HIPPO have already been discussed, as well as the “O” which is excessive harvesting by hunting and fishing. Now, a brief summary of some of the cosmopolitan changes that must be made by every nation state and every human being.

60 Joanna

Cagan, “Brown-headed Cowbird,” Columbia University, Invasion Biology Introduced, March 1, 2002. Access at: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_ summ/Molothrus_ater.htm. 61 Dennis May, “Study Suggests Tree Ranges Are Already Shifting Due to Climate Change,” US Forest Station Northern Research Station, Research Review, #11, 2010. Access at: https:// www.fs.fed.us/nrs/news/review/review-vol11.pdf 62 “Climate Change Indicators: Bird Wintering Ranges.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (author and date not indicated): “Among 305 widespread North American bird species, the average mid-December to early January center of abundance moved northward by more than 40 miles between 1966 and 2013 … Trends in the center of abundance moving northward can be closely related to increasing winter temperatures.” For some species movement north was greater, up to 200 miles. Access at: https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicatorsbird-wintering-ranges. This article relies upon scientific research conducted by the National Audubon Society: Daniel K. Niven and Gregory S. Butcher, Birds and Climate Technical Report, “Northward Shifts in the Abundance of North American Birds in Early Winter: A Response to Warmer Winter Temperatures?” 2014 update of 2009 report. 63 Ben Goldfarb, “Feeling the Heat: How Fish Are Migrating from Warming Waters,” Yale Environment 360, June 15, 2017. Access at: https://e360.yale.edu/features/feeling-the-heat-warmingoceans-drive-fish-into-cooler-waters.

166

M. H. DeArmey

Cosmopolitan Recommendations to Improve the Health of the Biosphere First, the health of the oceans must be addressed. (1) There must be a ban, worldwide, on “single-use” plastics—plastic straws, plastic bags, and plastic bottles. These can be replaced by paper straws and bags and glass bottles. Large numbers of marine life die yearly as a result of plastic. Manufacturers will have three years to shut down the production of these items. (2) The United Nations will substantially increase its monitoring of the oceans with its own vessels and investigators, looking for illegal dumping and illegal fishing (trawling, dynamite; incursion into protected areas of oceans). A mandated annual report from coastal nations will detail steps taken to preserve marine species in its area of influence, with scientifically based limits on marine catches. (3) It is mandated that each nation will work to reduce and eliminate toxins from rivers into oceans. This will be included in the annual report. (4) People everywhere must realize that each individual can help by keeping alert to individual or corporate polluters of the oceans and waterways that feed the oceans. Individuals should report these abuses not only to their government but also to the appropriate NGO. The condition of the air and atmosphere can be improved. It is not now (2020) too late, but it is urgent that we act. Cosmopolitan requirements are these: (1) Strict compliance with the Paris Agreement with a goal of only a 1.5% increase in CO2 per year. (2) Subsidizing solar panel manufacture worldwide, along with wind-driven turbines where appropriate. There is no reason why even poor villages could not have solar sources of electricity. (3) No passenger automobile, van, or small truck can be manufactured which is not all-electric, a hybrid, or hydrogen-powered. Only large transport trucks, airplanes, and trains can be powered entirely by gasoline or oil-derived fuel. (4) Coal must be banned as the fuel for power plants. Natural gas, wind, and solar can replace coal. (5) It must be illegal for builders and contractors to put down black asphalt roofs, which absorb heat (this heat retention can be seen from space). (6) Research and development must take place to discover more and more economical ways to utilize methane gas as a source of energy. This is important, for methane gas is 25 times more powerful than CO2 as a

7 The Destruction of the Earth

167

source of global warming. Already New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are utilizing methane from landfills, generating 16.7 million cubic feet of gas and 169 megawatts of electricity. A detailed scientific study by the International Energy Association expressed optimism about the benefits of captured methane: …the collection and use of methane provides a valuable, clean-burning energy source that promotes local economic development and reduces local environmental pollution and odours. Producing energy from methane recovery avoids the use of conventional energy resources, reducing end-user and power plant emissions of CO2 and air pollutants. Finally, capturing methane from coal mines, landfills, and oil and gas facilities can also improve safety conditions by reducing explosion hazards…The oil and gas sector can view methane emissions reductions as an important energy efficiency opportunity, while coal mine methane, solid waste disposal sites and manure management operations should view methane recovery and use as an important source of energy for their own use for local gas or electricity networks.64

Forests are extremely important in multiple ways. As described in the previous section above, forests are sinkholes that capture and utilize CO2 in photosynthesis, support biodiversity, and stabilize soils and water tables. Prime forests provide significant capture of CO2 , 30–70% more than logged or degraded forests.65 Forests worldwide contain 70% of all terrestrial species, with primary forests the richest in diversity. Primary forests are, in the words of one excellent study, “Nature’s Temples.”66 Cosmopolitan recommendations are these: (1). Primary forests should be regarded as “Earth Treasure,” belonging to the earth and not to be harmed by a nation state or corporations. A complete ban on logging and other human interference with the health of primary forests 64Tom

Kerr and Michelle Hershman, “Energy Sector Methane Recovery and Use,” International Energy Agency, December, 2009, p. 13. Access at: https://www.iea.org/publications/ freepublications/publication/methane_brochure.pdf. 65 IUNC, “Raising the Profile of Primary Forests and Intact Forest Landscapes.” Access at: https://www.iucn.org/theme/forests/our-work/slowing-global-deforestation-rate-and-primaryforests/raising-profile-primary-forests-and-intact-forest-landscapes. 66 Joan Maloof, Nature’s Temples: The Complex World of Old-Growth Forests (Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2016).

168

M. H. DeArmey

must be established. The United Nations and Peoples of the Earth will, through COPRE, establish sanctions against nation states that allow any sort of destruction of primary forests. Corporations must be boycotted and owners, CEOs, or others in authority that violate or even attempt to violate this mandate are subject to substantial fines and arrest. Logging and other equipment must be seized. How many and where are the remaining primary forests? There are five primary or old-growth forests. Here is a list from Edward O. Wilson: “They are the rainforests of the combined Amazon basin and the Guianas; the Congo block of Central Africa; New Guinea; the temperate conifers of Canada and Alaska combined; and the temperate conifer forests of Russia, Finland and Scandinavia combined.”67 (2) The IUNC recommends that degraded or logged forests on the margins of primary forests be restored in order that a barrier be established to protect primary forests.68 (3) An international tree planting day should be established and celebrated worldwide. (4) Every effort should be made, by collecting seeds or grafting, to begin restoration of nearly extinct trees, such as several fir tree species in China. Baishan Fir (Abies beshanzuensis) in southeastern China is an example. It has been reduced to 3 plants in the wild, due to deforestation and flooding, but seedlings grown from cuttings have been planted, and it is hoped the population will increase over the years.69 In regard to the soil, tire deflation and less harmful treads will help preserve the micro-ecology of farmland. The previously described innovative methods of Israeli agricultural ecologists are beneficial, utilizing less water and less fertilizer. Crop rotation and use of manure fertilizer from livestock must be reinstated, with the added benefit of methane capture for fuel. A robotic weed removal device would be a giant step forward in farming. Giant agribusinesses have a moral duty to reintroduce areas of forest and native plants, benefitting pollinators, birds and other wildlife, and stabilizing soil runoff. More effort must be made to increase the number of individuals within each endangered species. The number of species entering the endangered 67 Edward

O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 161. Wilson too demands “Cease all logging of old growth forests everywhere.” 68 IUNC, “Raising the Profile of Primary Forests….” 69 IUCN, Critically Endangered List.

7 The Destruction of the Earth

169

species list over a period of approximately twelve years (1996–1998 to 2018) is disheartening: 1996–1998 Mammals 315 Birds 235 Reptiles 59 Amphibians 31 Fish 134 Insects 116 Mollusks 212 Other Invertebrates 76 Plants 1,\197

2018 483 461 496 901 673 509 549 342 4269

Increase 168 126 437 870 539 393a 337 266 3072

a Recent

announcements by scientists reveal substantially declining insect populations in the Amazon rain forest

Cosmopolitan recommendations: Governments and NGOs must both work to increase the numbers of individuals within each species such that they can be removed from the endangered species list. (1) In addition to preserving and protecting prime forests, saving critically endangered trees (discussed above) is important. There are intact remnants of forests which cover only 1.4% of the land surface earth, but contain 43.8% of all known plants and 35.6% of all known mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Wilson lists these “hot spots” which need protection and monitoring. The surviving remnants are: “…rainforests in Hawaii, the West Indies, Ecuador, Atlantic Brazil, West Africa, Madagascar, the Philippines, Indo-Burma and India, as well as the Mediterraneanclimate scrublands of South Africa, southwestern Australia, and southern California.”70 (2) Seeds and cuttings must be taken from endangered plants and germinated in a setting equivalent to the natural setting. (3) Zoos and wildlife parks must increase their ability to breed captive animals, although at present the success rate for this is abysmal. (4) For each habitat containing endangered species, there should be an NGO with plenty of volunteers who assist scientists in carefully monitoring that habitat. These local or regional NGOs should report to the IUCN on the ongoing condition of that habitat and its endangered species. 70 Wilson,

The Future of Life, 160–161.

170

M. H. DeArmey

The IUCN will in turn report to the U.N. General Assembly (and COPRE) on work being done (or not being done) in each country in which a disturbed habitat and its endangered species are found. This author concurs with Wilson’s claim that “The spearhead of the global conservation movement consists of the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).”71 That is one reason why the United Nations must include a Peoples of the Earth chamber, in order to place demands upon nations. In Chapter 3 three levels of dignity were discerned. These levels were established by focusing on types of values which flow from types of behavior. Three types of organisms were identified: those creatures which lead solitary lives and whose values come from plasticity in seeking goals; One example of solitary end-seeking plasticity is found in types of fish in which the male ejects sperm onto eggs deposited by the female. There is no evidence of care for each other nor for the fertilized eggs, which are left to fate. These creatures are the “solitaries.” Second-level organisms which also have plastic end-seeking but do not lead solitary lives. They live in helpful or caring relationships with others and thereby manifest an array of social values; the third level consists of human beings (persons) who manifest plastic end-seeking and social values, but also possess autonomy, the ability to design their own lives without the restrictions which nature has placed on all other species. What has been described in this chapter constitutes a massive assault on the dignity of life on earth. “Planetary Killers”: Active Wrong and Evil-Doing against the Environment. Species of course exist in ecosystems.72 The lives of every plant and animal in an ecosystem are intertwined. In natural extinction, poorly adapted species slowly diminish in numbers until they disappear from the earth. That ecosystem itself (the sum total of individuals, their interrelationships and natural conditions such as soil, water, sunlight, etc.) will, over time, adapt to the loss of that species. Artificial extinction is extinction due to human activity. The damage to a species, its members, and its ecosystem is relatively quick, and the populations which comprise the species do not have time to adapt. 71 Ibid.,

165. must be conceded that ecosystems have fuzzy borders, but that does not mean we cannot identify the bulk of it as so-and-so. 72 It

7 The Destruction of the Earth

171

In the scientific analyses upon which the sections above (Oceans, Air, Forests, and Soil) are based, it has been demonstrated that human activity causes severe damage to all ecosystems on earth (the “biosphere”). Is this evildoing? Working through the previous definition of evildoing, the answer is “Yes.” It is worldwide and transnational in nature. It is unnecessary destructiveness accompanied by all manner of cruelty, e.g., green turtles choking to death on plastic. It is severe harm to life forms which cannot be deserving of harm. It constitutes a setback to their existence. The harm is caused by human agents who possess foreknowledge (or should have possessed foreknowledge) of the consequences of their behavior. Killing a fish or bird may be right (for needed food) or wrong (just for sport) but not evil. But killing, terminating, a species is evil. No more severe harm can be done to living beings than to bring to an end their evolutionary journey. It kills the present generation and obliterates future generations that would otherwise have existed. It deforms the ecosystem of which it was once a member. When people extinguish forever a species they have committed what Holmes Rolston III calls “superkilling.” Not only are all individuals needlessly killed, the template, form, or pattern is extinguished.73 Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word “genocide” restricted its meaning to human activity. But the Greek term “genos” and the Latin term “genus” each mean type or kind, without that restriction. Therefore superkilling, killing of a type, is a form of genocide. A possible objection to the destruction of the earth as evildoing are the simple human acts, repeated an untold number of times each day, such as throwing a plastic cup overboard, littering a beach with plastic bags or straws, not having your catalytic converter repaired on your car, needlessly cutting down an old but healthy mature tree so you won’t have to rake leaves, etc. Are people who do these things guilty of evildoing? No. None of these individual acts rises to that level: no severe 73 Holmes

Rolston III, Environmental Ethics. Duties to and Values in the Natural World (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 143–146. Rolston rejects Darwin’s contention that the name species is “… one arbitrarily given for the sake of convenience to a set of individuals closely resembling each other” (Citing Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species [Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1968], 108). Species which are a significant threat to our existence, such as smallpox bacteria, can be exterminated. We have a right to defend ourselves.

172

M. H. DeArmey

harm, no disfigurement of life nor of civilization, no immediate cruelty. But these acts are wrong, immoral. People generally are thoughtless and take for granted that life will go on as usual, that the earth in its present form will continue to exist. The culprits are a poor education on environmental matters, inculcation of the notion that the earth is ours to subdue and use, the belief that god will not let anything horrific happen to us or to this planet, and egoism (whatever benefits me is good). The forms of wrongdoing in these simple acts range from moral indifference (“don’t care”), to perverse wrongdoing (a false major premise, e.g., the earth is ours to subdue, or, we must expand our markets to satisfy our stockholders), to preferential wrongdoing (it’s wrong but it is good for me). So if these common acts of wrongdoing are not evil, where is the locus of evil, the agency that brings it about? Just as the decisionmakers in Hitler’s Germany were the agents who designed evil deeds and who ordered others to carry them out, and were therefore the major evildoers, so the major evildoers of environmental destruction are government officials whose decisions adversely affect the environment and who fail to educate and enforce proper citizen behavior, and heads of corporations whose targeted markets involve environmental deformation and loss. These are the generals of environmental destruction. Chapter 5 has set out ways to curb these leaders of environmental ruin. Passive Wrongdoing and Evildoing. If the extinction of one species by avoidable human activity is genocidal evil, then all the more is the assault on the earth as a biosphere containing millions of species and thousands of ecosystems. It is ghastly, horrific behavior, the worst of which we are capable. It is clear that government officials, corporate leaders, academics, and the enlightened reading public have for some time known that destruction of the earth’s biosphere is underway and are aware that human actions are causing it. Yet the response has been negligible compared to the seriousness and urgency of what is at stake globally. If someone is suffering, and you have the means to alleviate this suffering, yet you do nothing about it even though it wouldn’t cost you much in the way of sacrifices, then you are guilty of passive wrongdoing. The wrongness and degree of blame are a function of these vectors:

7 The Destruction of the Earth

173

1. Ability to help; A crippled person could not remove the heavy limb that fell on a person but you can. Or, one person cannot move the heavy limb but together several people can. [People around the world are capable, collectively, of stopping bio-destructive behavior and restoring biospheric health.] 2. The degree of help; giving an aspirin to a suffering person who has a heavy log on his chest, when you could readily remove the log. [Our efforts have been significantly inadequate given the terrible harm that is being done.] 3. The sacrifice an agent must make to help; the agent has a healing broken arm, and lifting the log may well rebreak the bone. [Capable individuals around the world working together would each sacrifice little.] 4. The urgency which the suffering demands; the person is bleeding from the mouth, his breathing is irregular [The atmosphere, oceans, forests, and soil are now so altered as to threaten all life.] 5. The degree of suffering; His rib cage is crushed, he is wailing and screaming for help. [The biosphere is speaking to us, crying out as it were, through the investigations of scientists, who are determining the degree of harm suffered.] 6. The number of entities which are suffering; One person is suffering, but it is worse if many are. [There is a sharp rise in the number of endangered species.] 7. Time limits on help. The limb is heavy, several people working together can move the limb before the victim succumbs, but they must be quick. [Many human beings and the best technologies can reverse harmful, bio-destructive behavior, but as time passes there is diminishing probability this can be achieved.] Human beings are guilty of passive evil at both the level of the “generals” (world leaders and CEOs) and collectively (all of us). If many people and other living creatures are being severely harmed, and they are suffering or having their welfare setback as the recipients of oftentimes cruel and destructive activity, and you could help stop it without much sacrifice but do not, then you are a general, guilty not “merely” of passive

174

M. H. DeArmey

wrongdoing but of passive evil. If many environmentally informed people working together, with small sacrifices from each, could bring to an end the massive setbacks to species and ecosystems, but fail to do so, then this is passive evil at the collective level. Evil, it will be recalled from the taxonomy chapter, is a function of the severity of the undeserved harm done, lack of excuses, foreknowledge, failure to consider reasons for not doing the act, and likely self-deception. In addition to passive evildoing there is of course the direct and intentional evildoing that humans do to the environment (e.g., logging prime forests). This nasty and horrific duo, passive and active evildoing, obliterates the dignity and the values inherent in and manifested by living creatures. Millions of years of development and struggle by each species would be lost. We are putting an end to what are fascinating ways of living and a seemingly unending display of aesthetic qualities. Is it so important that we have plastic straws and plastic bags which get into oceans and waterways and are ingested with deadly results by fish, turtles, whales, and seabirds? Would human life be lowered in quality by using only wax-coated paper straws and paper bags which are biodegradable? Would life in China collapse if elephant and rhinoceros tusks were no longer poached? Would Walmart go bankrupt if it did not rely upon slavery for its shrimp from Thailand? If we continue on our present path, thousands of species will go extinct, ecosystems everywhere will be fragmented, and we will enter what Edward O. Wilson deems “The Age of Loneliness.”74 Given all the data cited, the cry must go out, save the earth, do your part! In practical terms doing your part means first, voting only for candidates who are aware of the depth and extent of our damage to the earth, and who are aggressively supporting the kinds of changes recommended in this chapter and Chapter 5. Second, everyone must contribute to environmental NGOs or become an active member of an environmental NGO. Finally, one must pressure corporations to desist from harmful practices and the selling of harmful products. This can be done by boycotting corporate products, using social media to criticize, and by supporting environmentally friendly international regulations (COPRE, Chapter 5). 74The

Future of Life, 77.

8 The Evil of Genocide

[Native Aztecs] …without any offence on their part…each day perishing by the cruel and inhuman treatment of the Spaniards, crushed to the earth by the horses, cut to pieces by swords, eaten and torn by dogs, many buried alive … —Bartolome de La Casas, Apologetica historia de las Indias

Setting aside the destruction of the biosphere, nothing in the ugly spectrum of human wrong- and evil-doing is worse than genocide. It is the most Satanic of evil acts, an “odious scourge” upon humanity, as the U.N. Convention on Genocide puts it. It appears early in the historical record, when the despots of antiquity built monuments and sang songs celebrating the slaughter of foreign populations. But it is in the modern period that genocide appears with a frequency, intensity, and magnitude far surpassing early tyrants and marauders. Throughout the twentieth century and continuing to the present day, genocide has been uninterrupted. Armenians, Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Communists, Kulaks, Tutsis, Capitalists, Kurds, Sudanese, Syrians, and today the Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar form but a partial list of twentieth-century victims of genocide.

© The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_8

175

176

M. H. DeArmey

The subject of genocide is beset by both theoretical and practical problems. At the theoretical level the central question is “What is genocide?” How is genocide distinguishable from mass murder? In what does the wrongness of genocide consist? Who qualify as targets of genocide? What role do intentions play in genocide? At the practical level is the cosmopolitan problem of intervention. How can genocide be prevented by the world community? How can it be stopped once it has been identified? Scholars, government officials, the legal community have nowhere reached consensus about the answers to these questions. Some writers regard the U.N. Convention on Genocide as incapable of protecting minorities. Beryl Lang, noted Holocaust scholar, writes that “genocide has become a metaphor for atrocities in general, some of them clearly not genocide….”1 Ward Churchill, Native American thinker and activist who has been as vociferous as anyone about the necessity for precisely stated genocide legislation, claims that “‘Genocide’ is perhaps the least properly understood word in the world today.”2 Definitions of genocide, taxonomies of genocides, vary greatly. A perusal of the two-volume The Encyclopedia of Genocide bears this out. This chapter will address both theoretical and practical questions about genocide. Genocide is certainly a class of dreadful and horrific events that have occurred within the human community over a long period in human history. What precisely genocide is will be the subject of analysis in this chapter. Any discussion of genocide must begin with the man who coined the word and precisely designated a class of human actions referred to by this term. That man is Raphael Lemkin.

1 Beryl Lang, “The Evil in Genocide,” in Genocide and Human Rights: A Philosophical Guide, edited by John K. Roth editor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 5. 2 Ward Churchill, A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1997), 399.

8 The Evil of Genocide

177

Raphael Lemkin and the Origins of “Genocide” To live an idea, not just to talk about it or to feel it, was my slogan. Thus my basic mission in life was formulated: to create a law among nations to protect national, racial, and religious groups from destruction. The need to be protected set off a chain reaction in my mind. It followed me all my life.3

The name Raphael Lemkin is not well-known. Neither is his life history. It is remarkable that even as a child he was concerned with the slaughter of civilians, a concern which dominated his life until his death in 1959. Lemkin was born June 24, 1900 on the family farm near the village of Bezwodne, in what is now Ukraine. As a boy he was schooled at home by his talented mother, Bella, who was proficient in the arts, languages, and philosophy. By chance or direction he read some books from his mother’s library on massacres, e.g., Nero massacring the Christians, the sacking of Carthage, Mongul invasions, and the like. Central among these books for making an indelible impression upon the boy was Henryk Sienkiewicz’s Quod Vadis. Concurrent with these readings Lemkin became aware of the appalling destruction of the Armenians by the Turkish government. He asked himself and his mother how people could engage in such brutality. Later, when at the university, he asked one of his professors why Talaat was not prosecuted. Talaat was the Turkish official with primary responsibility for the slaughter of Armenians. The professor answered, in effect, that what goes on in a country is that country’s business and no one else’s. Lemkin had by this time reached a clear recognition of a huge lacuna in international law, a lacuna created by the Westphalian notion of a nation state’s absolute sovereignty over its internal affairs.

3 Raphael

Lemkin, Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin. Donna-Lee Frieze editor (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013), 2.

178

M. H. DeArmey

At Jan Kazimierz University at Lviv Lemkin focused on philology. He absorbed languages quickly. He would become fluent in at least nine languages and could read several more. Enthralled by philosophy, he transferred from Lviv to the University of Heidelberg, then back to Lviv for a law degree. Having completed legal studies he entered the legal profession as a prosecutor, but the problem of the slaughtering of innocents with impunity continued to nag at him. The urgency of getting a remedy in international law for these murderous acts was no doubt intensified by Adolf Hitler’s ascension to the Chancellorship in January of 1933. That same year, 1933, Lemkin traveled to Madrid for the League of Nations Fifth Annual Conference for the Unification of Criminal Law. He had prepared a paper which argued for two new international laws: a law outlawing “crimes of barbarity,” meaning persecution or extermination of innocent people (noncombatants). The other proposal was for a law outlawing “crimes of vandalism,” meaning the destruction of a group’s culture. Lemkin was not successful in establishing these as part of the League’s international conventions. Later on Lemkin brought these two under the canopy of a single new term and concept—“genocide.” In the years following the Madrid conference Hitler’s aggressively racist intentions became increasingly apparent. In 1938 Nazi forces invaded the Sudetenland and Austria. By 1939 Nazis had invaded Poland, triggering WWII, and in the same year Hitler initiated his euthanasia program to eliminate “defectives.” Lemkin, unable to persuade his parents and other relatives to flee, began a tortuous trek that would eventually take him to Sweden. Here he was able to obtain a position teaching international law at the University of Stockholm, while monitoring the various Nazi impositions of laws and edicts as they unfolded in occupied countries. These laws and edicts were collected by Lemkin and later published in 1944 as a book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.4 The word and the concept of “genocide” first appear in the preface as “The practice of the extermination of nations and ethnic groups as carried out by invaders.”5 This definition includes “…the destruction 4 Raphael

Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, 1944. 5 Ibid.

8 The Evil of Genocide

179

of the national pattern of…[an] oppressed group” and the “imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor.”6 The bulk of Axis Rule… concentrates on laws and policies enacted by the Nazis in occupied states. In Luxemburg, for example, laws were passed outlawing language other than German. Non-Germanic proper names of people, streets, etc., were, under threat of punishment, changed to German proper names. Marriages were restricted. Artistic productions in music, theatre, architecture, and painting were required to meet Nazi aesthetic standards. In Poland spiritual and intellectual resources were diminished by deporting the well-educated (clergy, professors, et al.). Bank deposits were seized. The moral debasement was initiated by importing pornography and encouraging alcohol consumption and gambling. Lemkin decided to leave Sweden and relocate in the United States. Through the efforts of a friend, Professor Malcolm McDermott of Duke University, Lemkin was able to secure a position at its law school. Later he was able to obtain a position at Yale Law School. Axis Rule…earned Lemkin a place at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals as an assistant to Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. The Nuremberg Charter of 1945 does not employ the term “genocide” but rather “War Crimes” (Principle VI.b) and “Crimes Against Humanity” (Principle VI.c). Both refer to the treatment of civilian populations, the former outlawing murder, ill-treatment, deportation for slave labor, plunder of private property, wanton destruction of cities, farms, villages, none justified by military necessity. Crimes against Humanity include extermination, enslavement, or persecution of civilian populations on political, racial, or religious grounds. The indictment of Nazi officials, however, does refer to “genocide” as an international crime. Now in the United States, from 1946 into the 1950s Lemkin worked tirelessly to repair the awful gap in international law that allowed groups to escape punishment for genocidal actions. He wanted the world bodies to establish a UN convention outlawing genocide. But first he had to gain some much needed publicity that would explain to the public and politicians exactly what genocide is, and why such an international law is needed. Several newspapers agreed to publish articles on genocide. 6 Ibid.

180

M. H. DeArmey

Lemkin also gained initial approval for a genocide convention from the ambassadors of several countries. Signatures from twenty countries were needed. He tirelessly sought out meetings with dignitaries from various countries, writing, memos, and letters, accosting people in the hallways where they worked. First, a steering committee had to approve the genocide proposal. Once the committee had approved the proposal it was passed on to the U.N. General Assembly where the vote was unanimous in its favor. From there it was taken up by the U.N. Paris Conference in September, 1948. Again, working tirelessly, Lemkin got most of what he wanted approved by the Legal Committee, which used as a basis for its deliberations two U.N. drafts, one from the Secretariat’s office, another from a special committee of the Legal and Social Council. Lemkin was the legal expert who guided construction of both drafts. It is no easy task to get an enforceable convention stated in such a way that it would satisfy all nations. Again, Lemkin worked behind the scenes, and the carefully worded Genocide Convention was submitted to a vote by the General Assembly. It passed unanimously. Lemkin describes the scene in his autobiography: There were many lights in the large hall. The galleries were full and the delegates appeared to have a solemn radiating look. Most of them had a good smile for me….Dr. Evans put the resolution on the Genocide Convention to a vote. The first to vote was India. After her “yes” there was an endless number of “yeses.”…the vote was unanimous. A storm of applause followed. I felt on my face the flashlight of cameras.7

Two days after the vote, twenty-three nations signed the convention, their signatures expressing intent by their governments to internally ratify the convention. After receiving worldwide praise, Lemkin virtually collapsed. He checked into a Paris hospital, where his recovery from self-ascribed “genociditis” took three weeks.

7 Ibid.,

177.

8 The Evil of Genocide

181

However, his work was not yet over. He needed actual ratifications. So he attended the 1950 Lake Success meeting of the General Assembly, and again worked tirelessly despite diminishing health. Twenty-three nations ratified the Convention and had deposited their documents in the Secretary General’s office. The U.N. officially brought the Genocide Convention into legal force. With indefatigable energy and cleverness Lemkin had lobbied for four years until the Genocide Convention was in force. No other person had stepped forward onto the world stage in defense of the need for laws to stop the slaughter and destruction of innocent groups. Defining “Genocide.” Lemkin’s goal in Axis Rule…was the protection of civilians whether in war or in peace. He introduced a new term, “genocide” which was made up of the Greek genos (racial or ethnic group) and the Latin cide (kill). “Genocide” was meant to conceptualize and name the array of actions and policies that destroy civilian groups. Thus Lemkin created the name and concept for what Winston Churchill earlier in 1941 had called “a crime without a name.” The richest definition of “genocide” in Axis Rule is the following: The destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group….Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.8

Several points in this definition are worth emphasizing. For actions to be genocidal, different actions must be “coordinated” to effect the 8 Axis

Rule …, 79.

182

M. H. DeArmey

destruction of the life or way of life of a nation or ethnic group. Genocide is not indiscriminate. It has a target and a complex design involving many actions that, if carried through, would eliminate that target. Mass murder per se does not reach this level of harm, in the sense that it does not target annihilation of a group’s way of life, cultural elements, and contributions to humanity. Genocide may include the murder of masses of people, but only as one means among many to eliminate the group’s way of life. Another definition of “genocide” appeared in The American Scholar in April of 1946. The definition here is quite brief, “…a conspiracy to destroy national, religious, or racial groups” by attacking “life, liberty, or property of members of such groups.”9 Lemkin notes that genocide can occur when individuals are killed but not the entire group, if there is evidence that “the ultimate intent is to annihilate the entire group composed of those individuals.”10 In other words, attributing genocide to actions does not require that the group be actually eliminated, but only that there is evidence of intent to eliminate. Until his death Lemkin was working on an autobiography and a history of genocide in four volumes. There are passages from his autobiography which help clarify what Lemkin had in mind for genocide and why. First, Lemkin perceived a problem that would arise if political groups were included in the U.N. genocide convention. Imagine a bloody coup in which rebels take over a government after massacring the ruling body and all its citizen supporters. Suppose that later on the new rebel government is officially recognized and is allowed to have a representative at the U.N. The consequence would be to legitimize the genocidal actions of the rebels. Lemkin does not say that the actions of the rebels are not genocidal, only that putting “political group” into the convention would make genocide retroactively lawful for a successful genociding rebel group. Hence “political groups” did not become part of the convention. Another problem in drafting the convention in Paris was the notion of “cultural genocide”: “It meant the destruction of the cultural pattern 9 Raphael 10 Ibid.,

Lemkin, “Genocide,” The American Scholar, 15 (April, 1946): 227–230. 228.

8 The Evil of Genocide

183

of a group, such as the language, the traditions, monuments, archives, libraries, and churches. In brief: the shrines of a nation’s soul.”11 Delegates were skeptical about its inclusion. So Lemkin dropped it, reflecting that “…the destruction of a group,” already part of the convention’s wording, “entails the annihilation of its cultural heritage or the interruption of the cultural contributions coming from the group.”12 And some parts of the wording imply cultural genocide, such as the kidnapping of children. Notice that Lemkin holds that genocide can take place if the genocide is not successful or hasn’t traversed its planned course, but is only partially successful and therefore “only” an “interruption” of the cultural activity of the targeted group. From what he has said in Axis Rule, the interruption of cultural activity must be linked to a perceived “plan of coordinated actions” on the part of the perpetrators. A third problem was that wording of the U.N. Convention which refers to the destruction of a group “in whole or in part.” Lemkin wrote that partial destruction had to be of a substantial nature. In particular damage must be done to the “soul” of a group—its cultural contributions—“by cutting out the brains of a nation, the entire body becomes paralyzed.”13 A final problem for Lemkin was how to describe group destruction. One member of the Legal Committee proposed that “genocide” be dropped in favor of “extermination.” But Lemkin rightly argued against this, for it implies that all members of a group are killed. Moreover, it is a term associated with the removal of insects or rodents. Lemkin argued that a group is destroyed when members are not killed but their “cultural identity is replaced by another [identity].”14 Lemkin also rejected the term “death” as part of the convention. Destruction of health such that people are emaciated “living corpses,” or weakened beyond the hope of any but a brief continued life, is the reason why the language of 11 Autobiography…,

172. 173. 13 Quoted by Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York, London, Toronto, Syndney: HarperCollins, 2002), 66. Quoted from Lemkin’s, “The Truth About the Genocide Convention,” p. 2, reel 3, Lemkin Papers, New York Public Library. 14 Autobiography…, 167. 12 Ibid.,

184

M. H. DeArmey

the Genocide Convention was conveyed through the words “physical destruction”15 rather than death. Unlike death, “physical destruction” can encompass sterilization of women, transfer of children, marriage prohibitions, and the like. In regard to the intent to destroy the group, Lemkin’s most frequently used term is the “disintegration” of the group, not death. To distinguish genocidal physical destruction from non-genocidal physical destruction (such as famine from crop failure or flooding, extreme poverty, lack of immunity to a disease, etc.), the Legal Committee inserted the words “deliberately inflicting” and “calculated ” to bring about destruction (my emphasis). At various times Lemkin was worried that committee members would get bogged down in an interminable discussion of motivation or intent. Lemkin argued that “intent” or motivation is not part of the definition of a crime but only a guide to a judge in administering a penalty or in the application of a law. Lemkin cites a businessman who kills his partner to control the business. Killing is the crime, the motivation is “a matter of judicial appreciation.”16 Why did Lemkin regard genocide as evil? In Axis Rule he cites genocide as a hideous evil that is a gross violation of the common morality of humanity. It violates our moral feelings and sense of justice. It demonstrates a lack of respect for a nation’s or group’s characteristics and qualities. Genocide results in the irreducible loss of past, present, and future contributions to humanity and civilization from the victim group. We have positive duties toward people wherever they are. Distance does not remove the obligation to help or care for those in dire circumstances. In the case of genocide as an enforceable international law, it entails justification of intervention. These are each cosmopolitan considerations. Westphalian absolute sovereignty is trumped.17 Raphael Lemkin is a world hero. A New York Times editorial stated that genocide criminalization is “one of the greatest civilizing ideals of our century.” Without his efforts there might not be the name, the concept, or the international law criminalizing genocide. No wonder he was 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 17 Axis

165. Rule …, 91. Also, …Autobiography…, 103.

8 The Evil of Genocide

185

nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize times five times. No wonder his lobbying efforts have been described as “brilliant.” One reporter who was asked if he had personally met Lemkin replied that he was always meeting him, so doggedly did Lemkin seek approving publicity for genocide law. Lemkin is also the founder of genocide research, a growing field of study today.18

Lemkin’s Offspring: The U.N. Convention on Genocide The U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into force January 12, 1951. Genocide is referred to as an “odious scourge,” the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.” Genocidal crimes include: a. Killing members of the group; b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group; e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.19

In addition, the following actions are included as criminal acts under the convention: genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, attempted genocide, complicity to genocide. Those persons charged with any of these

18

“Greatest civilizing ideals,” cited by Power, 71. On Lemkin and the Nobel prize, see Power, 77. “Brilliant,” Tanya Elder’s assessment, “What You see before Your Eyes: Documenting Raphael Lemkin’s Life by Exploring His Archival Papers, 1900–1959,” in The Origins of Genocide: Raphael Lemkin as a Historian of Mass Violence, edited by Dominik J. Schaller and Jurgen Zimmerer (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 37. “Always meeting him,” cited by Power from A. M. Rosenthal, “A Man Called Lemkin,” New York Times, October 18, 1988, p. A31. Rosenthal was a reporter who sat nearest the door of the New York Times office. 19 Online: https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english. pdf.

186

M. H. DeArmey

acts shall be tried in the State or territory where the acts were committed, or by a transnational tribunal, subject to a state’s acceptance of the tribunal’s jurisdiction. Several persons have been selected by the U.N. to update the convention on genocide. Ben Whitaker was the rapporteur who submitted an analysis of the convention in 1985. Whitaker held that the possible targeted groups should be expanded to include sexual groups (e.g., homosexuals) and political groups (e.g., destruction of communists in Indonesia or Kulaks by the Stalin regime). Whitaker perceptively notes that intentional destruction of a group’s environment (“ecocide”) through radiation, chemicals, or other means is a form of [indirect] genocide. Whitaker did not notice that the genocide convention fails to exclude unintended deaths of innocent civilians due to “ordinary” military operations. These deaths are not genocidal.20 Whitaker tackled the whole-part problem. In 1970 the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations subcommittee deliberated on ratification of the U.N. convention. Senator Sam Erwin pointed out that “ordinary” murders and especially the murder of a hated group or even a single member of a hated group would be an instance of genocide, since “one” is “part” of a whole. This, Erwin complained, would give foreign courts or tribunals jurisdiction over the fifty states, since murder is not a federal but a state offense. Erwin recommended amending Article II by adding “…in such a manner as to effect a substantial portion of the group concerned.”21 Whitaker recommended repairing Article II by having it read “both proportionate scale and…total numbers….” In other words, victims of 20 A Kantian position would be that civilians contributing to the military as military (and not the military as human beings) are legitimate targets. But even here there are difficulties. What about people who are forced against their will to work in e.g., munitions factories? Perhaps those creating forced labor in such installations are culpable for their deaths, and not the pilots who blow up such factories. In the first Gulf War, tens of thousands of Iraqi young men were forced at gunpoint, including threats to their families, to fight the coalition forces. The Saddam Hussein regime bore responsibility for their deaths. The same would be true of soldiers or armed militia using as a base of operations a school, hospital, or apartment building. They have a moral duty to evacuate those buildings. 21 Cited in James L. Martin, The Man Who Invented Genocide: The Public Career and Consequences of Raphael Lemkin (Torrance, CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1984), Appendix II, 316.

8 The Evil of Genocide

187

genocide could be relatively small in number (e.g., 5000–7000 Tasmanians) but a very high percentage, 100% (in Tasmania); or, large numbers but a lower percentage (European destruction of Native Americans beginning in late 1400s). One can imagine a case with only four genocide victims, 2 males and two females. For example, a young couple, recent graduates of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, become missionaries in a remote area of Russia. To their horror they discover in caves the last four Neanderthals on earth. Their faces are frightening: large flat noses, imposing supraorbital ridges, massive chests, etc. They have a hunting and gathering culture. The couple realize that the presence of the Neanderthals supports Darwinian evolution, so they kill them simply for what they are. Despite only four victims, this is genocide. Another problem with the convention is Article II. B.: “Causing…mental harm to members of the group.” Senator Erwin complained that “what mental harm means in this context is totally incomprehensible.” He later suggested that it mean permanent, physical injury to mental faculties, a solution found acceptable to other subcommittee members. A final problem in the convention is the statement that those guilty of genocide be tried in the state in which the crime is committed. But this won’t do, for homeland judges or jurists could be sympathetic with the alleged perpetrators. Nowadays the International Criminal Court is responsible for judicial action involving genocide. But it would be fair to say that the mechanisms for speedy indictments are not currently in place.

Claudia Card: Genocide as Social Death Philosopher Claudia Card worked through an extended analysis of genocide in her recent book, Confronting Evils.22 Her central contention set forth in Chapter 9 is that genocide is properly understood as “social death.” Chapter 10 contends that forced impregnation can be genocide, and that sperm should be seen in such cases as a weapon of mass destruction. These views are mistaken. 22 Claudia

Card, Confronting Evils…, 237–293.

188

M. H. DeArmey

She states that “The intentional production of social death in a people or community [and this] is the central evil of genocide.”23 Even if the instrument of genocide is mass murder, the aim is the death of the social fabric that constitutes the group. Card borrows the term “social death” from Orlando Patterson’s Slavery and Social Death. Laurence Thomas also uses this term to contrast the survival of the social and cultural fabric of European Jewry after the Holocaust with the near complete decimation of African culture after a few generations of enslavement in the United States. Card equates “death” with the demise of “social vitality.”24 Loss of social vitality occurs when destruction of religious, political, economic, educational, familial, linguistic ties result in “a profound loss of (tolerably decent) meaning for their lives.”25 She claims that genocide survivors experience “social death to a degree and for a time.”26 This, she says, “is at least as important to what is evil [in the Nazi Final Solution]…as the mass physical murder and physical torture.”27 There is something misguided in Card’s analysis. Homosexuals, communists, and other groups in occupied Europe were aggregates and not structured groups with “social vitality.” Because of her social death theory she is skeptical about whether these groups can be victims of genocide. To save her theory she leans on a family resemblance definition so that they “might find a place in the extended family of genocidal assaults [my emphasis].”28 By doing so she gives up her claim that in all cases genocide is social death. Her social death theory seems to dictate what groups can be victims of genocide. But it is a widely held view, shared by this author, that the perpetrators define the targeted group. It need not be the case that the perpetrators have disdain for the social fabric of some group. Disdain was true for the Nazis, as Lemkin’s Axis Rule…demonstrates, but it is not true for

23 Ibid., 24 Ibid., 25 Ibid., 26 Ibid., 27 Ibid., 28 Ibid.,

237. My italics. On page 282 she attributes her social death theory to Lemkin. 279. 255. 262. 265. 249.

8 The Evil of Genocide

189

other cases of genocide. A group may be targeted because of physical features, such as skin color (e.g., Native Americans) or facial features (e.g., indigenous Tasmanians). These people appear as “other,” alien, reptilian. Or just one cultural feature may arouse hatred, e.g., capitalists, Muslims, etc. Moreover, in some cases genocide may occur when the motivating factor is “simply” the removal of people for state projects (e.g., Stalin and the Kulaks). Card herself recognizes that the Nazis defined Jews on the basis of physical characteristics.29 So it is not the case that genocide is “the intentional production of social death.” The evil of genocide is not social death. A social group does indeed have properties, characteristics, which transcend the collection of individual members. But the group as such can feel no pain, suffer no loss, and cannot be disoriented. Only individuals have such experiences. What happens to individuals is the central evil of genocide, whether it is caused by murder, relocation, or in assaults directed against culture and social fabric. Card does not keep distinct the target, the motive for targeting a group, the acts which carry out the motive, and the evil resulting from these acts. Another major problem with Card’s analysis is the finality indicated by the term “death.” Death does not admit of degrees, although dying does. Yet she states that social death can occur “to a degree and for a time.” One can imagine some tyrant targeting a social group of say, 100,000 harmless people, and succeeding in killing 20,000 before (for whatever reason) the killing stops. This is clearly genocide, yet the social fabric is intact. One can imagine that after such a large-scale loss the social vitality remains strong. Perhaps the remaining members feel even closer to one another and cherish their way of life even more. On the other hand it is possible that unhappiness with their way of life is widespread among members of a group (New Guineans). An outside group (the British) enters and installs a better way of life, an event which the hitherto unhappy natives now accept and appreciate. Accounts of native New Guineans repudiating their old way of life, with its centuries-old tribal warfare (and the fear and destruction that goes with it) is a case in point.

29 Ibid.,

248.

190

M. H. DeArmey

Card doesn’t devote much attention to genocide resulting from relocation. Relocation does damage social vitality. Depression, disorientation, and resultant debilitation of immune systems, can result from forced relocation. Thus the last of the native Tasmanians died as a result of relocation. The Cherokee and Creek lost a significant percentage of their population in the horrors of the “trail of tears.” Dale Jamieson cites urbanization during Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” movement as destroying the habits of ghetto residents and their familiarity with streets, shops, and faces. This created mental health problems and an increase in suicides.30

A New Theory of Genocide This section attempts to reconstruct the notion of genocide with greater precision than Lemkin or Card. Foremost in this analysis will be replacing “intent” with “design” or “pattern,” and replacing “social death” with “social disintegration.” Greater emphasis will be placed on genocidal acts, motivational aspects of genocide, and how to distinguish genocide from mass murder and massacre. Design, Pattern. Lemkin and the U.N. Convention use the term “intent” as in “intent to destroy.” This is undoubtedly correct. An accidental destruction of a group would not be genocide. But it is often notoriously difficult to determine someone’s subjective intent, whether in possible genocide attributions, or in courts of law. Card retains the subjectivity of intent. For her acceptance of foreseeable consequences constitutes responsibility and intent. A more serviceable or productive concept in this context is design or pattern. Genocide is not a basic action, like chewing or scratching. It involves not only complex action, but series of complex actions that have the mark of design. Burn that house over there, drag those people out and shoot them, destroy their crops, etc. Such actions reach a point at which outside observers could identify the perpetrators’ targeted group. 30 Dale Jamieson, “The City Around Us,” in Earthbound: New Introductory Essays in Environmental Ethics, edited by Tom Regan (New York: Random House, 1984).

8 The Evil of Genocide

191

So genocide is a series of complex actions aimed at eliminating the perpetrators’ targeted group. Murder or mass murders are not identifiable as genocide until such a design is observed. The weaver of a Persian rug weaves an antelope beside a tree, but the overall design is not yet apparent. Then he weaves another such tree, and it becomes apparent that it is the pattern called the “tree of life.” This seems to be what Jean-Paul Sartre argued in his presidential address at the 1966 Bertrand Russell Tribunal on war crimes in Vietnam. Sartre pointed out that the use of cluster bombs and lethal chemicals on villages, the dispersion of lethal chemicals over rice fields on a large scale, and other amassed evidence, pointed to genocide of the Vietnamese people by the United States. In regard to the question of “intent,” Sartre states: The genocide intent is implicit in the facts. It is necessarily premeditated. Perhaps in bygone times, in the midst of tribal wars, acts of genocide were perpetrated on the spur of the moment in fits of passion. But the anti-guerrilla genocide which our times produced requires organization, military bases, a structure of accomplices, budget appropriations. Therefore its authors must meditate and plan out their act. Does this mean that they are thoroughly conscious of their intentions? It is impossible to decide.31

It is possible that in some cases of genocide there is no intention to get rid of a group. Eliminating a group can result from either moral indifference or moral negligence and not from intentions. Stalin and the Kulaks are a case in point. In his inventory of the crimes of the Stalin regime, Nicolas Werth asserts that some large-scale deaths were genocidal. For example, during the “Great Terror,” planned by Stalin himself, 800,000 people were executed by bullets to the back of their heads. Stalin’s collectivization of farming during the years 1931–1933 led to the “Great Famine” in which 5–6.5 million people died of starvation. Great numbers of death from starvation and disease resulted from initially unintended consequences: “… the direct but unintended and unplanned consequences of the ideologically inspired policies…enforced 31 Jean-Paul

Sartre, On Genocide (New York: Beacon Press, 1968), 78–79.

192

M. H. DeArmey

collectivization…forced sedentarization of nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples in Kazakhstan…dekulakization…the imposition of the kolkhoz system…excessive levies on harvest and cattle.” Whether or not Stalin intended the initial mass famine, the evidence of genocidal design accumulated, especially since Stalin himself was aware of reports of starvation, but morally indifferent. But Werth notes, “Stalin, from the end of the summer of 1932, really had decided to worsen the famine that was beginning, to turn it into a weapon, to extend it deliberately.”32 Another source of Soviet mass deaths due to neglect, indifference, and unlivable conditions were the approximately 1.8 million people who died in the gulags. All in all, how were these targeted groups defined by Stalin? Werth states: His aim was not to eliminate this or that race or ethnic group but to eradicate any form or manifestation of ethnic or national distinctiveness that might risk obstructing his plan to build a community of Soviet socialist nationalities or to delay the creation of the Communist Utopia, founded on the powerful urge towards homogenization of Soviet society.33

There are evidential correlates that forecast genocide or that indicate occurrent genocide. Such correlates are pre-existing hatreds, obsessions with revenge, open statements of contempt, and even statements by perpetrators announcing their desire to eliminate some group. The appearance of refugees with their horror stories and expressions of fear may indicate genocide. The forced exit of journalists, Red Cross workers, and U.N. observers reveal the perpetrators’ desire to conceal their evil deeds. Additional evidential correlates are provided by Jason J. Campbell. These include dehumanization of the targeted group, a weakened regime needing more power, assault on institutions of the targeted group, such as places of worship and schools.34 32 Nicolas Werth, “The Crimes of the Stalin Regime: Outline for an Inventory and Classification,” in The Historiography of Genocide (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 414–415. 33 Ibid., 413. Werth notes that in 2003 the Republic of Ukraine officially recognized the 1932– 1933 famine as genocidal. In Ukraine holodomar means to kill by starvation. 34 Jason J. Campbell, On the Nature of Genocidal Intent (Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, and Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2013). Also, see Israel Charny, “On the Development of the Genocide Early Warning System (GEWS),” in The Encyclopedia of Genocide, vol. I, edited by Israel Charny (Santa Barbara, Denver, and Oxford, England: ABC-CLIO, 1999), 254–271.

8 The Evil of Genocide

193

Reduction of persons to things. What motivates people to commit genocide? How are these motivational factors related to the way victims are viewed by the perpetrators? One may distinguish three ways in which victims of genocide are perceived: the metaphysical way, the way of indifference, and the way of revenge. In the metaphysical way the targeted group is seen as alien, a squirming, filthy mass of sub-humanity. Bruce Wilshire’s book on genocide emphasizes this metaphysical way. In Get ‘Em All! Kill ‘Em! Wilshire writes: …when for some reason we are stressed and thrown off balance, when ways of being in the world and experiencing it so cut across and disturb our own, that we are shaken through our cores. We lose our way….our experienced world disintegrates in the face of the alien….We gasp or lurch, the heart thuds…the stomach churns….In the face of the alien we experience a visceral recoiling—like throwing back bedcovers in a luxury hotel to find seething bedbugs.35

The targeted group is seen as disgusting, foul-smelling, contaminating. Diseased, fecal, slimy, oily, the target must be expelled from the corporate body. Pol Pot in Cambodia (cited by Wilshire) described the invading North Vietnamese in the “classic polarities of anality”: power-hungry retention (“we close our jaws upon them”), then expulsion. Robert J. Lifton’s study of Nazi doctors reiterates again and again how Jewish people were taken to be a disease, a cancer, which must be excised from the Aryan body. In Eric Fromm’s study Hitler is portrayed as a necrophiliac, displaying a morbid fascination with disease, foul odors, and corpses, all symbolized by the unusual moustache which seemed like a dark liquid dripping from his nose. In his study of anti-Semitism Sartre recounts how stories about the Jews circulate as an abiding tradition of unwarranted hatred, not for any specifiable act of wrongdoing, but because the Jew contains “…a metaphysical principle that drives him to do evil…it

35 Bruce Wilshire, Get ‘Em All! Kill ‘Em! Genocide, Terrorism, Righteous Communities (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005), 23–24.

194

M. H. DeArmey

is an essence, a substantial form, and the Jew, whatever he does, cannot modify it, any more than fire can keep itself from burning.”36 The second way is genocide resulting from moral indifference. This springs from the perpetrators’ view that a group of people do not have worth or dignity. State-sponsored policies may be instituted no matter what the cost to the people. This is the fanatical version of “conscientious wickedness” in S. I. Benn’s taxonomy of wickedness. Stalin’s collectivization program for farming (cited above) resulted in the starvation of huge numbers of peasants, and Stalin appeared indifferent to their suffering and deaths. With no regrets Chairman Mao in China instituted the “Great Leap Forward,” which resulted in 20–30 million deaths and countless ruined lives.37 Rwanda provides the paradigm case of genocide from revenge, the third way. Escalating revenge and slaughter between the Hutus and Tutsis resulted in a million or more deaths. The Tutsis, perhaps descendants of royalty from an earlier African kingdom, were tall and angular and generally distinguishable in physical appearance from the Hutus. The Tutsis held high positions in German and Belgium colonizing governments, while the Hutus were confined to menial labor. In 1962 the Hutus militia overthrew the Tutsi, with more than 200,000 Tutsis fleeing to bordering Uganda and Burundi. By 1972 the Tutsis had taken control of the government in Burundi. But an uprising by Hutus was followed by the Tutsi army killing 100,000–150,000 of the educated class in Burundi. Some twenty years later, when it became apparent that the Hutus would win elections, the Tutsis refused to transfer power. They killed the President and leaders of the National Assembly. This was followed by Hutu retaliation, in which 20,000 Tutsis were killed. In 1994 a Tutsi invasion of Rwanda resulted in Hutus forming military groups. When the President of Rwanda’s plane was shot down in April of 1994, the Hutus began the systematic slaughter of Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Using checkpoints, roadblocks, and radio incitements

36 Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew, George J. Becker translator (New York: Schocken Books, 1948), 39 Sartre says that the Nazis regarded the Jew as free to do evil but not good. Thus the Jew chooses evil and can be hated. 37 See Jonathan Glover, Humanity. See Chapter 30, “Mao’s Utopian Project,” 283–298.

8 The Evil of Genocide

195

to kill, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis were killed at a cost of 50,000– 60,000 Hutu lives. It was a gory, bloody nightmare, vividly described by journalist Philip Gourevich—rivers red with blood, corpses and body parts floating downstream, piles of dead children, their bodies rotting away.38 Genocide, Genocidal Acts, and Genocidal Instruments. Genocide has taken place once acts have been identified by their design and their target. Mass murder is evil to be sure, but isn’t genocide until a design is manifested through what Lemkin called a “coordinated plan of actions.” The aim of the perpetrators’ actions is to get rid of a group. Genocide takes place even if the actions fall short of completing the aim. In addition, there must be evidence supporting a forecast that “substantial numbers” or a “significant percentage” would lose their way of life either through death or social/cultural disintegration. A targeted group cannot be subject to genocide more than once within the current history of the group. If a group’s way of life or “cultural pattern” is destroyed, and then the group is murdered, this does not constitute genocide twice, but two distinct genocidal acts. Although finite, there is no enumerable limit to the number and kind of genocidal acts. Genocidal acts employ techniques or instruments meant to harm the targeted groups. Guns and bullets are the most common in recent times—for example, the Nazi Einsatzgruppen or mobile killing units. Machetes and knives (Rwanda), fire (Allied incendiary bombing of German cities such as Hamburg and Dresden), addictive narcotics (Japanese built narcotics factories in occupied China to stupefy and control the population), bacteria/virus (European use of smallpox blankets to kill Native Americans), to name but a few. It is always the case that multiple instruments for group disintegration are used. Claudia Card calls attention to the use of sperm as a genocidal instrument. The rape and impregnation of women can destroy the targeted group’s “social vitality.” In a group in which men believe that raped women are tainted and unfit as wives or mothers, and children born from

38 Philip

Gourevich, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998).

196

M. H. DeArmey

rape are outcasts, forced impregnation can lead to the group’s destruction. As Sherri L. Russell-Brown states in a well-researched essay: The “genocidal rapes” committed in Bosnia, were designed in large part to have the effect of impregnating the victim so that she would have a child that would be identified as being a member of the rapist’s/enemy’s ethnicity. Another intended consequence of the “genocidal rapes” in Bosnia was that the raped woman would be ostracized and alienated from her ethnic community and would therefore be removed as a possible procreator for her own ethnic group. Thus, rape as an act of genocide as “practiced” in Bosnia resulted, inter alia, in the prevention of births within the particular ethnic group of the victim, because the victim would either bear a child that would be recognized as having the ethnic identity of the rapist and/or as a result of the birth or the rape, the victim would no longer be a desirable candidate for having children of her own ethnicity. Therefore, the women were, in a sense, vessels through which the dilution, disappearance, and destruction of their own ethnic group occurred.39

Rape was only one of an array of techniques used in the attempt to dissolve the Muslim communities in Bosnia, and, contrary to Card, sperm is not itself a “WMD” (weapon of mass destruction), for by common usage WMD refers to uncontrollable mass destruction (nuclear, bacterial, chemical).40 Identity and Group Disintegration. Lemkin employed the concept of genocide to cover both killing and destruction of the group’s “national pattern.” What is common to both is loss of identity by individuals in the targeted group. An individual loses his/her identity in death (fragments remaining in the memories of others), and a person loses his/her identity by destruction of their traditions, loss of home and homelands, 39 Sherrie L. Russell-Brown, “Rape as an Act of Genocide,” Berkeley Journal of International Law, 21 (2003), 355. Rape as genocidal is not restricted to the events in Bosnia, as Russell-Brown points out. 40 Card, 290: Sperm “…as an instrument of genocide…arguably does become a WMD.” But this inflates the concept of a WMD to such an extent that the entire array of genocidal instruments become weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, the proper abbreviation for the proper concept should be “WIMD,” weapons of indeterminate mass destruction. Chemicals, bacteria, radiation cannot be controlled, that is, their effects may far outreach their intended target due to certain contingencies such as the direction the wind is blowing.

8 The Evil of Genocide

197

elimination of his/her future through child transfer or sterilization, etc. One’s identity is constituted not only by in-born phenotypic factors, such as physique, skin color, facial features, hair, etc., but also by assimilation of one’s surroundings in the territory one calls “home.” Home in the broadest sense is one’s town, village, or countryside, one’s neighborhood, one’s dwelling, one’s friends, relatives and acquaintances, and the network of familiar places and things.41 Jean Amery, philosopher and Holocaust survivor wrote an essay, “How much Home does a Person Need?” Here Amery argues that self and home in this broad sense are correlates. This becomes apparent when one is dislocated or exiled, as Amery was after surviving Auschwitz. About this Amery says: Reduced to the…basic content of the idea, home is security. If I think back on the first days of exile in Antwerp, I still have the memory of a staggering on shaky ground. The mere fact that one could not decipher people’s faces was frightening….Faces, gestures, clothes, houses, words…were sensory reality, but not interpretable signs. There was no order for me in this world.42

Beginning in the 1950s, urban renewal dislocated many people living in what the well-off regarded as slums. These “eyesores” were demolished and replaced by sleek, clean housing projects or large apartment complexes. To cite Dale Jamieson again, the old neighborhoods, “which made the poor feel at home,” were now gone. Residents felt dislocated, disoriented, and alcohol and drug addiction, along with suicide, increased. Jamieson writes: …like natural ecosystems, urban networks are very complicated and inter- dependent….Very often urban renewal disrupted and displaced stable neighborhoods… It destroyed small businesses and dispersed friends

41 William James writes of an “empirical self,” which is all that one cares about. He divides it into material, social, and spiritual components. The Principles of Psychology, vol. I, 292–305. 42 Jean Amery, At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, Sidney and Stella P. Rosenfeld (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 46–47.

198

M. H. DeArmey

and relatives. Corner drugstores, taverns, churches, social halls…were destroyed.43

The evil in genocide then is the loss of identity through murdering members of a targeted group or destroying their identity through an assault on their way of life. As discussed previously, Claudia Card uses the expression “social death” to describe destruction of the way of life of a group. A better term is the one Lemkin uses more frequently than any other term—“disintegration.” Social disintegration has degrees, death does not. Social disintegration means fragmenting, loosening, or cutting social bonds, including sexual preferences. It means turning an interconnected and highly interdependent whole into a granular sand heap. What is and What is not Genocide. On the basis of previous analyses in this chapter, the definition of “genocide” is as follows, with the key terms italicized: Genocide is a complex set of evil acts designed to destroy the identity of members of a group targeted by perpetrators, either through the actual murder, or the warranted forecast of the murder, of substantial numbers of the targeted group or a high percentage of the group, or through a plan which results in the disintegration of the group’s way of life. No restrictions have been placed on the nature of the targeted group. The perpetrators define the target. Genocidal acts target a group which is either considered an alien and contaminating threat, or the subject of revenge, or a group one cares nothing about, is indifferent toward. Genocide must be distinguished from its ugly cousin, mass murder. Mass murder as discussed in police and FBI circles is the murder of numbers of people at once and without design and without the victims belonging to some social group. In 1993 Colin Ferguson began firing a pistol in a Long Island commuter train, killing 6 and wounding 19. More recently Stephen Paddock murdered 59 people in Las Vegas. These indiscriminate murders were mass murders, as opposed to serial murders 43 Dale

Jamieson, “The City Around Us,” in Earthbound: New Introductory Essays in Environmental Ethics, edited by Tom Regan (New York: Random House, 1984), 64. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forced five native American nations to relocate. The Cherokee lost 55% of its population, the Creeks 35%. Alienation, disorientation, depression, lack of correspondence between their daily routines and the new location were the result.

8 The Evil of Genocide

199

or genocide. The term “massacre” is also used to indicate people being overwhelmed and killed. Massacres may or may not be genocide. Ferguson’s actions are often described as “the Long Island Railroad Massacre.” Massacre may take place without a plan, as marauders such as Genghis Khan spontaneously killed villagers and pillaged one village after another. Genocide on the other hand requires a plan involving coordinated complex actions which result in the destruction of a targeted group, but not necessarily by murder, as previously indicated. What about recent events that some might be tempted to describe as genocide? For example, Syrian president Assad gassed his own citizens in an attempt to kill anti-government militia who might be among them. This was clearly mass murder, for it was unnecessary to use that sort of weapon, whose effects are indeterminate, uncontrollable. And there was no design to this random gassing. Moreover, “substantial numbers” or “significant percentage” were lacking. That it was not genocide but mass murder does not lessen the harm nor the evil of it. The same would be true of Israeli war planes intentionally bombing a school or hospital which a small group of Hamas militia are using as a base to launch rockets at the Israeli population. On the part of the Israelis, if you knew that a hundred children were in the building, and you did not warn them to leave, and if there were other alternatives available that you did not choose (ground troops, cutting off supplies of rockets, etc.), then bombing such a building would result in mass murder. But it is also the case that Hamas is responsible for the deaths of the children, for they had every opportunity to get them out of the building they are using. A final comment is that groups that have not been through the historical process of becoming civilized and which remain relatively isolated, such as some Amazonian tribes, are not subject to the blame that members of the United Nations are. These tribes may attempt the destruction of another tribe, either by killing or by driving them away, but their actions are exculpable because they have no knowledge of developed ethical reasoning. Cosmopolitan remedies for genocide have been discussed in Chapter 5 in connection to the necessity of a Rapid Deployment Force. A U.N. RDF could have nipped the genocide in Rwanda in the bud. The Blue Helmets could also be used to protect refugees fleeing genocide.

9 Slavery I

…instruments of the household.…are animate and inanimate: the slave is an animate instrument. —Aristotle And so it was that freedom came into the world. Before slavery people simply could not have conceived of the thing we call freedom. —Orlando Patterson

Slavery has been and continues to be one of the great evils in human life. Nearly all societies on earth at one time or another have participated in this vicious assault on human dignity. But the face of slavery has changed over the decades. The old form of slavery, the legal ownership of people (chattel slavery), is now (since Mauritania in 1980) universally outlawed. However, slavery in its new forms thrives. This is the disposable slave, who is coerced into slavery but not owned, and who is abandoned when no longer useful. Currently, abolitionist organizations and researchers estimate that there are between 27 and 40 million slaves. The public and many academics are unaware of this. Social scientists who are aware of it have neglected it, partly because field work is dangerous and partly because slaveholders (often supported by police or governments) try to conceal it. Virtually no conceptual work has © The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_9

201

202

M. H. DeArmey

been undertaken by philosophers about the new slavery. There is little doubt that most people, including many academics, identify slavery with the buying and selling of people, and believe that this scourge is now universally illegal and virtually nonexistent. Why are there so many slaves? The earth is overpopulated, and enormous numbers of young people around the world have no skills, no education, and live in a destitute condition. Secondly, the profits from exploiting human beings as slaves are enormous. For example, one small, filthy brothel in Thailand with enslaved prostitutes made $975,000 profit in one year. Thirdly, globalization has undermined local business and farms. When I was a boy growing up in Memphis, across the river in Arkansas was a vast area of family-owned farms. Twenty years later I was shocked to observe nearly all small farms had been purchased by Kellogg’s, thereby displacing families from their roots. Finally, governments, local police, and corporations have been complicit in not only turning their eyes away from enslaved people, but in some cases even supporting slavery. What can philosophers contribute to the study of this form of evil? First, before slavery can be studied it must be identified, which requires a precise or core definition. What are the differences, for example, between enslavement and being imprisoned, or being in the military? Whatever slavery might be, how long must one be in that condition to be a slave? A year, a month, 30 minutes? Why is slavery wrong? Can traditional morals or philosophical ethics satisfactorily address the evil of slavery? What can cosmopolitan science recommend to diminish or eliminate slavery? This chapter will address these questions, beginning with the problem of defining slavery. Then an examination of types of slavery will be undertaken. The initial focus for this typology will be on the writings of three premiere researchers whose interest lies in global and transnational slavery. First, Orlando Patterson’s classic comparative study, Slavery and Social Death,1 examines slavery from ancient times to the present. The second researcher is Kevin Bales, whose two books, Disposable People and Understanding Global Slavery, are two of the best and most thorough

1 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1982). The amount of research that went into this study is staggering.

9 Slavery I

203

discussions of the new slavery.2 Finally, Siddharth Kara has recently published an excellent book, Modern Slavery. A Global Perspective.3

Defining Slavery Patterson defines slavery as the exploitation of human beings by violent means (“the whip”). Slaves are people who are dishonored and socially dead. These three, the whip, social death, and dishonor define slavery. Patterson states that slaves are socially dead. They have no entitlements, and can claim nothing. If a slave does receive a privilege or benefit, it is at the whim of the slaveholder. Patterson convincingly argues that slavery cannot be defined in terms of property, for there is a proprietary relationship between husband and wife in many countries, and of course that is not slavery. Bride sale is common in many places, e.g., Africa, but the purchased bride is neither demeaned nor threatened with violence. Patterson also argues against Hegel, who held that the slave is the one who is a creative vehicle of production for the master. But in some forms of slavery there is nothing produced. The slave exists only to honor and elevate the master. Patterson fails to explicitly reveal the injustice of slavery. It is noted here that in contrast to prison labor, the enslaved of the world have done nothing to deserve such treatment. Moreover, there is nothing a person could do which would warrant enslavement. Slavery is extremely unjust, an assault on human dignity. It is the theft of a life. Of the panorama of evils discussed in this book, some of the most horrific, the most disgusting human behaviors take place in the treatment of slaves. Kevin Bales defines the “irreducible nature” of slavery as the loss of a person’s free will in which a person is forced through violence or the threat of violence “to give up the ability to sell freely his or her own labor

2 Kevin

Bales, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2004), Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2005). 3 Siddharth Kara, Modern Slavery: A Global Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).

204

M. H. DeArmey

power.”4 This definition would not be applicable to sexual slavery, however, for “labor” is not given up but dignity is, through invasive assaults on the body and mind of women. As discussed below, there have been elite slaves who do not labor but are held in high esteem at the whim of slaveholder. Selection of the expression “free will” is unfortunate. Perhaps no one has free will! But it is correct to say that the slave has lost his/her autonomy. Siddharth Kara defines slavery as “…a system of dishonoring and degrading people through the violent coercion of their labor activity in conditions that dehumanize them.” He amplifies this by saying that “…the system has always been based on expressions of power and violence, in addition to minimization of labor costs, economic exploitation, racism, sexism, alienation, and the superiority of one class of persons over another.”5 Some improvements can be made in defining slavery, and this amounts to a better understanding of slavery. First, slavery is an assault on a person’s dignity through the use of violence or threat of violence at any moment. It is quite possible for a slave to live a lifetime as a slave without being the victim of violence or the explicit threat of violence, even though such a slave may have background awareness that he/she is subject to violence. Elite slaves may lead a life of relative serenity, but at the whim of the slaveholder they could be beaten, assigned as galley oarsmen at sea, etc. Second, enslavement forces a person who has done no wrong (unlike convicted and incarcerated criminals) into a life not of their own choosing, but a life solely for another person’s profit or benefit of some sort. A slave has lost his or her life while enslaved. Third, there is no time requirement in the phrase “into a life not of their own choosing,” so long as a person’s dignity is assaulted, they are subject to force, and their life in toto serves another. Suppose a young Rio boy is taken into the Amazons and finds his destination to be a charcoal camp that is surrounded by armed guards. He is immediately put to work in the searing heat and smoke of the charcoal ovens. He receives no pay, poor 4 Ibid.,

57. 6, 8. He correctly states that “trafficking” is movement toward enslavement and not slavery per se.

5 Ibid.,

9 Slavery I

205

food, etc. Suppose he is there only one day. Then suppose all the slaveholders and guards have in the meanwhile contracted malaria and die on the boy’s first day. The boy makes his way back home. Can he not say, and say truthfully, that he was a slave for one day? Surely he can. But a person could not be enslaved, say, for five minutes, because not enough time has passed for him to enter the daily regimen of slave treatment. Kidnapped and held at gunpoint yes, enslaved, no. One must be put into a routine. This entails that Kara’s problematic case of trafficking in organs is not slavery, for there is no forced daily regimen. Because of the diverse array of maladies common to most but not all forms of slavery, it is not possible that these maladies define features of slavery.

The Evil of Slavery Orlando Patterson takes for granted the evil of slavery until the last chapter of Slavery and Social Death. In that chapter he takes up the familiar notion that the slaveholder is the master who dominates his slave. Patterson regards this notion as an unfortunate and improper way to characterize slavery. For one thing, “domination” makes the slave seem passive. And the notion of “master” harbors an ambiguity. “Master” can mean one who controls, but can also mean superior intellect, superior culture, etc. This ambiguity comes to the forefront in the writings of some historians, who see Western culture as having benefitted slaves, removing them from a state of savagery and giving them civilization. This position is a quasi-justification of slavery, which Patterson of course rejects. Patterson was not aware of the following argument from analogy which refutes this quasi-justification. Imagine that aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy land on earth. Earthlings quickly discover that Andromeda culture is superior in every way. Their science is “light years” ahead of ours, having reached the point at which only occasional experimentation is necessary, the bulk of their work being deductive possible-world metaphysics and physics. Imagine that their art is so sophisticated and art education is so advanced that our art seems rather crude. Their movies and television for example, have no screens but are multidimensional and holographic, and are such that ordinary Andromedans can enter the film as substitutes for

206

M. H. DeArmey

any character. Andromeda homes have painted murals of the life stories of ancestors. Andromeda morals are more sophisticated than ours, with no cases of genocide, war, torture, not to mention lying and other kinds of “minor” wrongdoings, for over a thousand years. The Andromedans offer the earthlings who are dazzled by Andromedan culture a choice: “We can take your children back to our planet, where they will serve us until they, or possibly their descendants, have assimilated Andromedan culture”; or the Andromedans say, “you can choose to have them remain in this primitive and violent state on your earth.” Earthlings, however, would reject the offer. They would grieve over the loss of their children. The children would lose their identity as earthlings. Earthlings would fear that their children would be looked upon condescendingly by the Andromedans, perhaps as cute animals, the way people view chimpanzees. Just so, taking the children of African families to “improve” their lot and “elevate” them to civilization is something the Africans would never agree to, and would likewise regard as wrong. Patterson thinks the notion of parasitism is more suited to characterize slavery than master/domination. And this is correct, a leap forward in understanding slavery. Conceiving of slavery as a relation of parasitism has many advantages. Parasitism emphasizes the asymmetry of all such unequal relations…. The crucial advantage of this approach is that it offers a useful way of conceptualizing the complexities of dependence…[suggesting] a continuum of dependence from minor exploitations to major “Hegelian” dependence on the part of the …[slaveholder].6

A striking illustration of the relation of parasitism is found in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History: “We use other people’s feet when we go out, we use other people’s eyes to recognize things, we use another person’s memory to greet people, we use someone else’s help to stay alive—the only things we keep for ourselves are our pleasures.”7 Other than condemnation of slavery as a parasitic relationship involving violence, Patterson

6 Patterson, 7 Pliny

337. the Elder, Natural History, 14, 28. Cited by Patterson, 339.

9 Slavery I

207

does not offer an analysis of the evil nature of slavery as a form of wrongdoing. Kevin Bales’ Understanding Slavery contains a chapter on the evil of slavery. This chapter is poorly argued, poorly organized, and contains inconsistencies. The chapter title makes no sense: “Slavery and the Human Right to Evil.” What on earth does an entitlement to evil mean? Bales begins by defining “evil.” It is, he says, the “deliberate actions taken by people that harm other people.”8 This will not do, however, for it would make self-defense and just war evil. Bales informs his readers that he is in agreement with psychologist Roy Baumeister’s work on evil.9 Bales cites Baumeister’s list of eight characteristics which constitute the myth of “pure evil.” My comments immediately follow Baumeister’s claims. 1. The evil person intentionally inflicts harm on people (the slaveholder regularly brutalizes his slaves). That slaves are sometimes brutalized is no myth. Baumeister is partially correct, but an evil act inflicts undeserved severe harm, not just harm. And that is no myth. 2. Evil is driven by the wish to inflict harm merely for the pleasure of doing so (the slaveholder sadistically enjoys whipping slaves). This is a myth. It is not an essential feature of evil-doing, for it is not uncommon for the evil-doer to inflict severe harm in an indifferent or cold-blooded manner; Harm can be inflicted grudgingly, as was the case with some officers in SS mobile killing squads. 3. The victim is innocent and good (the slave did nothing to deserve slavery). This too is a myth. Baumeister is correct. It is true that no one can do anything to deserve slavery, but it does not follow that those enslaved are innocent and good. Good and bad people alike have been and are enslaved. 4. Evil is the other, the enemy, the out-group (the slaveholder is not like us and belongs to a group that we could never and would never belong to). This overlooks the fact that the slaveholder may even have characteristics to which the slave aspires (the Stockholm syndrome). 8 Bales,

Understanding Global Slavery, 25. F. Baumeister, Evil: Inside Human Cruelty and Violence (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1997).

9 Roy

208

M. H. DeArmey

5. Evil has been that way since time immemorial (slavery has always taken this basic form: total violent control and violation). Again, it is the possibility that violence could be inflicted on the slave at any moment. 6. Evil represents the antithesis of order, peace, and security (enslavement means violence, disruption, destruction of families, and a total lack of security). More accurately stated, most but not all enslavement has one or more of those characteristics. These last two are: 7. Evil characters are often marked by egotism (the slaveholder believes himself to be superior to the slaves). 8. Evil slaveholders have difficulty maintaining control over their feelings, especially rage and anger (the slaveholder’s rage is part of the terror endured by the slave). The seventh characteristic is correct in the matter of superiority, but not the eighth. Not all slaveholders are emotional bombshells waiting to explode. For example, some slaveholders in the old South, or landowners in India as exemplified in Baldev’s case, might be paternalistic, or purely business oriented. Punishment for “infractions” might be administered regrettably. Bales claims that “these attributes are myths, as we shall see when we explore slaveholders’ views and actions.”10 Having set aside myths about evil, Bales develops a subjectivist account of evil: “evil is in the eye of the beholder.”11 His “key assertion” is that definitions of evil privilege and codify the victim’s perspective. The slaveholder may see his slaves not as slaves but debtors, and debt bondage as just an economic arrangement.12 10 Understanding

Global Slavery, 26. 27 and again on 32. 12 Bales states that “Researching slavery and meeting slaveholders in many countries has convinced me that we must explore (though not accept) their own self-definition. Exploring this is an important part of the study of slavery, but has no effect on the evil of their actions.” Bales does not discuss self-deception. Slaveholders may mask or hide the truth from themselves 11 Ibid.,

9 Slavery I

209

Bales sees the rise of human rights theory as redefining evil. He seems to be saying that once human rights get a grip on our intellects we begin to see certain actions, such as slavery, as “evil.” But this is upside down. Actions were regarded as evil long before rights theory came into being. Against Bales, we begin to see certain actions as evil, and that leads to an attempt to block these actions by legal and moral rights, construed as entitlements. At any rate Bales seems skeptical of human rights theory. He says that the logic of human rights will result in “a future in which any intentional harm is prohibited,” and this would be “unrealistic.”13 This chapter ends with the claim that evil will be what mediation between victim and perpetrators produces. Against Bales, realism about evil is necessary, both for what evil is and to avoid slipping into subjectivism, which diminishes the wrongness, the injustice, of slavery. Slavery is an inversion of civilization and a deformation of life. Instead of tools serving human beings, human beings become tools. And nothing but tools. Slavery has the phenomenological characteristics laid out in the chapter on evil. It is cruel, destructive, unforgivable, and horrific. For most cases, enslavement is in fact an extended form of torture. Slavery is an assault on human dignity, for the slave is robbed of the ability to design a life of his/her own. Heteronomy replaces autonomy (level 3 dignity). The slaveholder acts contrary to his dignity as a caring creature, and abuses human beings by repeatedly smashing their expectations that others will do good for them (level 2 dignity). The slaveholder blocks some of the means that humans have to realize basic ends of sustaining life, such as food acquisition, rest, play, having a family and children, personal property (level 1 dignity). There couldn’t be a more flagrant example of violating Kant’s respect for persons principle that we should always treat persons as ends-in-themselves and never merely as means. Slaves typically endure pain, physical injury, miserable living conditions, diseases, malnutrition, and lack of an education including basic skills for a self-sustaining life. Often they are torn from their families.

(their injustice) by appeals to economics or their fatherly relation to their slaves. Understanding Global Slavery, 24–25. 13 Ibid., 38–39.

210

M. H. DeArmey

Slaves suffer from psychological maladies, such as depression, trauma, self-hatred, smoldering resentment, etc. Slaves are not consumers, and therefore slavery is an economic deficit to the countries that harbor it. From India and Pakistan to Brazil and Columbia, slavery destroys the environment, whether it be the charcoal camps of the Amazons or the sand makers of India, or the mines of Africa. The severe harm from slavery is vast indeed.

Procuring Slaves Orlando Patterson’s Slavery and Social Death has little concern with a typology of slavery. Patterson does cite ways of procuring slaves. He distinguishes internal slaves who have fallen in some way and thereby been expelled from social life, and external slaves acquired from outside the slaveholding community. Methods or tactics for procuring slaves are first and foremost through warfare. For instance, Greek armies going off to battle were accompanied by the wagons of middlemen, who would pay for captured enemy soldiers and then market them as slaves when returning to the city. Kidnapping is a second common method, particularly in smaller societies. Patterson says that kidnapping, sometimes called “piracy enslavement,” ranks second to warfare, and was especially pronounced in slaveholding Mediterranean societies in the ancient and medieval period.14 Tribute or taxation is another method. One illustration of this comes from the Ottoman Empire, whose janissaries (elite Turkish infantry) obtained children from Christian families living in their territory as tribute. Enslavement due to debt is another common method. In India there are an estimated fifteen million persons in debt bondage. In Africa, pawning someone for a loan was not uncommon. Usually, it was a woman. If the person could not repay the loan the pawned person may become a slave permanently. A fourth method of procurement is punishment for a crime. Typically the crime was murder. In ancient Rome there were penal slaves, who were sometimes put 14 Patterson,

Slavery and Social Death: “Individuals at sea and inhabitants of coastal towns were ceaselessly ravaged by pirates. Caesar being perhaps the most celebrated victim,” 115.

9 Slavery I

211

into the gladiatorial arena. A fifth type is the enslavement of children, often abandoned children. In particular children with manifest birth defects might be enslaved. Until recently Chinese practice was to prefer male babies. Girls could become domestic or sexual slaves. A sixth method is self-enslavement. Often this is due to poverty when there are no other available means of subsistence. Patterson includes enslavement through marriage to a slave under self-enslavement. Finally, enslavement by birth is, according to Patterson, a major source of slaves worldwide. The offspring of biologically reproductive slaves provide a cheap source for slaves. Mature children of slaves in the old South could command high prices at auctions, and a major fear on the part of slaves was selling off their children.

Types of Slavery Kevin Bales describes six types of slavery. Despite some wonderful theoretical and practical work on slavery, there are some glaring omissions in his writings: child soldiers, elite slavery, and corporate slavery.15 So the typology below follows Bales part of the way, but adds new types. The first question we should ask is, “what is the basis for a taxonomy or typology of slavery?” Is it what the slaveholder does to the slave, or is it differences in the “object,” i.e., the slave? It is obvious that slavery itself is defined by what the slaveholder does to the slave. But on what basis are types of slavery distinct from one another? Types of slavery are determined by the conditions under which slaves are slaves. For example, domestic slaves are enslaved in and around the home or real estate of someone, whereas debt bondage is not inside home work, but for farm or urban labor. Sexual slavery involves brothels, prostitution, rape, etc. This should be kept in mind as the typology is developed. Chattel slavery is the first of Bales’ three basic types. This is the classic type of slavery in which slaves are property. They can be bought and sold.

15 Bales is the founder and director of an organization, Free the Slaves, headquartered in Washington, DC.

212

M. H. DeArmey

The children of chattel slaves can be enslaved at birth. Patterson cites a passage from Leviticus illustrating the chattel slavery of the ancient Jews: And as for thy bondsmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have of the nations that are round about you, of them all shall ye buy bondsmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they have begotten in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye shall make them an inheritance for your children after you….16

One would have to look diligently for a more blunt statement concerning the status of the chattel slave than the 1829 court ruling by Judge Ruffin of North Carolina. The intentional wounds inflicted upon a slave by a free man were dismissed, the Judge stating With slavery…the end is the profit of the master, his security and the public safety; the subject, one doomed in his own person, and his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap his fruits…The power of the master must be ab-solute….17

For chattel slaves the threat of the whip was always present. Forced illiteracy, tattoos, branding, horrific beatings, lynchings, decapitation—all these and many more—have been endured by chattel slaves. As already noted, by far the greatest fear among chattel slaves was selling away family members. Debt Bondage is the most widely prevalent form of the “new” slavery. Overpopulation, along with corporate and government corruption, have given rise to the disposable slave, who doesn’t cost much at all to buy and even less to maintain. Bales states that a slave can be purchased for the same cost as inexpensive bicycle or cheap computer. India leads the world in debt slavery. There are an estimated 15 million children enslaved in Indian sweatshops. There are rural and urban varieties of debt slavery

16 Leviticus 17 Quoted

25–44. Cited by Patterson, 40. by Patterson, 3–4.

9 Slavery I

213

in India. An illustration of this sickening state of affairs in the cities is this report by observers: In India’s commercial capital, Mumbai (Bombay), there are thousands of small units known as “zari factories”. Boys aged 6-14 work 20 hours a day, seven days a week, kneeling at low tables sewing beads and coloured threads on to vast lengths of fabric. A “zari factory” is a 3 m × 3 m room with dirty floors and hardly any ventilation. The boys have to work, wash, eat and sleep in the same room, with a small smelly bathroom in one corner. They are given only two meals a day.18

Sometimes there are contracts drawn up and signed by the family and/or the boy who will be enslaved. The families are given money which becomes the debt which the boy must work off. Often the family and/or boy are illiterate, and don’t know what they are signing. The worker is doomed to long hours of hard work, bare subsistence, health problems, and sexual abuse. Escape is typically impossible, and even if possible, workers have no place to go to better their condition. An example of rural slavery in India is the debt bondage of people on farms and those working as laborers. Bales cites the condition of Baldev, who worked long hours daily as a plowman for his master. Baldev, his wife, and his children lived in a 7 × 15 foot hut, with a dirt floor and mud walls, no electricity, no running water, only a mud oven, a rope bed, and a few utensils. Baldev worked seven days a week, all day, for decades, to pay off a small loan, less than $50.00. Bales asks his reader to imagine what it would be like to live like Baldev and his family: …find a bag of rice….Fill up a coffee mug four times with the rice…Now feed a family of five for one day….for every meal you’ll need to give each person only one-third of a coffee mug of grain so that it will last all day.. Repeat this recipe every day for the rest of your life.19

18 Workers Socialist Web Site, T. Kala, “Exploitation of Child Labourers in India,” June 8, 2006. wsws.org. 19 Disposable People, 195.

214

M. H. DeArmey

It is estimated that there are 500,000 workers like this in just one Indian state, Uttar Pradesh. Some slaveholders treat their bonded workers as dependents, but there is always the threat of violence available. Bales states that “…there are “good” and “bad” landlords in Uttar Pradesh. Most do not allow their laborers to leave their land or to work for anyone else….”20 Police punish those who try to escape. The Indian government is complicit, merely changing the name from debt bondage or to “attached workers.” Such subterfuge is commonly used when evildoing is going on. Often debt is incurred when a man needs money for a bride. Bales notes that sometimes men have to sell their brides into prostitution to pay off their marriage loan. Not only that, but a man who flees his terrible condition may have his belongings “even his children…seized and auctioned.”21 In addition to debt bondage on the farm, Indians are enslaved in “stone quarries, brick kilns, mines, and matchbox and firework factories; they make cigarettes, brassware, glass bangles, pottery and carpets.”22 Some smash rock all day to make sand, incurring respiratory and other diseases. Pakistan also has large numbers of debt slaves, many of whom work in and on brick ovens. Brazil too has ovens which burn trees to make charcoal. Armed guards patrol the parameters. Young Brazilian men, whose parents in the overpopulated big cities are given money and the promise of a good job for their sons, are whisked away by truck to remote places in the Amazons. They work in and on top of the dirt ovens, burning wood for charcoal. Both in the Pakistani and Brazilian camps slaves suffer festering sores from burned hands and feet, along with terrible damage to the lungs. They work from a few months to a few years and are then discarded. Government enslavement is the third type. Bales’ third type is contract slavery, but this is a misclassification. Contracts are a subterfuge used throughout various types of slavery. Bales labels government slavery “war 20 Ibid.,

202. 203. 22 Ibid., 201. 21 Ibid.,

9 Slavery I

215

slavery,” which is odd, because his own examples include enslavement for non-warring government projects. Bales cites the horrors of Burmese slavery. Slaves there were used for government projects and for combatting ethnic groups (Muslims). The Burmese government built a natural gas pipeline, in conjunction with American, French, and Thai corporations. “In the pipeline project,” Bales writes, “thousands of enslaved workers, including old men, pregnant women, and children, were forced at gunpoint to clear land and build a railway next to the pipeline.”23 Of course the best example of government-sponsored slavery is the Nazi concentration camps. These camps were of two types, four were death factories, while all the others utilized slave labor. Inmates in the latter were worked to the bone, that is, worked until their bodies underwent auto-cytism. The starving body will begin to eat itself, using up energy reserves stored in the liver, fatty tissue, and then muscles. Domestic slavery is found throughout the world. Domestic slavery is called “restavecs,” from the French rester avec, meaning to “stay with.” A family is offered a payment for a girl or boy who is then taken away to work in the slaveholder’s house. Often the family is given false promises—a fine home, an education, etc. The girl or boy is then immersed in work long hours, seven days a week, cleaning, cooking, waiting on their slaveholders’ family. Often they are beaten and sexually abused. Bales says this form of slavery is common in the Caribbean and Western Africa. In Haiti there are traders who function much the same as slave traders around the world and throughout history. The traders find children in the countryside and either kidnap them or deceive them into being taken away from their families. They are then brought to Port-au-Prince and sold to families who want to buy them. An undercover journalist discovered that he would be able to purchase a ten year old Haitian girl for 150 American dollars through a few minutes of negotiation…. The Al-Jezeera news network, in a story on poverty in Haiti, captured a case study of a ten year old female restavec named Neika. Neika told Al-Jezeera that after her mother died she was bought by a woman who has a husband and two daughters. She wakes up at four o’clock am every morning to fetch water from the well for 23 Ibid.,

21.

216

M. H. DeArmey

the family. Next she sweeps and mops the floors and washes the dishes. She also does the laundry and any other tasks assigned by the woman who bought her. Her daily routine does not include going to school. She is not allowed to speak unless spoken to, and is often beaten for “doing something wrong….An estimated 225,000 children are living as slaves in Haiti today.24

Domestic slavery is found in big cities around the world. The U. S. State Department’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, which utilizes various data including that of the CIA, estimates that 45,000–50,000 women and children are brought into the United States each year and enslaved as prostitutes or as domestics who also function as sexual objects.25 Most of these victims are brought into the country by organized crime networks and gangs. Although the primary use of these women and children is for sex, a significant number, according to Amy O’Neill Richard’s report, function as domestics. She states that, in the case of domestic enslavement, “…it is difficult to determine the magnitude of the problem.” She cites many cases in her report. Here are some examples: African and Middle Eastern families, for example, are bringing over children to work. They typically bring the child to the United States, claiming the child is their niece or nephew. The child is then made to work long hours and perform hard work under dangerous conditions. There are cases where the young domestics have been made to scour bathrooms daily with noxious cleaning chemicals. • A Floridian family was recently taken into custody for forcing a 12year-old girl, brought from Haiti, to be a maid and repeatedly assaulting her. • In New York, a Nigerian smuggling ring is charging parents $10,000 to $20,000 to bring their children to the US, promising the parents that their children will have better educational opportunities. Once in the US, the ring forces the Nigerian children to work as domestics. 24 Law, Crime and Justice, Lindsay Haskell, “Modern-Day Slavery: Haiti’s Restavec System,” November 22, 2010. suite101.com. 25 U. S. State Department, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Amy O’Neill Richard, “International Trafficking of Women to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery and Organized Crime,” April, 2000. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-ofintelligence/ trafficking.pdf.

9 Slavery I

217

• From February 1997 to August 1998 in Woodbine, Maryland, a pastor was bringing in Estonian children, ages 14 to 17, promising them they would attend Calvary Chapel Christian Academy but then forcing them to clean roach-infested apartments and install office furniture. The children were working 15 hours a day and being paid about $10 to $50 a week. Some children were threatened that they would be sent home if they refused, and punishments included skipping meals and standing in one spot for prolonged periods. • INS has also worked on cases involving South Asian children smuggled into the US to work at low wage scale jobs. In one case, about 100 Indian children, some as young as 9 or 10, were being brought into New York from 1996 to 1997 and shuffled around the country to work in construction and restaurants. Some of the children appeared to have been sold by their parents to the traffickers.26

Bales quotes from an interview with a freed domestic slave named Seba, who was taken from her grandmother in Mali by a Parisian couple, who promised that Seba, just a little girl, would be given schooling and a home. Instead, Seba was imprisoned and forced to work every day from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. cleaning, cooking, caring for the couples’ children including a baby. She was never sent to school. She was tired, run down, and had infected teeth. Seba was never given medical treatment. Her only food was leftovers from the family’s children. One day she was late doing a chore and was beaten and thrown out of the house, only to be retrieved by the husband. Back at the house, they stripped her and beat her with a wire attached to a broomstick. They put chili powder in her wounds, and pushed it up her vagina. She lost consciousness. When Kevin Bales met Seba, she was freed and living with a volunteer family. However, .…her understanding of the world was less developed than the average five-year old’s….she had little understanding of time– no knowledge of weeks, months, or years….she did not know her age. She is baffled by the idea of “choice.” …Seba is one of perhaps 3,000 household slaves in

26 Ibid.,

22–23.

218

M. H. DeArmey

Paris….In London, New York, Zurich, Los Angeles and across the world, children are brutalized as household slaves.27

Sexual Slavery is a distinct type of slavery. Thailand is the leading country in the world for sexual slavery. Of the estimated 500,000– 1,000,000 prostitutes in Thailand, roughly 35,000 are slaves. Sex there is a tourist attraction, accounting for 50–60% of the government’s revenues. Some government officials brag that Thailand is the sex capital of the world. In Thailand women are regarded as playthings, second class citizens. Buddhism is the majority religion in Thailand, and Buddhism supports the inferiority of women. Some strands in the history of Buddhism teach that women are dangerous, carnal creatures. Buddha himself seems to have been reluctantly persuaded that women can reach enlightenment. Other strands hold that women can only reach enlightenment if they are reincarnated as men. Still other strands hold that gender differences are an illusion. The doctrine of Karma supports sex slavery. Many people, including many enslaved prostitutes themselves, view their suffering as the result of bad behavior in a previous life. What are the sources and means for obtaining girls and young women for enslavement in brothels and strip clubs? The primary internal source is poor tribes of northern Thailand. Middlemen attempt to buy young girls from families; or, they create a contract and “lend” the families money, with the young girl as collateral on the loan. Bales says that it has become common for northern Thai families seeking “the good life” like that of southern Thai families to sell a daughter for a color television set.28 Another internal source is kidnapping, sometimes by gangs at bus and railroad stations. 27 Disposable People, 2–3. See below for the idea of a universal and rigorously vetted child’s travel card. 28 Bales’ chapter on Thai sex slavery is in Disposable People, Op. cit., 34–79. For attempts to rethink portions of Buddhism and eliminate doctrinal sexism see the writings of Rita M. Gross. Her latest article is “A Vision of Buddhist Women’s Future,” in Women and the Futures of World Religions, edited by Avind Sharma (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, forthcoming). See also “Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW),” Donna M. Hughes et al., The Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation, “Thailand.” Not dated. catwinternational.org.

9 Slavery I

219

The trend now is to import more and more girls from outside Thai borders. Burma, Laos, Malaysia, southern China, Cambodia are adjacent to or near Thailand. In the case of China, Girls in China are kidnapped and trafficked through Burma to Thailand. In one kidnapping scheme in the central Thai provinces, an agent photographed village girls on their way to school; showed the photos to a brothel keeper who ordered the girls he wanted. The agent returned and kidnaped the chosen girl.29

With the worldwide economic crisis it is easier to lure women into the sex business. Europeans are also trafficked into Thailand, according to CATW: … Russian women, looking for a better life and to escape the Russian economic crisis, are being trafficked….Most of the women became involved with job placement agencies offering high-paying work as dancers, waitresses, domestic servants or sale representatives. Trafficking networks in Russia charge the women anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 (60,000 to 120,000 baht) and once in Thailand, the women are kept in constant fear. They have their passports taken away upon arrival. The women are forced to work long hours for little pay and threatened with death or the death of their families if they don’t cooperate…. Most European women in prostitution in Thailand are from Russia, the Czech Republic and Romania.30

In just one brothel examined by Bales, the yearly net profit was 975,000 US dollars. For one thing the cost of purchasing a girl (or the “loan”) is low. For another, there is no maintenance. The girls are forced to pay rent for their tiny, shabby cubicles. They are not given adequate medical treatment, if any at all. Their diet usually consists of bowls of noodles. Their exercise is inadequate. After two to five years the young women are discarded. Their sexual attractiveness has diminished, and their bodies are most likely diseased. The young girls and young women 29 Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), Donna M. Hughes et al., The Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation, “Thailand.” Not dated. catwinternational.org. 30 Ibid.

220

M. H. DeArmey

are under the complete control of the pimp, who is like a god to them. His total power comes from the use of violence and clever psychological manipulation, such as affection or treats. The girls soon discover that the best coping mechanism is to please the pimp. The police support the pimps and brothel owners. If a girl escapes, the police find her and take her to the police station, where she is beaten or otherwise abused. Returned to the brothel, the girls conclude that escape is impossible. An often repeated story from the enslaved young girls is that they are in debt to someone for a “loan” to their family, which they must pay off through work. When they arrive at the brothel they command a high price as virgins. Typically a virgin girl has to be beaten or drugged before she is raped by her client. The result is pain, shock, trauma, and disbelief. After more clients and more beatings, the dazed girls begin to go about a routine of servicing men. Siri, a fifteen-year-old interviewed by Bales, used three to four cartons of condoms each month, 100 condoms per box. That’s ten men each night, every night. The effects on the girls are terrible. They become debilitated in body and mind. Bales lists mental disorders resulting from sexual enslavement: “…lethargy, aggression, selfloathing, and suicide attempts, confusion, self-abuse, depression, fullblown psychoses, and hallucinations.”31 Physical effects include multiple infections, reduced immune system, inadequate nutrition and exercise, abrasions in the vaginal canal. Then there are the physical abuses from pimps and clients. Thailand leads the world in HIV/AIDS per capita. Since Thai men often visit brothels, their wives contract this deadly disease. Elite Slavery is the sixth type, although rare. Patterson cites several cases. In the first-century B.C. the slave Publilius Syrus was allowed an education by his master. He became a person of high standing among Romans, including the emperor Julius Caesar, for his excellent mimic theatre and moral maxims (the most famous of which is “A rolling stone gathers no moss”). He was freed by his master and continued to write, but most of his writings have disappeared. The secretaries of Roman emperors were wealthy and powerful, yet they were slaves. They were persons who were feared and citizens 31 Disposable

People, 59.

9 Slavery I

221

clamored to cultivate their favor. Secretarial work was regarded as dishonorable work. One secretarial post was minister of finance (libertus a rationibus), in charge of all state property. Another was a minister who controlled which petitions and grievances were submitted to the Emperor (liberitus a libellis). A third functioned as minister of state, in charge of communications with regions of the empire (libertus ab epistulis). Powerful and well-to-do slaves were also found in the Byzantine empire, Islamic republics, Persia, Korea, and Russia. The existence of elite slavery is one reason why the definition of slavery developed here emphasizes the use of violence at any moment. Temple slaves are also rare. Bales cites girls in India, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, and Benin who are slaves to priests. In India there is the devadasi, young women who are given up by their families to marry a god. From that point, Bales says, Once married the girl is declared a “saint” and must move into the local temple and care for it. She must not do any other work, cannot leave the village, cannot “divorce” and marry someone else, and is in the control of the men who run the temple. For centuries these men have turned the girls into prostitutes, so that the temple doubles as a brothel.32

Corporate Slavery is a distinct type, neglected by Patterson and Bales. It is accurate to say that there exists a transnational, capitalist/corporate, slavery web, covering nearly every part of the globe, extending from slave laborers through supply chains to you and me who enjoy the final product. Some of the things people like best are the products of slave labor. Four of these attractive products to be examined here are chocolate, shrimp and seafood, agricultural produce, and electronic devices. Corporations have a bad track record in monitoring the sources of the products they sell. Primarily through their supply chains corporations must bear significant responsibility for the massive amount of slave labor worldwide. What if you confirmed that a business in your town gave most of its profits to a neo-Nazi hate group. It would be reasonable to regard that business as engaged in wrong or evil-doing, and reasonable to 32 Disposable

People, 21–22 and 199–200.

222

M. H. DeArmey

see that business and its owners as part and parcel of the neo-Nazi group. Just so with corporations which fail to monitor their suppliers. A corporation could do this from moral negligence perhaps, or moral indifference (perhaps some corporate CEOs just don’t care), or even preferential wrongdoing. For years the chocolate industry has utilized slave labor in the growing and harvesting of cocoa beans. Hershey’s, Nestle, and Mars obtain substantial amounts (in the thousands of tons) from the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Fortune 500 magazine sent Brian O’Keefe to investigate Africa’s cocoa industry. He found that “…hundreds of thousands of children are used as free labor by their own families and often asked to take on dangerous tasks like harvesting with machetes or hauling 100-pound bags of beans. For many, school is not an option.”33 A recent study by Tulane University found that 2.1 million children in the Ivory Coast and Ghana combined were suffering from dangerous and brutal labor.34 Another study by the International Labor Organization found that roughly 12,000 children had been trafficked from Mali, Burkina, Faso, and Togo. Families sold their children amid promises that their children would have good jobs. In a multiple part series on slavery in 2000, the BBC investigative report on cocoa slavery in Africa revealed that children 12–14 and even younger were forced to work an astonishing 80–100 hours a week, and were paid nothing. They were poorly fed and often beaten. Attempts at escape resulted in capture and vicious, brutal beatings.35 Chocolate is desired by people worldwide. The cocoa bean contains a chemical, theobromine (theo = god, broma = food), which when eaten can cause more relaxed moods, relief from hypertension, and easier breathing. When combined with the pleasure caused by sugars, the two together are irresistible for many people. People concerned about cocoa

33 Brian

O’Keefe, “Inside Big Chocolate’s Child Labor Problem,” Fortune 500, March 1, 2016. http://fortune.com/bigchocolate-child-labor/. 34 Cited by O’Keefe, “Inside Big Chocolate’s Child Labor Problem.” 35 “BBC Investigation, “The Bitter Taste of Slavery.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2hi/africa/ 946952stm; John Robbins, “Is there Slavery in Your Chocolate?” https://johnrobbins.info/isthere-slavery-in-your-chocolate/.

9 Slavery I

223

and slavery, as everyone should be, must buy chocolate not harvested from Africa, at least not until these atrocities have been cleaned up. Other forms of agribusiness in various parts of the world utilize slave labor. Sugar derived from sugar cane involves corporate misconduct and irresponsibility. Sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean and in Africa utilize slave labor. In the Dominican Republic, next-door Haitians, seeking employment, are loaded onto trucks and taken to “batays,” barracks (concentration camps). During harvest time “…they work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, frequently without access to decent housing, electricity, clean water, education, healthcare or adequate nutrition.”36 It is estimated that undocumented Haitians living in the batays range from 500,000 to 1 million. These poor people living in such wretched conditions are called “braceros,” seasonal slaves. Celine Anay Gautier describes their plight: Although all suffer inhumane working conditions and poor treatment, the braceros rarely try to escape. Terrorized by their wardens, deprived of their papers and of any means of communication, they are quickly reduced to silence and resignation. Those who do try to escape are quickly recaptured by the guards and beaten with machete knives. Many mysteriously disappear following such attempts. The others have forgotten what it was like to be free.37

In Mexico huge agribusiness farms supply Americans with tomatoes, melons, squash, and other produce. These crops wind up in supermarkets at Walmart, Whole Foods, Safeway, and many other grocery stores. The Los Angeles Times investigated working conditions at these mega farms, and found that Mexican laborers suffer “extreme hardships.” Wages are often withheld because of debts to company-owned stores. Investigators have found that “Some are reduced to scavenging for food….”38 Armed 36 “Dominican

Republic: Modern Sugarcane Slavery,” The Outpost, January 26, 2014. http:// www.wilderutopia.com/international/humanity/dominican-republic-modern-day-sugarcaneslavery/. 37 “Slaves in Paradise,” Dominican Watchdog, April, 2011. http://www.dominicanwatchdog.org/ page-Stop_Sugar_Purchases_from_the_Dominican_Republic-96k. 38 Richard Marosi, “Hardship on Mexico’s Farms, a Bounty for U. S. Tables,” The Los Angeles Times, December 7, 2014. http://graphics.latimes.com/product-of-mexico-camps/.

224

M. H. DeArmey

guards and barbed-wire fences prevent escape. The L.A. Times concluded that U. S. companies have “done little” to correct these deployable conditions. Mexico’s Labor Secretary claimed that organized crime was involved, and said that authorities had found in one month 452 people “working in slave-like conditions.” 16,159 businesses were fined for “serious” violations of labor laws. Truly horrific labor conditions amounting to enslavement and murder exist in Thailand’s shrimp and fishing industry. This industry was personally investigated over a fifteen-year period by Harvard Professor Siddharth Kara. He found the conditions of laborers so horrific, so disgusting, that when his research ended he required therapy to recover from the impact of what he had observed.39 Thailand is the third-largest exporter of seafood behind China and Norway. It utilizes 800,000 laborers, a substantial portion of which are slaves. It has 50,000 sea-going ships, numerous peeling sheds and processing buildings. The United States spends 1.39 billion dollars on exported Thai seafood. Kara’s interest in labor conditions in Thailand’s seafood industry was launched by an interview he conducted with a Thai police lieutenant. The police officer said that most seafood workers are boys brought in from Cambodia, and are taken by Thai middlemen to coastal towns such as Samut Sakhon. From there they are put on ships headed to sea (some become dock workers, peelers, or processors). Once at sea “…they are forced to catch fish twenty hours a day for many months. The ship captains force the boys to take amphetamines so they can work nonstop.”40 When the boys are exhausted and depleted of energy “many were shot and thrown overboard.”41 Kara located a safe house for laborers escaping these terrible conditions. After proving his human rights credentials to the owners, he was allowed to interview a young man, Prak, who confirmed the police officer’s account. Forced to board a ship by police, he soon encountered hellish conditions. Forced to continually work to exhaustion, complaints 39 Sidharth 40 Ibid., 41 Ibid.

Kara, Modern Slavery, 252. Adversely affected his mind and overall health. 225.

9 Slavery I

225

were met by brutal beatings or being chained to the deck in the blistering sun. Prak states that “They threw men overboard to drown. They gave us electric shock. I saw six men killed on those ships. Some men were so afraid they jumped into the ocean and drowned themselves.”42 Kara described Prak as a twenty-seven year-old who looked like “a worn down carcass.” The owners of the safe house, Tina and Anurat, told Kara that “the fish are treated better than these men….They will be forced to work until they are dead.”43 They commented that fish and shrimp feed on the corpses of young men thrown overboard. These shrimp and fish are the products of slave labor and may have eaten human corpses for dinner. Where do they wind up? On your dinner plate. Companies that obtain Thai seafood include your local Walmart store, Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants, Albertson’s, Safeway, and Sysco. The food you feed your dog and cat may well be the work of slaves who harvest “trash” fish. Corporations selling electronic devices such as cell phones and computers have their dirty fingers in the slave business. Cell phones and computer parts utilize coltan, a compound composed of columbite and tantalum. Coltan is important in the electronics industry because of its ability to maintain and move electronic signals even under extreme temperatures. It is important to the military for making smart bombs smart. 80% of the world’s supply of columbite and tantalum come from the Congo (DRC). Armed militia and corrupt segments of the Congolese military “.…enslave children…as young as 13…They wear no safety protection …and often die from brutal working conditions.”44 From there the minerals go to Chinese factories such as Foxconn. They too use slave labor. Conditions are so harsh at Foxconn that some teenagers commit suicide by jumping off the factory roof. Foxconn responded to this “by putting anti-suicide nets around the building.”45

42 Ibid.,

228–229. 230. 44 C. Robert Gibson, “How the iPhone Helps Perpetuate Modern-Day Slavery,” Huffington Post, The BLOG, September 11, 2014. 45 Ibid. 43 Ibid.,

226

M. H. DeArmey

Another supplier to Apple, Amazon, and other electronic outlets is the Taiwanese Zhen-Ding Technology, whose factories are located on mainland China. The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights found … more than 10,000 Zhen-Ding workers are housed in primitive, dark and filthy dorms sleeping on plywood with six to ten workers in each crowded room.….Exhausted workers sleep through their lunch break hunched over their work tables… security guards are everywhere at ZhenDing, over 100 of them who routinely harass and beat the workers.46

Another important mineral for today’s manufacturing is cobalt. Cobalt has high-temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, and good magnetic performance. It is used in electronic devices, aerospace, and is important in making alloys.47 Like coltan, a major source of cobalt is the Congo (DRC). The Guardian, Amnesty International and African Resources Watch have verified child and adult slavery in cobalt mines: Children as young as seven are working in perilous conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to mine cobalt….young children and adults…[work] in life-threatening conditions and subjected to violence, extortion and intimidation….Several children said they were beaten by security guards.48

These poor children work 12 back-breaking hours a day in intense and stifling heat. The supply chain stretches from the Congo Dongfang Mining Co. to processing at Huayon Cobalt and from there to a wide range of manufacturers, many in China and South Korea. Cobalt is found in 16 brands of lithium batteries, as well as cell phones, car parts, and computers. Companies implicated in slave labor are Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, Daimler, and Volkswagen. 46 “Exhaustion Has No Limit at Apple Supplier in China,” Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, December 22, 2014. http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports/exhaustion-hasno-limit-at-apple-supplier-in-china. 47 Stanford Advanced Materials, “What Is Cobalt Used in Everyday Life,” November 1, 2017. http://www.samaterials.com/content/193-what-is-cobalt-used-in-everyday-life. 48 Annie Kelly, “Children as Young as Seven Mining Cobalt Used in Smartphones, Says Amnesty,” January 18, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jan/19/ children-as-young-as-seven-ining-cobalt-for-use-in-smartphones-says-amnesty.

9 Slavery I

227

Just imagine yourself with no life of your own making, suffering humiliation, pain, depression, and exhaustion. You are without hope for a better life. You become old and weathered far in advance of natural aging. You are cut off from your family. Now multiply these maladies and losses by not thousands but millions of people. What can be more sickening than the fact that significant parts of civilization as we know it today are “inverted” and founded on the cruelest human degradation possible? Chocolate, sugar, seafood, and electronic devices are just samples involving transnational slavery. The list of slave labor involved in supply chains goes on and on. Who would have thought that your children’s toys, sold by Mattel, Disney, and others were made by slave labor?49

Cosmopolitan Recommendations to Eliminate Slavery First and foremost are requirements that may over time eliminate debt bondage, that form of slavery with the largest number of enslaved people. Eliminating these debts would enable people to stand on their own two feet and conduct their own lives. First, governments, NGOs from the UNAPE, private individuals, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, can easily provide seed money to establish credit unions in small villages. Bales, writing in 2004, states that “The 6,250 rupees that can completely transform the lives of a family in bondage equals $133…The same amount would easily serve as the seed money for a small credit union that could free a whole village.”50 Bales cites the example of Leela, a thirty-year-old Hindi woman who had the courage to form a “Ladies Self-Help Organization.” She worked on learning how to read and write, and she and the other ladies learned 49The

Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, “Toys of Misery Made in Abusive Chinese Sweatshops,” December 11, 2008. http://www.globallabourrights.org/reports/toys-ofmisery-made-in-abusive-chinese-sweatshops. 50 Disposable People, 230–231.

228

M. H. DeArmey

how to grow, harvest, dry, and sell spices. Then, with profits from this and an agreement with their former slaveholders to receive fair pay for farm work, each member of the organization received on credit one she-goat for milk and money from the sale of the goat’s kids. Showing incredible determination, Leela learned how to practice midwifery along with basic knowledge for good health. Seed money, education, and selfdetermination are the key to reducing debt bondage. Often slaves have little or no skills, so education is a sine qua non for freedom. As stated previously, major NGO’s will form part of the United Nations, as “Peoples of the Earth.” These NGO organizations, including but not limited to Amnesty International, will begin the meetings of the U.N. General Assembly by stepping to the lectern and reporting on countries that are lax in eliminating debt bondage as well as other forms of slavery. Countries that improve are to be cautiously praised as caring for members of the human family. However, repeated condemnations and warnings may result in reasonable punitive measures. These may include a ban on tourist travel to the offending country. Airlines may no longer fly to those countries (this would not hurt the airlines; tourists would simply choose another destination). Corporate slavery, as we have seen, is slavery in the supply chains that are part of corporate operations. To eliminate this form of slavery corporations must show evidence (names of investigating persons, names of culpable individuals and companies, and times and places of coercion) that they have monitored all links in their supply chains for corporations that are head-quartered in that country. This corporate report would be sent to the Justice Department or its equivalent, and would be a public document, available to NGOs and UNAPE. The United Kingdom has led the way in tough laws to prevent slavery and may be a universal, cosmopolitan model for addressing corporate slavery. The United Kingdom Modern Slavery Act of 2015 establishes an independent anti-slavery commissioner whose task is to prevent, detect, investigate and prosecute slaveholders and those who participate in human trafficking. The penalties for these evil acts are severe. Part 6 of this Act is “Transparency in Supply Chains, Etc.” It reads in part:

9 Slavery I

229

A commercial organization…must prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement for each financial year of the organization….steps the organization has taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place…in any of its supply chains and any part of its own business or…a statement that the organization has taken no such steps In addition to these yearly reports that slavery is not in any way part of the corporation’s business practices, corporations are also required to describe how its staff is being trained about slavery and human trafficking.51

Domestic slavery typically involves kidnapping or deceitful promises to poor families. It should be noted that both kidnapping and fraud are felonies, and are particularly sinister when they involve children. Children, defined in international law as being under the age of 18, are all too frequently taken to live with a family and are enslaved as domestics and sexual objects. Children are protected by international law through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). UNICEF, the acronym for the United Nations Children’s Fund, was founded in 1946 (given its present name in 1953) in response to the deleterious effects of WWII on children. The various articles of the 1989 Convention protect children from being nonentities.52 They have a right to a legally registered name, officially recognized by the government, including the names and residence of family members (Articles 7 and 8). Children have a right to live with their parents, unless they are harmed by their parents. Children have a right to good quality health care, including safe drinking water, nutritious food, a safe environment, and a free education at least through primary school (Articles 24 and 28). UNICEF asserts that in regard to both articles “Wealthy countries should help poorer countries” achieve these rights. However, these together with the other articles in the Convention on the Rights of the Child do not go far enough in stopping trafficking 51 Slaveholders

and traffickers risk “on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.” http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted. 52 Summarized by UNICEF’s “FACT SHEET” at: https://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_ overview.pdf.

230

M. H. DeArmey

in children for domestic/sexual slavery. A reasonable cosmopolitan recommendation is that every child taken from its parents/guardians and transported outside its native country should have a card, similar to a passport, which contains the child’s photograph, and includes the names and residence of the child’s native parents/guardians and their occupations. The required information and required procedures will be the same for each and every nation state. The card will contain the names and residence of the adults taking the child, their reason(s) for taking the child, the destination of the child, and the benefits the child will receive in its new home.53 If the child has been adopted the card will state that, or if the child will be fostered the card will state that. This card must be presented by the adults to the airlines, train, or border customs. Without it the child cannot be taken. To obtain this card, the following steps must be taken: The government’s health department, or bureau overseeing the well-being of children, or a juvenile court, must approve of the child’s exit. Because the child’s native parents/guardians are poor does not in itself warrant removal of the child, unless the child is suffering significant harm from its impoverished condition. If the child is ten or over, and strenuously objects to being taken, this is sufficient to stop the proceedings, unless the child is being harmed by its parent/guardian. The adults taking the child must be able to state the name of the school the child will attend, the means whereby the child will learn its new language, and the name of the physician who will periodically examine the child. The fact that the child is being taken, along with the aforementioned information must be on a duplicate of the card which will be conveyed to child welfare officials in the child’s new country. These officials must periodically evaluate the treatment of the child, including a conference with the child alone. For many childless adults, adoption will be their goal. Others just want to take care of, nurture a child, while granting the birth parents’ legal authority. In any case, a universal child-traveling card would reduce the horrors described earlier.

53The

children traveling with their parents have their own passport. The child card will contain more information than a passport, and its acquisition will involve rigorous vetting.

9 Slavery I

231

It should be noted that middlemen who try to convince poor families to give up their child for money or a color television are criminals under United Nations Protocol: The United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography aims at criminalizing the improper inducement of consent, as an intermediary, for the adoption of a child.54

For nation states with a history of children being taken for trafficking, this Protocol should include movement of children within the borders of a nation state when not accompanied by a parent(s), guardians, or professionals (such as teachers, physicians) or others with whom the child is familiar.

54 United

Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “Child Adoption: Trends and Policies” (New York, 2009). http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/ pdf/policy/child-adoption.pdf.

10 Slavery II, Child Soldiers

It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference. —Aristotle

The child soldier is a distinct and unique form of slavery, overlooked in each of the global, comparative studies (Patterson, Bales, and Kara). The horrors of children enslaved as soldiers are as severe and ghastly as anything one will encounter in the study of evil. UNICEF reported in 1996 that it estimated the number of child soldiers at 250,000.1 Armed conflicts in the 1990s resulted in the deaths of 2 million children,2 with children involved both as victims and as killers. Child soldiers are found on most continents, with Africa as the epicenter.3 1 Cited

by Michael Wessells, Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2009), 9, from G. Machel, The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children (New York: UNICEF). Singer says “well over 300,000.” P. W. Singer, Children at War (New York: Pantheon Books, 2005), p. 29. 2 Wessells, citing G. Machel, The Impact of War on Children (Cape Town: David Philip). 3 I have combined Singer’s and Wessells’list. Europe: Russia, Northern Ireland, Albania, Serbia, Macedonia, Chechnya and break away countries from the Soviet bloc, Turkey; Middle East: Algeria, Lebanon, Sudan, Israel and Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen; Asia and the Pacific: © The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_10

233

234

M. H. DeArmey

What constitutes a “child soldier?” The Cape Town Conference convened by UNICEF in 1997 defined a child soldier as …any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force in any capacity, including but not limited to cooks, porters, messengers, and those accompanying such groups, other than purely as family members. Girls recruited for sexual purposes and forced marriage are included in this definition. It does not therefore only refer to a child who is carrying or has carried arms.4

The UNICEF definition may clash with local customs. In some places there is a rite of passage that is lower than the UNICEF demarcation. In some societies the transition to adulthood is having two molars, in others the beginnings of a beard, or in others still, sadly, the ability to carry an AK-47 weapon. If Wessells is right there is a “disturbing trend” to use pre-teen children. There is also a problem with the expression “armed force.” Are groups such as L.A. gangs, the Mafia, stone-throwing Palestinians, or rioters throwing Molotov cocktails, “armed forces?” The central concern of those at the UNICEF meeting in Cape Town was the systematic use of military weapons by children and child support for those systematically using such weapons. So that phrasing should be part of the definition of “child soldier.” The Cape Town participants were not concerned with stones, spears, or Molotov cocktails. No doubt they took their statement to exclude as “armed forces” gangs and organized crime groups that sporadically use revolvers or semiautomatic rifles. Conditions which create child soldiers. Overpopulation is perhaps the central condition. Demographic studies underscore the fact that there are too many human beings on earth at this time (7+ billion). A large percentage of this bulging population is children living in areas of violence and conflict. In these places jobs, food supplies, and water are often in Afghanistan, Cambodia, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Nepal, and Sri Lanka; Africa: Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Uganda; South America: Columbia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and Peru. 4The UN “Optional Protocol” allows children under 18 only if voluntary, the person is informed of his/her duties, has parental consent, and has proof of age. Cited in Singer, 216.

10 Slavery II, Child Soldiers

235

short supply. Numbers of teens and preteens idle away time in the streets of villages and towns. The UN cites these global figures: 1. More than 1 billion people live in zones of civil war or violent conflict. 2. 600 million people are considered extremely poor. 3. There are 900 million illiterate adults; 115 million children have never been to school. 4. 500 million people are chronically malnourished. 5. 1.3 billion in developing countries lack access to safe water. 6. 400 million people live on ecologically degraded or fragile land. Many poor countries have corrupt government officials, neglectful of civilians. Poor, unable to satisfy basic needs, and aware of prosperity elsewhere, angry men react violently and form militias. In the midst of this increasing unrest, an unfortunate turn of events resulted in an enormous number of small arms dumped onto an unregulated free market. In 1989 the Soviet empire collapsed. Vast stores of small arms weapons, from East Germany and other Warsaw Pact nations, were now up for sale. Today, the AK-47 and its variants are manufactured around the world. An estimated 100 million of these weapons are in use around the globe. Singer notes the astonishingly low cost: …the vast majority of the weapons stock of the East German army was auctioned off, much of it to private bidders….Light machine guns went for just $60, land mines for $19, and pistols for $8. These stocks were added to the masses of weapons that had already been given to superpower proxies…. In Uganda and Sudan, an AK – 47 can be purchased for the cost of a chicken; In northern Kenya it can be bought for the price of a goat (the equivalent is about $5).5

Two characteristics of the Russian AK-47 or Kalashnikov assault rifles enable it to be used by children. These are its weight and its simplicity. It weighs just 10 ½ lbs., and has only 9 moveable parts. It can survive neglect and rugged conditions. This weapon enables angry men to incorporate children into their militias. Older, pre-1947 assault rifles were 5 Singer,

47–48.

236

M. H. DeArmey

too heavy for most children. With the extensive manufacturing of the AK-47 around the world, including variant versions of it, large numbers of weapons easily get into the hands of corrupt governments and nongovernment militias. An estimated 100 million AK-47s and its variants exist worldwide.6 Overpopulation, severe shortages of essentials for life, corrupt governments, and the flooding of the worldwide market in small arms are therefore the toxic mix that turns children into warriors. As for the child him/herself, Wessells cites five reasons why soldiering may have a degree of appeal to a child. First, the will to survive; Lack of food, water, or other essentials may force a child to enter armed militia camps. Second, children look up to adults as authority figures, so a child may give credence to militia recruiters. Third, the violence may have become part of a child’s ongoing environment. The child may be desensitized to violence—may think it is a legitimate method of dealing with problems. Fourth, revenge may motivate a child to fight and kill. Finally, Wessells cites ideology. This gives the child a purpose in life, a cause to fight for, puts some order into the child’s life, and assuages guilt the child may have from violence and killing.7 Examining these motivating factors, the first should not count as voluntary. Hunger and malnutrition belong to the domain of necessity. It is questionable whether 2–5 are voluntary as well. There is a difference between a voluntary decision by an adult and a voluntary decision by a child. Children lack the experiences, the intellect, and the moral inhibitions of an adult. They lack the adult’s ability to foresee the consequences of actions. And they have an underdeveloped concept of death. Even though it may be that some, especially older children, act voluntarily in taking up arms, the majority of children are enslaved. Researchers agree that most child soldiers were forcibly abducted. They were forced into combat training, and are not allowed to leave their armed unit. In short, they are enslaved warriors. Countries around the world generally allow for some form of release from the military, e.g., conscientious objection, physical or psychological reasons, needs of the 6 Phillip

Killcoat, “Weaponomics: The Global Market for Assault Rifles.” siteresources. worldbank.org/INTCONFLICT/…/PCP3789Killicoat.pdf. 7 Singer, 58.

10 Slavery II, Child Soldiers

237

inductee’s family, etc. Singer states that “Case studies indicate that in the majority of conflicts, a primary method of recruitment of children is through some form of abduction.”8 Militia and rebel groups typically target places where there are large numbers of children in small areas. Schools, orphanages, marketplaces, refugee camps are primary sources for obtaining child soldiers. Singer cites Thomas Lubanga’s militia in the eastern Congo, which has a “policy that each family within its area of control must provide a cow, money, or child to the group.”9 Wessells describes cases of “press ganging” in Uganda and Burundi: When mass recruitment is the goal, the method of choice for many commanders is press ganging, a form of group abduction wherein soldiers sweep through marketplaces or streets, rounding up youths like fish in nets, or raid institutions such as orphanages or school. A notorious case was the LRA [Lord’s Resistance Army] capture of 139 girls from the Aboke school in 1996. In 2001, armed groups in Burundi abducted approximately three hundred children from schools….It is a tragic irony that schools, which are intended to protect children and support their healthy development, frequently become sites for child recruitment.10

Other cases cited by Wessells include UNITA in Angola, which forces village leaders to give up at least 10 children or have the entire village destroyed; the Taliban in Afghanistan and the LTTE in Sri Lanka also force a quota system on villagers. “Training.” Once inside a militia the child is trained for combat. Children are trained for combat through the use of threats to themselves or their families. Children are humiliated, beaten, or forced to comply with orders to kill someone in front of other children. Wessells states that “‘training,’” is a “euphemism often obscuring a regime of brutality and psychological manipulation….Not uncommonly, forced participation in atrocities provides the rite of initiation into an armed group.”11 The 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 10 Wessells,

Op. cit., 40–41. Citing Els De Temmerman, Aboke Girls: Children Abducted in Northern Uganda (Uganda: Fountain Publishers, 1995). The Burundi example is from Amnesty International, “Rape—The Hidden Human Rights Abuse,” 2004. web.amnesty.org/library. 11 Ibid., 58.

238

M. H. DeArmey

vocabulary of evil is inadequate to describe and condemn what happens in such atrocities. The purpose of forcing children to commit atrocities is that it sullies their resistance to killing or torture, and separates them from the life they had with their families and fellow villagers. One child reports the following: I was forced to do amputations. We had a cutlass, an ax and a big log. We called the villagers out and let them stand in line. You ask [the victim] whether they want a long hand or a short hand [the amputation at the wrist or elbow]. The long hand you put in a different bag from the short hand.12

The horror of this increases when one realizes that if a child’s limbs are amputated, the amputation must be performed again and again by medical personnel, because children’s limbs are growing. Prostheses must be changed twice a year. A thirteen year old in Sierra Leone reports that he was forced to participate in the murder of everyone in a mosque, including babies. Two pregnant women were “tied down with their legs eagle-spread and…a sharpened stick…jabbed them inside their wombs until the babies came out on the stick.”13 Brutality was especially bad for girls, who make up a significant percentage of child soldiers. One girl in Sierra Leone reported …They’d wanted to burn the house down with me in it…I was beaten, raped, forced to go with them. They told me to do bad things, they threatened me with death and beat me. Two men raped me.14

A common tactic used by soldiers to lessen a captive girl’s resistance to sex is to tell the girl that you are now my “wife.” Girls who do resist suffer the consequences:

12 Singer, 105. Quoting from Physicians for Human Rights, “War-Related Sexual Violence in Sierra Leone,” June, 2002, 69. http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/war-relatedsexual-violence-sierra-leone-2002.html. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 74.

10 Slavery II, Child Soldiers

239

A courageous Sierra Leonean woman whom the RUF and abducted at age 14 told me [Michael Wessells] that she had said to her captors, “I am too young for sex and we are not married….Facing repeated demands for sex, she tried to shame her captors, telling them, “I’m too young,” and “You know better and should be ashamed of yourselves.” Eventually the RUF took her to Freetown and cut off her left arm above the elbow, leaving her deeply troubled by her physical appearance and disability.15

Escape. The risks for a child trying to escape are great. If caught the child may be used as an example to deter others from escaping. Singer states that “those children who attempt to escape and are caught are usually killed by other children.”16 The children who kill escapees may be forced to smear their bodies with the blood of the victim, or drink the blood of the victim.17 The LRA in Uganda burn escapees alive, or force children to carry around the decomposing bodies of their victims, or eat the corpse.18 According to Human Rights Watch, children in Burma are beaten by soldiers until they agree to join the army. Those caught attempting to escape face torture and possible death: He was sixteen or seventeen. They ordered him to kneel down. Then three or four NCOs beat him on the head and back with sticks for about half an hour. When he fell the NCOs pulled him back up to his knees. He was unconscious. There was blood all over his face…. Then they put him in the leg stocks, and he regained consciousness. They left him in the leg stocks for a week. I saw him there about three times. He looked like he was getting worse. He couldn’t eat rice, just a little rice soup. Then

15 Wessells, 95. Wessells points out that some girls accept being a “wife” because the soldier may offer her protection. But this is acceptance is grounded in an abuse of power. And the “wife” may be subject to beatings and HIV/AIDS. 16 Singer, 91. 17 Wessells, 62 (Angola) and 75 (Columbia). 18 Singer, 92. Citing Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), “Uganda: Horrors of LRA Child Captivity,” April 24, 2003; Reuters News Agency, “Army: Mourners Forced to Eat Corpse,” April 29, 2002. Web sites: http://www.irinnews.org/about and http://ipsnews2. wpengine.com/2002/04/politics-uganda-desperate-rebels-force-mourners-to-eat-corpse/. This has also been a practice in Colombia, Congo, Peru, and Mozambique. See Singer, 74.

240

M. H. DeArmey

he couldn’t eat anything and they sent him to hospital. He died in the hospital.”19

Children who do successfully make their way to safety are typically found to be suffering from malnutrition, diarrhea, measles, or STDs, including HIV/AIDS. Psychological damage is also evident. Camps set up by NGOs, churches, or regional civic organizations (interim care centers or ICCs) have a three-stage task of disarming and demobilizing the child, rehabilitating, and reintegrating the child into his/her community or a new community protected from militias. This is called the DDR or DDRR process. Disarmament is the surrender of weapons. The child is given a card indicating that he/she has surrendered his/her weapon. Children’s expectations about leaving the armed group vary. Sometimes that child fears that he/she will be punished after surrendering his/her weapon. Sometimes children think they will be given money for their weapon. So the processing of a child through DDR/DDRR must begin with telling children what this entire process will involve. Demobilization is the official exit from armed groups. Children receive an identity card affirming that they are no longer a member of an armed group. Rehabilitation consists of helping the child expunge his fears and hates. Schooling is often provided so that the child will better cope and have skills to be self-sufficient. Children are also encouraged to express pent-up feelings through singing, art, dance, or telling their story.20

19 Recorded testimony from a 16 year old boy. Testimonies from “My Gun Was as Tall as Me,” Human Rights Watch, October 16, 2002. 20 None other than Benjamin Franklin, who had printed ads in his newspaper for slave sellers, came to repudiate slavery and express a concern about negro rehabilitation. He saw slavery as “…an atrocious debasement of human nature,” but must be extirpated with caution, otherwise it would “open a source of serious evils.” We have a “serious duty” to “…advise, to qualify those…[‘emancipated black people’] for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty, to promote in them habits of industry, to furnish them with employments suited to their age, sex, talents…to procure their children an education calculated for their future situation in life.” Franklin’s 1789 address to the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, in The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. XII, edited by John Bigelow (New York and London: G. F. Putnam’s Sons, 1904).

10 Slavery II, Child Soldiers

241

Reintegration is difficult and a lengthy process. If a child’s family has been killed, a relative must be found willing to take the child. Or, foster homes must be found. Villagers do not want the former child soldier so he/she must be relocated. Many villages have customs for the redemption of bad people. One UN worker states “Many African societies…have traditional ways of accepting wayward members back into the fold….[Caregivers should] better utilize such customary rituals of ‘cleansing’ and reconciliation….[and should] seek to ‘build on the local culture.”21 A small amount of money may be given the child returning to society. Much of the use of children comes from civil war or rebel militias. Governments do sometimes use children, but less so due to external pressures such as foreign aid. Part of the task of cosmopolitan science is to address what can be done to curtail civil wars and armed rebellions. Some of these conflicts can be alleviated by courses of action described earlier.

21 “The

Road from Soldier Back to Child,” Africa Recovery, 15, #3, October, 2001.

11 Torture and Torment

…with the first blow…a part of our life ends and it can never again be revived. —Jean Amery

Torture is one of the central evils of the world. It has all the characteristics of evildoing set out in Chapter 5. Torture violates any standard of moral decency, is unjustifiable and lacks mitigating or exculpating excuses. The torturer inflicts harm on his victims. Torture inverts civilization and disfigures life (from the Latin tortus, having been twisted). At the transnational level torture involves a torture culture. It is planned by politicians, military/intelligence personnel, or ethnic leaders. It has a budget, assigned torture rooms or buildings, employees of various kinds, including those willing to do the dirty work of torture. There may be sub-contracted “dark sites” to which a nation state sends its detainees for torture in order to evade its own laws and probing by the media. I venture to say that at any moment on any day or night someone somewhere is experiencing the hell of torture. This chapter examines the concept of torture, types of torture based on the purpose of torturing, the harmful effects of torture, both occurrent and long-lasting, and a summary account of the experience of being tortured. A major concern in light of contemporary debate is whether © The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_11

243

244

M. H. DeArmey

torture is ever justified. Cosmopolitan suggestions finalize this chapter’s concerns: Torture is always wrong, always cruel, and has no justification. Suggestions on the effective and morally justifiable forms of interrogation are set out. Strong evidence of torture within any country will result in those countries being identified by name before the United Nations General Assembly, with sanctions for repeated offenses.

The Nature of Torture The question, “why are people tortured?” is answered by delineating the purposes of torture. First, sadistic torture per se aims only at the pleasure of the torturer. Rape is a form of sadistic torture in that it aims a sexual pleasure through domination. Second, torture can be inflicted as punishment. This would include brutal chain gangs, abuse of prisoners by guards, stoning to death of Muslim women accused of infidelity, solitary confinement of prisoners, and targets of revenge. Third, information torture seeks a description of something the torturer’s administrators believe the detainee knows. The act of interrogating may be objective, in that the interrogator does not tell the detainee what he wants to hear, or, it may be leading, in which case the interrogator tells the detainee what he/she would like to hear. Fourth, terror-inducing torture is the use of torture to frighten a population, thereby allowing a regime to remain in power. Fifth, transfer torture occurs when B (mother, spouse, child, or other loved one) is tortured or threatened with torture in order to coerce A (son, spouse, father, etc.). In this case A is tormented by the horror of what is or could be done to his loved ones. Sixth, torture as a murder technique occurs when the intention is to murder someone with the maximum amount of suffering. The bronze bull of the ancient world was used to boil people alive inside a brass or bronze bull. Quartering was another grotesque means of torture/murder. A variation of this is the intentional infliction of pain and torment and then death on a helpless victim to measure the effectiveness of a procedure or a drug. The Nazis tested poisons on concentration camp inmates to see how quickly, quietly, and cost-effectively they killed.

11 Torture and Torment

245

The components in the concept of torture are five-fold. A sine qua non of torture is the helpless person.1 This person can neither flee nor receive help. The origin of the term “detainee” is unclear. It may have originated in a political, military, or intelligence context. It is somewhat odd to say that someone who is about to be interrogated and has needles pushed under his/her fingernails is a “detainee.” It smacks of deception, like the expression “enhanced interrogation” or the Nazi term “special treatment.” Despite this I shall continue to refer to the torture victim as a detainee out of deference to popular usage. A second component is the torturer(s). He/she/they may torture for monetary gain, revenge, enjoyment, or torture out of fear of violating orders. Torture may also be a game, a challenge to one’s cleverness in getting the victim to “spill the beans.” In the case of revenge torture, the torturer may have seen his buddies blown to bits. Details about what goes on in the mind of a torturer are sparse. Field research on the thoughts and feelings of torturers is difficult due both to concealment and the danger of asking questions. A third component is the torture instrument. Ordinary objects, normally in the service of civilized life, are inverted and turned into torture instruments. Bath tubs, water faucets, pencils, hammers, light, salt, noise—the list of torture utensils is virtually limitless. Fourthly, there must be an authorizing person(s) who gives the order to torture (sometimes the torturer authorizes his own action). Finally, the helpless person suffers at the hands of the torturer some form of torment.2 Torment is the central harm which runs through all cases of torture.3 Torment is the right term for both occurrent torture and the “aftermath” of torture. One can be tormented by pain, fear, anxieties, disorientation, itching, nightmares, or other experiences. Torment disrupts one’s thinking and routine behaviors. Card notes that PTSD is often part of 1 Or

the helpless animal. all violence against a person is torture. Contrary to what Card seems to hold, most domestic violence is not torture. The victimized spouse or other family member is often not helpless. That person may typically leave, have the abuser jailed, or obtain a restraining order. Family members may be tormented by abuse, but not tortured. 3 Card holds that stress is the major component in the torture victim’s experience. Surely stress does not capture the experience of the victim. A person who is having his fingers crushed by pliers is not experiencing stress, but pain and distress. Card, 218: “…harmful stress is more basic to torture than pain.” 2 Not

246

M. H. DeArmey

the long-term array of consequences of being tortured. The aftermath of being tortured has been discussed by Jennifer Harbury. A summary list (also cited by Card) includes the following: nightmares, flashbacks, chronic anxiety, inability to trust others, deliberate self-inflicted injury, violent behavior, substance abuse, inability to concentrate, memory loss, depression, paranoia, guilt.4 Some victims of torture eventually commit suicide (Jean Amery, for example). All torture involves torment, though not all torment involves torture (a swarm of biting mosquitoes).

Living Hell: A Brief Look at the Some Experiences of Torture Victims Sadly, the experiences of torture victims seem to support the pessimistic view that there are no limits to the cruelty, savagery, and perverse cleverness of human beings. Elaine Scarry. Professor Scarry researched data on torture and the experiences of torture victims in the files of Amnesty International and studied the conclusions about pain and torment at the pain center of McGill University.5 She notes that pain is the most intrusive experience possible, yet it is invisible to the torturer. As the razor glides across your skin, opening up the interior of your body, you cry out “Please, no—no no, please, don’t!” Gradually your ability to speak may collapse into screams, moans, and sobbing. The contents of your consciousness shrink, your world contracts. As the pain increases in intensity it spreads out. “Torture,” she says, “aspires to the totality of pain”6 She cites comments by Silas Weir Mitchell, a founder in the 1870s of the American Neurological Association (and teacher of William James). Mitchell treated hundreds of Civil War veterans with injuries to the head and spinal cord. He notes that:

4 Jennifer

Harbury, Truth, Torture, and the American Way: The History and Consequences of U.S. Involvement in Torture (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005), 146. 5 Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1985). 6 Ibid., 55.

11 Torture and Torment

247

Perhaps few persons who are not physicians can realize the influence which long-continued and unendurable pain may have upon both body and mind. The older books are full of cases in which, after lancet wounds, the most terrible pain and local spasms resulted. When these had lasted for days or weeks, the whole surface became hyperaesthetic and the senses grew to be only avenues for fresh and increasing tortures, until every vibration, every change of light, and even…the effort to read brought on new agony.7

Scarry notes how torture “deconstructs civilization,” and “inverts” the ordinary: The electric generator…The walls, the doors, the prisoner’s sexuality…the institution of medicine…the telephone, the chair…all these and many more, everything human and inhuman…has become part of the glutted realm of weaponry.8

Justice itself is turned upside down. Instead of evidence leading to punishment, torture uses punishment to produce the evidence. Jean Amery. He was a leader of a Nazi resistance group in Belgium. Captured by the Gestapo, he was taken to Fort Breendonk, a kind of mini concentration camp. There he suffered torture at the hands of the Gestapo. Initially he was beaten. The first blow is a major shock to the victim, for you recognize that you are completely helpless and no one will show up to help you. After beatings Amery was taken to the “bunker.” His hands were handcuffed behind his back. He was hoisted up into the air by a chain with an iron hook attached to his shackles. Dangling in the air, at first you tighten your muscles to keep your body intact, but this can last only a few minutes. Then you relent: And now there was a crackling and splintering in my shoulders that my body has not forgotten…The balls sprang from their sockets....I fell into

7 Ibid., 55. She quotes Silas Weir Mitchell, Injuries of Nerves and Their Consequences (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1872), 196. 8 Scarry, 41 and 56.

248

M. H. DeArmey

a void and now hung by my dislocated arms…[which] were now twisted over my head.9

In such a condition you become pure flesh. Thoughts of Kant and Hegel and the nine symphonies are obliterated. You are reduced to “a shrilly squealing piglet at slaughter.” From that point on you lose all trust in the world. Things are never the same. Under torture the world takes on an alien cast and is no longer a home. If you survive torture, then every morning when you wake up there is that horrible experience, parked as it were on the fringe of your awareness. Once again you are dangling in the air, sweating in agony. Once tortured, always tortured. Solzhenitsyn. Aleksandre Solzhenitsyn describes Soviet forms of torture and victim experiences in his prize-winning The Gulag Archipelago. He says that night is the preferred time to torture, for at night fear is heightened and sleep lowered. “Light methods” include of course the usual lies and threats. The use of foul language by itself broke two priests. Another method has two interrogators, one vicious, pain-inflicting, the other humane, even sympathetic, pleading with his colleague to stop. Then, suddenly, they change roles, the humane interrogator becomes vicious, the vicious humane. This is psychologically devastating to the victim. Every trace of hope disappears. In another Gulag example, the interrogator, a woman, engages in a strip-tease while she tortures the victim, thereby increasing the victim’s confusion. A victim whose arms and legs are bound is unbearably tormented by tickling (a feather up his nose). Solzhenitsyn emphasizes that just hearing the screams and moans from a victim in the torture room terrifies you as you stand in your cell awaiting your turn. A variation on this is continually being led to the torture room. More physically harsh methods include being put in a box with hundreds of bed bugs, in such a way that you cannot move your arms once the lid is closed. This can shatter the ego. Dehydration and starvation are common techniques to wear the victim down. Cramming prisoners in a cell so that they cannot move results in skin lesions from the sweat

9 Jean

Amery, At the Mind’s Limits, 32.

11 Torture and Torment

249

of those pressing on you. Some KGB officers earned their advanced university degrees with dissertations on these and many more torture techniques. Solzhenitsyn issues a word of warning to detainees, you had better prepare yourself mentally for what you are about to undergo: From the moment you go to prison you must put your cozy past firmly behind you. At the very threshold you must say to yourself, ‘My life is over....I shall never return to freedom....From today on, my body is useless and alien to me. Only my spirit and my conscience remain precious and important to me.10

Is Torture Effective in Gathering Information? This section examines the conclusions from detailed research on torture by Jean Arrigo, John Schiemann, Darious Rejali, and GoodmanDelahunty. Whether torture works is a question separate from the question of whether torture can ever be justified, although if the answer as to its effectiveness is “no,” then torture is not justifiable. If on the other hand torture is never ethically justifiable—if there are strong reasons condemning it—then it doesn’t matter if it works or not, and should be banned, and even more so if there are other, ethical sources for obtaining the required information. An advocate of the use of torture for interrogation purposes must hold that it works and is ethically justifiable. There are three types of persons who find themselves in the torture arena: The resisters who won’t spill the beans, the cooperatives who readily give out information, and the innocents, who have no information to give. Obviously torture would soon cease or not be initiated for cooperatives, nor would it be initiated if it were determined that the person is innocent. That leaves those who resist.

10 Aleksandre

I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation I –II (New York, Evanston, San Francisco, London: Harper & Row, 1974), 130.

250

M. H. DeArmey

Jean Arrigo has described three causal models which state how torture is supposed to yield true information from the resisters.11 First, the “animal instinct model.” On this causal account, a certain level of severity in torture will overwhelm the intention to withhold information. Survival and relief from pain and possible injury will result in successfully achieving the goals of interrogation. On Arrigo’s account, this view fails because the required level of severity will typically result in mental instability, loss of consciousness, or death. The torturers have no way of knowing how much torment the subject can endure. Because of this, medical personnel must frequently examine the torture victim. Arrigo describes this in comprehensive terms: Routine participation of medical personnel in state-sponsored torture interrogation has been documented worldwide. Medical professionals determine the types of torture a person can endure, monitor the person for endurance under torture, resuscitate the person, treat the person to prepare for future torture, and administer non-therapeutic drugs. To cover up torture, physicians falsify health certificates, autopsy reports, and death certificates.12

Arrigo fails to mention that the physicians’ participation in torture violates a widely accepted and fundamental ethical principle of medical personnel—the Hippocratic Oath (to relieve pain and suffering and heal the sick).13 The second causal model is “the cognitive failure model.” A sufficient amount of torture can defeat attempts to deceive the torturers. Moreover, 11 Jean Maria Arrigo, “A Utilitarian Argument Against Torture Interrogation of Terrorists,” Science and Engineering Ethics, 10 (2004), 543–572. 12 Arrigo, 547–548. 13The American Medical Association adopted this ban in June, 2006: “Physicians must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation because a role as physician-interrogator undermines the physician’s role as healer …” In May 2006 the American Psychiatric Association stated: “No psychiatrist should participate directly in the interrogation of person[s] held in custody by military or civilian investigative or law enforcement authorities, whether in the United States or elsewhere.” Both cited by psychiatrist Stephen Soldz, “Psychology and Coercivie Interrogations in Historical Perspective,” https://www.CommonDreams.org. Both quotes should read “substantially participate” to account for a psychiatrist designing torture to be used by others at black sites or elsewhere. I owe this comment to Dr. John Hofer.

11 Torture and Torment

251

it can defeat the victim’s interpretation of his pain (“I must be steadfast and heroic,” “I must obey orders for my country’s sake,” “I am doing the will of God and will go to heaven,” etc.). But the cognitive model also fails, for at what point are the torturers assured that the resister has given up his attempts to deceive—given up his interpretation of his own pain? The third model is “the data processing model.” Interrogators collect information from multiple subjects whom the torturers believe to each possess pieces of the needed information. Presumably slips of the tongue and kernels of truth in false information can be part of the data. Needed information is then culled across data sources. However, this method suffers from the analyst being overwhelmed by too much data. There is also the problem of the analyst reading into the data his own biases and suspicions. In sum, these three causal models fail to show how truth can be revealed through torture. John W. Schiemann uses formulae from game theory to determine the success or failure of torture. The last one-third of his Does Torture Work? describes cases of torture and the overall failure of torture as a practice. He carefully follows the report of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 2012, updated and released in 2014.14 The committee wanted to know if enhanced interrogation of 119 CIA cases yielded “… unique, otherwise unavailable intelligence that led to the capture of specific terrorists and the ‘thwarting’ of specific plots.”15 The committee concluded that there was no relation between thwarting terrorist plots and information gained from detainees. Information claimed by the CIA to have been gained through enhanced interrogation was either merely corroborative of information gathered by other means, or obtained already before torture was initiated. The Senate Select Committee stated that the CIA consistently omitted information obtained from other sources, leaving the impression that enhanced interrogation was successful. Moreover, CIA claims to have disrupted terrorist plots were true only 14 John W. Schiemann, Does Torture Work? (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 223ff.; United States Senate, 2014, “Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, Minority Views, Additional Minority Views,” Washington, DC: United States Senate, Approved December 13, 2012, Updated for Release April 3, 2014. Available at: http://fas.org/irp/congress/2014_rpt/ssci-rdimin.pdf. 15 Schiemann, 245.

252

M. H. DeArmey

in the sense that people talking about various strikes were thwarted, but not thwarted in the sense that active preparation was thwarted. Two examples of CIA mistaken claims are worth noting. The first involved Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was captured in the United Arab Emirates in 2002. He cooperated in giving information about his role in the attack on the USS Cole and other plots, and this information was assimilated by the CIA. Nonetheless, he was subject to torture in “dark” sites in Thailand and Poland. In Poland, officers reported to the CIA that al-Nashiri was cooperating and need not be tortured, but CIA insisted he was withholding information, and so he was subjected to torture described in the Senate committee report as …vertical shackling for two and one-half days, far exceeding the four hour maximum, racking a pistol near his head and running a cordless drill near him while blindfolded, telling he ‘[w]e could get your mother in here,’ and ‘[w]e can bring your family in here,’ pinning him down on his stomach with his head below his torso and forcibly injecting Ensure into his rectum, slapping him on the back of the head, keeping him nude during periods of vertical shackling, and putting him in improvised stress positions that required the intervention of a medical officer who feared al-Nashiri’s shoulders might start to dislocate.16

A second case is that of Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah had been questioned by the FBI in early April, 2002, using humane, rapport-building techniques, and he had cooperated in giving information about terrorist plots. But later he was subjected to “enhanced” interrogation techniques beginning on April 15. He was questioned for 76 straight hours by rotating teams of interrogators. The Senate Select Committee noted that Zubaydah had already given information to the FBI, but clammed up when the CIA began its sleep deprivation program. Schiemann’s conclusion from game theory and the analysis of particular cases of claimed successes in torture is that it is ineffective in gaining the truth. He states:

16 Schiemann,

227–228; U.S. Senate Select Committee…, 95–99.

11 Torture and Torment

253

Interrogational torture does not work....[it] generates bad information. It results in false information by innocent detainees. It results in ambiguous information of unclear value. Does saying it does not work mean it can never work? No. It can work. Under conditions that hardly ever obtain in the real world, it can work (but only if we’re willing to torture innocent detainees).17

An analogical argument supporting this (and neglected by all writers on torture) is that it is an axiom in criminal law that it is better to let a guilty person go free than to punish an innocent person. So in interrogation, I submit, it is better not to subject a person to torture than to risk gravely abusing an innocent person. Moreover, a convicted criminal cannot under the law be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, so how could it be ethical and legal to inflict cruel and unusual torment on a mere detainee? That torture is ineffective (and unjust) is also the conclusion reached by Darius Rejali in his massive and highly detailed study focusing on a century of torture around the world.18 Rejali distinguishes clean or stealthy torture from scarring techniques.19 Stealthy torture prevents anyone from detecting signs of physical abuse on the detainee’s body. American slave owners favored clean torture because buyers would spot a scarred slave as a trouble-maker. Journalists apparently coined the phrase “stress and duress” for clean torture. But as noted above, torment is the best term for all types of torture. Rejali seems to agree, since his opening definition of torture on the first page of Chapter 1 is “the systematic infliction of physical torment on detained individuals by state officials for police purposes, for confessions, information, or intimidation.”20

17 Schiemann, 18 Darius

211. Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press,

2007). 19 Rejali’s Appendix A offers a summary list of 15 types of clean torture. These are electrical, beating (with a telephone book, or on soles of feet, etc.), beating using hands (pressure on eyeballs, slapping, etc.), water (choking, pumping, ice, etc.), dry choking, air (refrigeration), exhaustion, positional (forced standing, crawling, etc.), positional devices (straight jacket, sweatboxes, etc.). 20 Rejali, 35. His definition mentions only police. But it should include any government agency as well as torture by ethnic groups. Also, it is possible to torment someone without physical

254

M. H. DeArmey

Since 1962 a primary source of information about torture worldwide is Amnesty International. Data from their files indicate that a great deal of torture persists under the cover of national security. In some countries it continues due to an overemphasis on confessions. In democratic countries citizens rely upon bureaucrats to make their lives secure, without bothering too much as to inquire as to how this is done. Hence the importance of journalists and media outlets with no political axe to grind. Informants too often shed light on concealed practices. Rejali’s Chapter 21, “Does Torture Work?,” sets out criticisms of the claims that torture works that go beyond critical remarks by Arrigo and Schiemann. One of the most widely disseminated stories about success from torture is the story of the defeat of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) by the French under the direction of General Jacques Massu. Working within a small space and smaller population than most other torture countries Massu used violent torture and claimed this smashed the FLN. Setting aside the fact that nearly 22,000 people not connected to the FLN were tortured, the evidence is that informants produced the success, not torture. Rejali states the “…the real Battle of Algiers was a story of terror, collaboration and betrayal by the local population.”21 Torture is the clumsiest of methods for gaining information. The torturer can neither experience nor control the victim’s pain. It runs the risk of killing the helpless person or at least rendering him incoherent or unconscious. There are no professional torturers. On the contrary … torture breaks down professionalism. Professionals become less disciplined, more brutal and less skilled while their organization becomes more fragmented and corrupt. Usually, organizations and interrogators are worse off than before they started torturing despite their best intentions, an interesting demonstration of counter-finality.22

contact. For example, pictures of the detainee’s imprisoned family may produce profound worry and grief on the part of the detainee. 21 Rejali, 482. 22 Ibid., 454.

11 Torture and Torment

255

Torture damages intelligence agencies and even governments. Even the CIA’s manual, Human Resources Exploitation Training states that “The routine use of torture lowers the moral caliber of the organization that uses it and corrupts those who rely on it….”23 There is a built-in culture of secrecy in intelligence agencies which even extends to concealing their practices from their own government. They become, Rejali says, a law unto themselves. American, British, and Israeli intelligence agencies “have felt justified in deceiving government officials and perjuring themselves in court.”24 One additional study is worth nothing. In research on high value detainees across various nation states, researchers Goodman-Delahunty, Martschuk, and Dhami found that Reported confessions and admissions of culpability were four times as likely when practitioners adopted a neutral and respectful stance that allowed detainees to express their viewpoints and when they spend time building rapport with the detainee than when they did not. These findings corroborated those by Holmberg and Christianson (2002) who reported that suspects were more likely to confess when interviewers were humane and empathetic rather than accusatory and authoritarian.25

Experiences of Torturers Typically those new to the practice of torture feel pressure from seasoned torturers to “get the job done,” i.e., break the prisoner and retrieve the needed information. Younger torturers feel pressure to conform to what they perceive as the authorities. One is reminded of Stanley Milgram’s famous experiments on conforming to authority.

23 Quoted

by Rejali, 456. 457. 25 Jane Goodman-Delahunty, Natalie Martschuk, and Mandeep K. Dhami, “Interviewing High Value Detainees: Securing Cooperation and Disclosures,” Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28 (2014), 892; U. Holmberg and S. Christianson, “ Murderers’ and Sexual Offenders’ Experiences of Police Interviews and Their Inclination to Admit or Deny Crimes,” Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 20 (2002): 31–45. 24 Rejali,

256

M. H. DeArmey

There is no torture training. There is a manual used by police and intelligence personnel around the world. This is Criminal Interrogation and Confessions by Fred Inbau and John Reid. Despite claims that it provides a scientific basis for interrogation, studies show that “trained” interrogators are successful in detecting lies only 44% of the time (below flipping a coin), and successful in detecting the truth only 56.6% of the time, barely above chance. Typically torturers at some point begin to suffer from the horrors they have created. One torturer’s experience at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is not uncommon. He suffered from “mental problems, recurring night terrors and insomnia, substance abuse, and depression.”26 Neuroscientist Shane O’Mara writes that “American soldiers in Iraq ....Once removed from the theatre of war and the camaraderie of the battalion, [experience] intense, enduring and disabling guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse follow. Suicide is not uncommon.”27 How is it that the innate disposition to care about others is overcome when a torturer begins his vicious work? Robert J. Lifton addresses this in his Nazi Doctors. Medical personnel who participated in torture and murder “doubled” their selves. They continued with their ordinary, goodnatured self but created alongside an Auschwitz self or a Gestapo self. Doubling occurs under a condition of silence, when you can’t release pent up tensions and anxieties by talking to others. The Nazis who tortured and murdered were under strict orders not to speak of their activities. CIA torturers and those from other agencies at least compartmentalized if not doubled. Torture activity is put into a mental/neural subsystem to prevent the clash of beliefs—those beliefs disposing one to care about others versus those involving tormenting others.

26 Robert T. Muller, “CIA Torture Techniques Harm Interrogators As Well,” Psychology Today, August 18, 2016. 27 Shane O’Mara, “The Interrogator’s Soul,” Aeon, Newsletter online at: https://aeon.co/essays/anordinary-person-becomes-a-torturer-with-surprising-ease; O’Mara is the author of Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).

11 Torture and Torment

257

Justifying Torture: The Ticking Bomb Scenario The ticking bomb is a hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear weapon is set to go off in a major urban center such as Paris or New York. Police have apprehended a suspect, but he won’t reveal where the device is hidden. Wouldn’t it be better, if all else fails, to inflict increasing degrees of pain and torment to get him to spill the beans? Four types of argument have attempted to justify torture in extreme cases. First, on utilitarian grounds wouldn’t the use of torture to get at the truth be better than allowing hundreds of thousands/millions of people to die? A second attempt examined by Henry Shue involves an appeal to jus in bello.28 A third justification is the torture warrant theory set out by constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz.29 The fourth is secretly allowing torture to take place under the radar owing to the urgency imposed by the catastrophic consequences of an exploding bomb. In war killing can be morally justified. The enemy is trying to kill you and you are morally entitled to stop this by killing them. Torture produces less harm than killing, therefore torture can sometimes be morally justified. As Shue points out, this is a bad argument because in torture, unlike war, the person(s) are helpless. Jus in bello dictates that only combatants can be killed, and the detainee is no longer a combatant. An advocate of torture may retort that the detainee has not fully surrendered until he discloses information about the terrorist plot. The detainee is not helpless in that he has available choice of compliance which would bring the torture to an end. If, however, the torturer doesn’t know what information the detainee possesses, then there is no end-point to compliance that would terminate torture. So in this case the frequency and severity of the torture would depend on the torturer’s personality. In a follow-up article, “Torture in Dreamland: Disposing of the Ticking Bomb,”30 Shue tries to make more explicit his rejection of torture in the ticking bomb scenario. He writes that “The advocates of torture 28 Henry 29 Alan

Shue, “Torture,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 7, No. 2 (1978), 124–143. M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,

2002). 30 Henry

Shue, “Torture in Dreamland: Disposing of the Ticking Bomb,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 37, No. 2 (2006).

258

M. H. DeArmey

love a ticking bomb…even the honest and thoughtful are mesmerized and bedeviled by the ticking bomb hypothetical, with its suggestion of a catastrophic outcome avoidable only through torture.”31 Shue points out that even if torture were justifiable in the extreme ticking bomb scenario it would not follow that torture is generally justifiable. Generalizing from extreme cases is bad in law and in philosophy. Setting this aside, Shue claims that this scenario suffers from idealization and abstraction. Idealization is making the scenario better than reality, while abstraction deletes negative features that belong to the scenario. “Idealization adds sparkle, abstraction removes dirt.”32 In the idealized ticking bomb scenario the detainee is not a suspect but the guy who planted the bomb. Under torture he quickly and accurately discloses the bomb’s location and when it is set to go off. And of course the bomb diffusers find the bomb in time and have no problem diffusing it.33 A necessary but hidden negative factor is that if a country recognizes that someone might conscientiously break the law by torturing a detainee, then it would already have in place institutionalized torture—personnel ready to act including physicians, a budget, a room or building, and equipment. All this when torture is supposedly illegal. A government’s escape from responsibility for an illegal act is to allow at the same time conscientious torture (the torturer would probably never be punished for his “honorable” effort to avoid catastrophic consequences). The 2002 publication of Why Terrorism Works by well-known constitutional lawyer and Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz created considerable controversy because of its justification of torture in the ticking bomb scenario and indeed in any pending terrorist act with catastrophic consequences. He begins by wisely stating “that in a democracy it is always preferable to decide controversial issues in advance rather than in the heat of battle.” This is particularly true when faced with the possibility 31 Ibid.,

231–232. 231. 33 Why have a timer on the bomb? The expense, the difficulties of getting a bomb into a foreign country, and the massive number of deaths that would result, would make it unlikely that a bomb be used just for some political concession or to free fellow terrorists. But if this were a religiously motivated form of terrorism then the bomber would not use a timer. He or she would just detonate the bomb. 32 Ibid.,

11 Torture and Torment

259

of “tragic choices.” In regard to the ticking bomb, there are three options: (1) No torture even in the ticking bomb case. (2) No torture except with a judicial warrant authorizing nonlethal torture. (3) No legal torture but bureaucratic recognition that a conscientious intelligence officer might do it under the radar. The last option would involve covert readiness to torture (as just noted), and this is contrary to a democratic society. The first option outlawing all torture runs into the empirical fact that some torture does indeed work, and the utilitarian argument that it would be wrong to refrain from saving thousands of lives just because one person is going to endure some pain and torment. That leaves option 2. Dershowitz models his torture warrant theory after the need for a search warrant in criminal cases.34 He claims that it is a fact that torture sometimes works, and on CNN he cited as an example the case of Philippine police breaking a terrorist suspect (referred to as Murad) by beating him for 67 days with a chair and long piece of wood, causing unbearable pain and broken bones. Murad finally revealed a plot to kill the Pope and to blow up airlines.35 Darius Rejali examined this case and Dershowitz’s claim of torture success. He notes that police had confiscated Murad’s computer well before the torture sessions began, and all the information in the confession was contained in the computer. Murad probably confessed to what he thought the police already knew on the one hand, and on the other he was horrified at the prospect of being transferred to an Israeli prison for a life sentence. Rejali states that “…it was Murad’s imagination and personality, not actual torture, that got him talking….”36 Dershowitz is of course aware that confessions made under torture are involuntary and not admissible as evidence in a court of law. The Fifth Amendment protects against self-incrimination. And he is aware that torture of any type is banned by both Geneva and UN Conventions. Nonetheless he thinks non-lethal techniques are justifiable in extreme 34The

Fourth Amendment refers to the right of the people to be secure in their homes, papers, persons, and effects. To search requires evidence of probable cause and an oath or affirmation as to the necessity of a search and the location and scope of the search. 35 Alan M. Dershowitz, Why Terrorism Works (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 137. 36 Rejali, 507.

260

M. H. DeArmey

cases like the ticking bomb. These techniques include loud noises, bad odors, uncomfortable positions, vigorous shaking. But that is not all. A needle under the fingernails or drilling an un-anesthetized tooth are permissible (they cause no permanent damage). On Dershowitz’s view torture should be restricted to impending catastrophic cases. A field officer presents the evidence to a judge or judicial body. The field officer “has already decided that torture is justified…”37 The evidence must be compelling. This theory has the merit of perhaps reducing instances of torture by taking the decision out of the hands of field officers (torturers). Part of Dershowitz’s theory incorporates persuasion and rewards. For example, the detainee could be offered immunity. He could be threatened with jail time for not talking. (like the witness who refused a court order to testify). If he still refused to talk, a judicial warrant would allow the detained to suffer “excruciating pain” (without lasting damage). Dershowitz’s theory is irremediably flawed. First, the field officers may present the judge with a biased assessment of the evidence, perhaps omitting counter evidence. Perhaps they strongly dislike the detainee. Second, his proposal violates international law which bans torture of any kind. Third, as already noted, torture in extreme cases requires a standing torture culture, institutionalized by the nation state, and ready to act. Finally—and this applies to all attempts to justify torture—how do the torturers know whether a detainee is resisting, or is innocent and simply doesn’t have the information? Here is an example of (mistakably) knowing “with certainty” that the terrorist has been caught and knows what happened. It is the case of the blue BMW cited by Matthew Alexander, who participated in torture sessions in Iraq. A firefight erupted in Fallujah, thought to be a stronghold of Al Qaida leadership. In the midst of heavy gunfire a blue BMW raced through the streets, stopped to pick up corpses and pack away AK-47s. It then sped away. A US helicopter pilot, flying overhead, turned on the video camera and then followed the blue BMW to an apartment complex. Intelligence officers tracked down Yusif, the owner of the blue BMW, through the car’s license plate and arrested the man in his apartment, where the BMW was parked. Interrogators 37 Dershowitz,

158.

11 Torture and Torment

261

relentlessly grilled Yusif, causing loss of sleep, uncontrollable sobbing, and extreme anxiety on what would happen to his family, who were also detainees. Alexander and the other interrogators were certain they had the right man. Did they not have a video of him racing away in his blue BMW? As it turned out, a twenty-two year-old Al-Qaida neighbor 3 houses down was also the owner of a blue BMW, parked in the carport out of view of the helicopter.38 This fellow was the terrorist, not Yusif.

Cosmopolitan Responses to Torture Before torture can be reduced globally, or even eliminated, its existence must be disclosed. In the restructuring of the world order, the United Nations will become bicameral and cosmopolitan. It will now be The United Nations and Peoples of the World. The Peoples Assembly will consist of leading NGO’s. One such NGO is Amnesty International. The opening of the General Assembly of the UN will include a roll-call by Amnesty International officials of those nations for which there is evidence of torture taking place. Offending nations will have one year to clean up these horrific operations in their country. Torture sites are to be inspected by UN officials and the Red Cross. Repeated offenses will trigger a response by the International Criminal Court in the Hague (ICC), possibly resulting in arrest warrants for government officials or others who either knew or should have known of torture taking place.39 Hopefully a motivating factor would be the shame thrown over a nation state when its evildoing is announced before the nations of the

38 Matthew Alexander, How to Break a Terrorist (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: Free Press, 2008), 149–167. 39The International Criminal Court in the Hague is charged with investigating and prosecuting the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The Court has three components: the Prosecutor, the Chamber of 18 judges, and the Registrar. Reports of violations in these areas by a state, Amnesty International, other NGOs, or even individuals should trigger investigation by the Prosecutor’s office. The U.N. Security Council can also refer a violation of one of these three crimes to the Prosecutor. Torture is one of the crimes against humanity that falls under the jurisdiction of the Court. Crimes against humanity are “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.” See online: https:// www.icc-cpi.int/ and https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/africa/icc0904/2.htm.

262

M. H. DeArmey

earth. Economic sanctions and blocking tourist entry are other means of bringing torture to an end. It is clear that the ICC is poorly funded for the amount of work it must perform under its mandate. One knowledgeable author states that … the ICC’s current workload is vast; expectations are even bigger; and atrocities continue at an alarming rate around the globe with no decrease in sight. Yet, even as demand has grown, the Assembly of States Parties, the body that oversees the ICC, has scaled back on fulfilling the court’s requests for more resources. Some ICC member countries have raised concerns about the potential for spiraling costs and inefficiency in many aspects of the court’s work to justify holding back on spending. Between 2009 and 2011, a small group of the highest-contributing states called for zero-growth in the budget despite increases in the court’s activities. As a result, the ICC has sometimes been reluctant to ask for the full resources it needs, and, even when it has, annual increases have only been partially approved. The ICC can and should do more to heighten its own performance to address its workload, and court officials have shown an increased determination to do just that. Importantly, states parties have responded by providing some limited increases in resources to the Office of the Prosecutor. Nonetheless, the overall budget approach in recent years appears to be having a negative impact on the ICC’s ability to address crimes.40

Once practices of torture are disclosed to the international community, substitutes for torture must be made available and encouraged. This is in part a matter of educating governments and people on ways of gaining information about crimes and terrorist operations that do not inflict pain and torment. It is abundantly clear from sources cited above that humane techniques are more likely to be successful in acquiring information than violence. Any and all interrogation techniques that torment the detainee—a helpless person—are to be banned in a cosmopolitan world order. That includes the “light,” “stealthy,” “clean” techniques described by Rejali and others. 40 Elizabeth Evenson, “The International Criminal Court at Risk,” Human Rights Watch, May 6, 2015, Access online at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/06/international-criminal-courtrisk.

11 Torture and Torment

263

Humane techniques keep intact respect for the dignity of the person. First, common ground with the detainee must be established. Mutual discussions of growing up as a child, one’s family members (especially mothers), careers, and future goals are likely to trigger empathy between interrogator and detainee. The detainee may be told there is sufficient evidence that he/she does indeed possess information needed to save lives, and that failure to disclose this may result in detention pending an arrest warrant issued by a judge. The arrest warrant will result in a hearing or trial for the detainee, who could be incarcerated for up to one year, but only if the fact of his/her possession of needed information is corroborated by other sources. An attorney and a fluent interpreter must be provided. The incarceration is analogous to a witness refusing to testify under conditions of contempt of court. Barring that he/she must be set free.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

The term “terrorism” is derived from the French la terreur. As now understood terrorism began in the French Revolution with the deposition and execution of Louis XVI. On April 6, 1793, the French National Convention created the Committee on Public Safety, which we now associate with Maxmilien Robespierre. Citizens thought to have sympathies with the monarchy were brought before the Committee to have their “virtue” tested. Robespierre, one of the nine committee members (and later twelve) stated that If the basis of popular government in peacetime is virtue, the basis of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is baneful; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing more than speedy, severe, and inflexible justice; it is thus an emanation of virtue….1

In this reign of terror people all over France shuddered at the possibility that their neighbors might turn them in as loyal to the old monarchy. All in all, 16,694 people were executed, chiefly by beheading. 1 Quoted

by Marisa Linton, “Robespierre and the Terror…,” History Today 56 (2006): 23.

© The Author(s) 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2_12

265

266

M. H. DeArmey

David Rapoport, founder and editor of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence, has described successive “waves” of terrorism since the French Revolution, each with its own modus operandi.2 The first wave began in Russia in 1879 with the organization Narodanaya Volya (“The People’s Will”). They identified themselves as terrorists in order to stir up the complacent masses. Assassination is the outstanding feature of the first wave. Victims were selected for the emotional impact of their deaths on the public. They assassinated Emperor Alexander II in 1881. Anarchists adopted this technique in other countries. U. S. President James Garfield was assassinated in 1881 and President William McKinley in 1901. The second wave began in the 1920s and lasted until the 1960s. Terrorists developed a cellular structure and engaged in hit and run violence against police and army. Second wave terrorists no longer identified themselves as terrorists owing to the accretions of malice now built into that term. Terrorists now described themselves as “freedom fighters.” According to Rapoport the third wave was influenced by the success of Vietcong fighters against United States forces. The West was now seen as vulnerable. Terrorists appeared here and there: the American Weather Underground, the German Red Army, the Italian Red Brigade, and the IRA are instances. The third wave was even more distinctly transnational, different terrorist groups sharing training facilities and information. The most outstanding feature of the third wave was the hijacking of airliners, the taking of hostages, and terrorists’ demands for their release. The fourth wave began in the 1980s and continues today. It is sacred terrorism, terrorism with religious underpinnings.

Defining “Terrorism” As with the other concepts that figure in the discussion of evil-doing, “terrorism” is difficult to define. Some thinkers claim that terrorism cannot be defined. Walter Laqueur is one of these. He states that “no definition of terrorism can possibly cover all the varieties of terrorism that have 2 David

C. Rapoport, “The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism,” Current History (December 2001): 419–424.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

267

appeared throughout history … [defining terrorism] is a hopeless undertaking.”3 This is a curious claim. In order to identify these varieties as varieties of terrorism he must have a concept of terrorism in mind! At the other end of the spectrum are the complex definitions. J. Angelo Corlett offers this definition: Terrorism is the attempt to achieve (or prevent ) political, social, economic or religious change by the actual or threatened use of violence against other persons or other persons’ property; the violence (or threat thereof ) employed therein is aimed partly at destabilizing (or maintaining) an existing political or social order, but mainly at publicizing the goals or causes espoused by the agents or by those on whose behalf the agents act; often, though not always, terrorism is aimed at provoking extreme counter-measures which will win public support for the terrorists and their goals or causes….4

Corlett correctly claims (and many thinkers insist upon this) that the moral status of terrorism is something separate from what terrorism is, just as the definition of licorice is separate from whether licorice is tasty or not. But another component in this definition is problematic. Is the “mere” threat of violence terrorism? Recently both the President of North Korea and the President of the United States have threatened each other’s country with violence, even the use of missiles and nuclear bombs. Is this terrorism? The correct answer is “no.” These threats may possibly forecast violence to come if certain conditions prevail, but are not violent themselves and do not destabilize either regime. On the other hand, imagine that television networks such as NBC, ABC, and CBS each receive threats that unless demands are satisfied a group will explode a dirty (radioactive) bomb in New York City. The envelopes contain the hand-written threat and a few grains of radioactive material of the type used in bombs. This is an instance of terrorism. The grains of radioactive material combined with the note cross the threshold from a threat 3 Walter

Laqueur, Terrorism (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977), 6 and 7. Angelo Corlett, Terrorism: A Philosophical Analysis (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003). His chapters on terrorism are some of the best discussions in the literature.

4 J.

268

M. H. DeArmey

to terrorism. It is likely that the radioactive device is already there, violent means have been installed. Corlett’s definition contains a reference to terrorists’ use of violence against property. This component calls for qualification. Blowing up your neighbor’s tool shed because he’s Irish and you don’t like Irish people is violence against your neighbor and his property, but is not terrorism, even though the act terrifies the Irishman and his family. Violent attacks on property can be terrorist attacks if the property is the symbol of the nation state’s history and glory (see below). To insist in cases like the tool shed and threats of violence that these are cases of terrorism dilutes the meaning of terrorism to the point where you must hold that tens of thousands of terrorist acts are occurring daily. This is a reductio ad absurdum. The example of the Irishman introduces a distinction, simple but often overlooked, between actions that produce terror, on the one hand, and terrorism on the other. Terrorism is a subset of those actions that produce terror. Grizzly bears sometimes terrify campers, clowns sometimes terrorize children, a wife is terrorized by her violence-prone husband—these are not examples of terrorism. Just as someone tormented by someone else is not necessarily being tortured, so someone terrorized by someone else is not necessarily a victim of terrorism. Being terrified and terrorism can be quite different, as child-like and childish are quite different. To illustrate what can happen if this distinction if overlooked, notice what Claudia Card is led to claim in her Chapter 4 on “Low-Profile Terrorism.” Not only is domestic abuse terrorism on her account, but actions like the spiking of trees by environmentalists in the 1970s is terrorism, indeed a “paradigm of terrorism.”5 Card’s only argument supporting this extension of the term “terrorism” is that even though such cases are small in scale, when looked at collectively they are “vast.”6 This is somewhat odd, for it seems that she is acknowledging that these acts taken individually are not terrorist, but become terrorist as members of a collection. It is true that a collection can have properties not found in its members, but there is no organic unity to the collected members. And terrorism involves acts singly carried out by and/or for a group. Another 5 Card, 6 Ibid.,

154. 158.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

269

problem with her low-profile terrorism is that it dilutes the gravity of terrorist attacks by putting them in the same category as domestic abuse. To be sure, domestic abuse is terribly wrong, but the cruelty, destructiveness, sheer number of victims, and aims in terrorism proper are a much greater harm. Finally, her use of “terrorism” goes against common usage. Terrorism, from the French Revolution to the present, embodies the following eight defining features. First, terrorism involves violence or the threat of violence.7 The threat must have some substance in physical, evidential terms. In addition, whether a threat is a terrorist threat also depends on the nature of the group issuing the threat. Nikita Khrushchev’s “we will bury you” remark may have excited fear in some Americans, but this was taken to be a braggadocian political remark not a terrorist threat. Second, it is commonly understood that the targets of terrorist activities are random. This is Michael Walzer’s view: “The victims of a terrorist attack are third parties, innocent bystanders; there is no special reason for attacking them, anyone else within a large class of unrelated people will do.”8 Claudia Card rejects this as a feature of terrorism. She says that the targets of terrorism are “carefully selected.”9 Yet the target can be so selected and still be random in the sense that other targets could equally have been chosen in order to achieve the same terrorists’ goals. In the case of 9/11 the terrorists could have chosen the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, or a packed NFL stadium. A third characteristic, vaguely recognized in the public arena, is absence of a completion point. Success in the 9/11 attacks did not bring planning for further attacks to a halt. In this terrorism is unlike murder or war. A fourth characteristic is that the primary goal of a terrorist attack is to bring about a desired change in the targeted country or ethnic group, or to prevent change by oppressing some group. Death and destruction are the secondary goals, the means to the primary goals. 7 Louis

Pojman cites these figures: In the 1980s 4684 people died from terrorist acts; in the 1990s 2468 deaths from terrorism. “The Moral Response to Terrorism and Cosmopolitanism,” in Terrorism and International Justice, edited by James P. Sterba (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 135. 8 Michael Walzer, “Terrorism: A Critique of Excuses,” in Michael Walzer, Arguing About War (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), 51. 9 Card, 129.

270

M. H. DeArmey

However, the topic of the goal of terrorism creates some problems, particularly in regard to the military. Can military campaigns involving actual battles be characterized as terrorist attacks? Was the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese a terrorist attack? Clearly, it was not. It was an effort to eliminate US naval power in the Pacific. On the other hand, the Allied bombing of German cities which were not military targets (Dresden, Hamburg, Cologne) were terrorist attacks (and genocidal as well). They were specifically designed to break the morale of the German population. The perpetrators of these Allied attacks were openly and admittedly using terror in the attempt to defeat the Germans.10 German bombing of London was carried out for the same reason, as well as the United States’ dropping the atomic bomb on Japanese cities. If the nature of the goal at least in part determines whether violence is terrorist or not, then the question arises, “how does one determine the goal(s) of a violent attack?” This can come about in three ways. First, pre-attack background statements and activities enable one to identify an attack as terrorist when an attack is actually carried out. The standing verbal attacks by Isis or Al Qaeda and their characterization of people in the West as infidels to be killed or converted are examples. Second, are statements concurrent with terrorist attacks which explicitly specify that this action (bombing Dresden, for example) is carried out using terror as a tool for a stated goal. Third, there may be post-attack claims of responsibility by the perpetrators, discovering who the perpetrators are by uncovering substantial evidence, or confession by arrested perpetrators. A fifth characteristic is that terrorism attacks do not necessarily cause terror. They may cause anger or outrage. Claudia Card certainly has it right when she states that terrorism does not always cause terror but does create “grave uncertainty and insecurity.”11 A sixth characteristic is that the terrorism is carried out by a group and for a group, or by an individual for a group cause. Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building 10 Jonathan Glover, Humanity, 74–75, cites the hope of Commander Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris that Allied bombing of German cities would shorten the war by breaking the morale of the German population. Lord Cherwell claimed that sustained Allied bombing would destroy 20–40 million homes. His estimates turned out to be wildly inaccurate, and “…as in the Blitz on London, civilians may become more determined to resist.” 11 Card, 166.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

271

was carried out with the Christian Identity movement as the inspiration. This was domestic terrorism, meaning the perpetrators were local, home-bred as it were. Theodore Kaczynski, nicknamed by authorities as the “Unabomber,” was a brilliant mathematician and (later) environmentalist who deplored the destruction of the natural world by industry and technology. Using explosive devices, he killed 3 people and wounded 23 others over a period from 1978 to 1995. His “cause” was revenge against those who were part of the industrial rape of the earth. He apparently thought that the publicity from his actions might effect a change in our treatment of the natural world. The terrorists’ claim to be acting on behalf of a group may not be correct. Overwhelmingly most Muslims, for example, reject the violent attacks issuing from Al Qaeda or Isis, even though these groups claim to be defending Islam. A seventh characteristic answers the question, “why terrorist attacks?” There is always asymmetry—weak vs. strong and strong vs. weak. The targeted group is massively stronger than the nonmilitary terrorist group. Therefore nonmilitary groups necessarily employ violent attacks here and there in the attempt to achieve their goals. On the other hand Corlett correctly notes that a strong group or nation state may use terrorist activities to keep an oppressed minority passive (prevent change). An illustration of this may be found in the movie, Mississippi Burning, in which the far more powerful white majority firebomb the shacks of sharecroppers and brutalize blacks for the slightest “infractions.” An eighth characteristic is that terrorist groups are typically transnational, meaning that they operate in small groups in diverse locations. Although terrorist groups like Isis may have a central headquarters, they cannot accomplish their goals without “cells” near targeted areas that are far distant from their headquarters. They are also transnational in the sense that a terrorist culture slowly develops over time involving tactics and ideas shared from diverse writers and activists in diverse places.

272

M. H. DeArmey

Can Terrorism Ever Be Justified? The nature of terrorism is separate from the question, “Are there any good arguments that justify terrorism on moral grounds?” Let’s examine four arguments on this subject. The argument from asymmetry. Shannon French has called attention to the asymmetry typically involved in terrorist attacks.12 A terrorist group is often weaker than its targeted group. Al Qaeda is small in numbers and disadvantaged in weaponry compared to the United States. Hence small and scattered cells hope to achieve changes in the behavior of the mighty U. S. target by violent attacks. French raises the important question of whether the weaker group in a conflictual situation is morally obliged to follow the rules of jus in bello, or for that matter any rules of fair play. Imagine, she says, a ninety-pound weakling put into a boxing match with the heavyweight champion of the world. The match is of course inherently unfair. In this situation the weakling, in the attempt to avoid being battered to death, may resort to playing dirty. He may conceal a hypodermic needle loaded with a sedative which he will manage to inject into the champ. This would perhaps level the playing field. However, if the weakling throws aside the rules of fair play, the champ is no longer obliged to follow rules of fair play, in particular the rule not to kill his opponent. Maybe the weakling will take that chance. At any rate the weakling cannot be faulted if the stakes are high (his life). There are even higher if the lives of his wife and children depended on the outcome, in which case he couldn’t be faulted for using even lethal tactics against the champ. Now imagine, in an effort to disorient the champ, the weakling (just before the match begins) burns alive the champ’s only child who is sitting near the ring. This action violates deeply held moral principles and is condemnable. The child is not a combatant. This act is not an act of self-defense. Here is another example from French:

12 Shannon French, “Murderers, Not Warriors: The Moral Distinction Between Terrorists and Legitimate Fighters in Asymmetric Conflicts,” in Sterba’s Terrorism and International Justice, 31–46.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

273

Consider that some woman attacks you and tries to kill you, you are permitted to kill her in self-defense. However, you cannot use the same self-defense grounds to justify going on to kill the woman’s husband and children.13

There are unbreachable moral principles which morally prevent attacking or killing noncombatants. How do you distinguish a combatant from a noncombatant? French takes the view of Michael Walzer that combatants are those who threaten you.14 They are dangerous to you. Your life and limb are at risk. You can justifiably defend yourself against this danger. The people in the Twin Towers were noncombatants. Therefore their deaths were mass murders. On the other hand, the attack on the USS Cole is might be morally justifiable because the American sailors were combatants. French’s conclusion comes down to this: If the targets of violence are combatants, then the perpetrators of violence are warriors not murderers. On the other hand, if the targets of violence are noncombatants, then the perpetrators are murderers and terrorists. Victimized groups (noncombatants and their leaders) may justifiably respond with police or military action against the terrorist group. The argument from revenge. Under certain conditions revenge may be morally justifiable when wronged persons suffer in a significant way and are helpless because they live in a state of surrounding lawlessness. Perhaps terrorism can be justified by viewing actions of Al Qaeda or Isis or Boka Haram as the hostile reactions of people who suffer without aid from law or law enforcement or international institutions. Notice that in cowboy movies acts of revenge are carried out because there is no sheriff or marshal to come to the aid of wronged and suffering victims.15 In the classic western Shane, the nearest sheriff is 100 miles distant from Riker and the homesteaders. In Unforgiven, sheriff Little Bill is a sadist.

13 “Murderers

Not Warriors,” 37. Walzer, “Non-combatant Immunity and Military Necessity,” in Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1977), 145. 15 See Peter A. French, Cowboy Metaphysics: Ethics and Death in Westerns (Lanham, Boulder, New York, and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1997). See also his The Virtues of Vengeance (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2001). 14 Michael

274

M. H. DeArmey

On this interpretation terrorism is morally justifiable when the perpetrators have been significantly wronged and a case can be made that these suffering people have been ignored in multiple ways, thereby establishing a condition of lawlessness. So they strike out violently to get back at those causing their misery. Suicide bombings, hijackings, even major attacks such as 9/11 may be seen as justifiable revenge or retaliation against those that deserve it. Our plight, avengers may say, has been languishing in invisibility for decades, and as far as we are concerned lawlessness is the international condition. Peter French has examined with great care the possibility that there may be justifiable acts of revenge, and has laid out the conditions that separate unjustifiable, evil vengeance from justifiable vengeance. Can acts of terror such as Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Federal Building or the bombing at the Boston Marathon be seen as justifiable revenge? For McVeigh his act would be justifiable retaliation for federal intrusion into individual lives, and an array of federally sponsored, liberal measures that hinder Jesus’ return. For the Boston Marathon bombers their act was “retribution for US military action in Afghanistan and Iraq,” according to a note bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had scrawled with a marker on the interior wall of the boat where he was hiding. How do such acts stand up to Peter French’s claim that there can be justifiable acts of revenge, and, if terrorism is a form of revenge, is it then the justifiable kind? French states that there are four requirements for justifiable revenge: desert, communication, proportionality, and epistemic authority. The first is desert. A person(s) or group has been wrongfully harmed in a manner that elicits a hostile response by these victims. The victims have sufficient knowledge that these people are the wrongdoers. French offers the example of a wife who had secretly been having an affair with a man, then sues her husband for a divorce and marries her lover. The jilted husband retaliates by smearing dog feces on the handles of her new husband’s car on their wedding day. It may be the case that on the score of desert the jilted husband’s action barely passes the first condition. However, the actions of McVeigh and the Boston bombers fail the desert test, not because of federal intrusions or US military action in Muslim parts of the world, but because their targets had nothing to do with federal intrusions or US military action in Muslim countries. This revives

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

275

Shannon French’s distinction between warriors and murderers. The second condition is communication. The jilted husband’s smearing of feces fails. For all the newlyweds know, the foul substance could be a teenage prank. The wrongdoer must understand why his/her own action would elicit hostility. This, Peter French says, excludes …the possibility that the injury, physical or psychological or both, he or she is enduring is a random or malicious act the avenger cannot morally justify…. It is not virtuous vengeance if the offenders are left in the dark as to why a penalty is being visited upon them.16

In both the McVeigh case and that of the Boston Marathon bombers, it required investigative work by police and FBI to find out why these evil deeds were carried out. There was no communication with the targeted groups as to why they deserved to be singled out and why they were wrongdoers. In revenge you must cite some specific grievance, not some murky generality, and inform the putative wrongdoer what the avenging action is about. That introduces the third condition, proportionality. French cites Aquinas on the act of revenge fitting the degree of harm to be suffered by the victim. Too much violence by the avenger results in cruelty, too little, faint-heartedness. The victim is a doormat. Surely both McVeigh and the Boston bombers violated the proportionality requirement. McVeigh’s action killed 168 people and injured 680 people. The Boston act of terrorism killed three people, injured hundreds, among whom were sixteen people who lost limbs. What would have been justifiable revenge that aimed at reducing federal intrusions or blocking US military action in Afghanistan or Iraq? The brothers Tsarnaev could have joined the Taliban or Al Qaeda, and retaliated in that way. McVeigh had the opportunity to preach in churches against actions and policies of the United States but instead maimed and murdered mothers and fathers, sisters, and brothers—ordinary people. The final condition for virtuous vengeance is epistemic authority. Reliable procedures must be used to identify the wrongdoer and to access the wrongness of the act.

16 Peter

French, “Virtuous Avengers in Commonplace Cases,” Philosophia, 44 (2016): 384–385.

276

M. H. DeArmey

Each act of terrorism is indeed an act of revenge—pay back for what the avengers see as significant wrongdoing by the targeted group. But terrorist revenge is unjustified revenge. It violates Peter French’s four criteria for justified revenge. Its cruelty and destructiveness cause significant harm. And above and beyond the revenge aspect, the terrorist condition is unjustified and evil in the means taken to change the behavior/policies/commerce of the targeted group. J. Angelo Corlett and Justified Terrorism. Corlett wants to know if there are any acts of justified terrorism. He states that “All that is needed is some hypothetical case which satisfies the conditions sufficient for morally justified terrorism, whether or not any actual case (to date) has satisfied such conditions.”17 Corlett imagines that a group could be so severely oppressed that terrorism could be justified. His 6 requirements for justified terrorism are problematic. The first requirement is that the terrorist(s) have “clean hands” or be “morally innocent.” Clean hands in regard to what? This is entirely unclear. The second and third requirements open the door to the killing of innocents. The second is that the terrorist(s) be as selective as possible in choosing a target(s). The third requirement is proportionate response against those clearly guilty. Imagine that a terrorist carefully chooses as a target a USA federal building whose employees are involved in mid-eastern operations. It has 400 daytime employees but only 27 employees at night. Having tried all nonviolent means to stop what are perceived as American injustices in the Mideast, the terrorist blows up the building, killing the minimal number of 27 people. Does the killing of 27 people really pass the test of moral justification? Hardly. How does the terrorist know the extent to which the dead employees were responsible for American policies and actions in the Mideast? The terrorist(s) doesn’t know this. How does the terrorist(s) know that this destruction and these deaths will “achieve the cessation of the conditions of injustice…?” (Corlett’s fifth requirement). The terrorist(s) does not know this either. Corlett imagines a case of terrorists hijacking a plane whose passengers are officials directly responsible for grave injustice and widespread misery.18 Will the real threat of death 17 Corlett, 18 Ibid.,

Terrorism, 125. 133.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

277

or the actual deaths of the officials bring about the cessation of injustice and misery? The terrorists do not know this either. Often in such cases officials with the same tendencies toward injustice and corruption replace the dead officials, and can even make life more difficult for the population by cracking down on protestors. Corlett goes further in attempting to establish justified terrorism by arguing that it is not always the case that violence begets violence. Sometimes violence begets “peace, solidarity, democracy and justice.”19 This may be true for civil disobedience (e.g., Greenpeace’s attack on whaling vessels), or peace established by war, but I cannot think of a case in which these values are the product of terrorism. Indeed terrorism results in hatred and hostility toward the terrorists, sometimes to the extent that counter terrorism measures are themselves terrorist acts. Jan Narveson is correct in citing one consequence of terrorism as the spread of hatred: If its causes were plausible, terrorism as a means to promote them would be unnecessary, and when it is used, it is virtually assured of failure except for the most limited and immediate of purposes. Of course it will also produce hatred and suspicion of the terrorist group, rather than sympathy and support—another major factor working to ensure nonsuccess.20

Claudia Card on Terrorism. Card’s Confronting Evils contains two chapters on terrorism. Terrorism, she asserts, is difficult to define, and is not defined in U.N. conventions. She states that terrorists use other people as mere means to their goals and that their actions violate human dignity. They “make a practice of cruelty.”21 What is “morally disturbing” is that this “is a matter of policy” for the terrorists. She is skeptical about “winning” the war on terrorism. Targeted groups are essentially defenseless. Attacks occur suddenly, “out of the blue.” She notes a consequence (infrequently cited in the literature) of living day to day under terrorist attacks and real threats of attack. People who 19 Ibid.,

134. by Corlett, 143, from Jarveson’s, “Terrorism and Morality,” in Violence, Terrorism, and Justice, edited by R.G. Frey and Christopher W. Morris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 150. 21 Card, 135. 20 Quoted

278

M. H. DeArmey

live in an area frequently targeted develop cruel dispositions, become brutalized. Hatred, disruption of everyday life, danger lurking in public places alter for the worse the character of ordinary people. Citizens experience what it is like to live in Hobbes’ state of nature.22 Card’s Chapter 6, “Low-profile Terrorism,” is a discussion of “everyday terrorism.” Everyday terrorism includes terror from gangs, rape, stalking, domestic violence, and even tree spiking. As noted above, this chapter violates the distinction between acts that produce terror from terrorism. It is not a sufficient condition for terrorism that people are terrorized. If it is allowed that domestic violence is terrorism rather than terrified spouses and children, then no doubt tens of thousands of instances of terrorism occur daily. These seem to me a reductio ad absurdum, as noted above. Card claims that low-profile cases do not diminish the gravity of terrorism because collectively these cases perhaps ruin more lives than the paradigm instances of terrorism. But surely individual examples, say, stalking or domestic abuse, although wrong, are not at all on the same level as the evil-doings of the Unabomber or McVeigh. Despite her sharp criticism of terrorism, Card claims that terrorism that does not include torture or genocide is “not necessarily evil,” is “not always wrong, let alone evil.”23 One support she cites is one of Wellman’s examples: A teacher threatens to punish a student for late papers by lowering his/her grade. Contra Card (and Wellman) this is not only not terrorism, it may be good classroom practice!

Terrorism Is Always Wrong The arguments that terrorism is wrongdoing, indeed evil-doing, appears to be conclusive. Let’s examine these arguments one by one. First, terrorism must be a last resort to achieve a group’s or an individual’s goals. Nonviolent actions are preferable for any decent-minded person. Where 22 Ibid., 128. She cites Bat-Ami Bar On on what it is like to live daily under terrorist conditions. Bar On grew up in Israel, served in the Israeli military, and later earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Ohio State University. See her The Subject of Violence: Arendtean Exercises in Understanding (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002). 23 Card, 124 and 131.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

279

in the statements of terrorists are itemized attempts at nonviolent means to their goals? Where are the comments that “we have tried the tactics of Thoreau, Gandhi, or King?” Where are the mass demonstrations, hunger strikes, work strikes, publications, and so on? Michael Walzer has insightful comments about the last resort defense of terrorism: It is not easy to reach the “last resort.” To get there, one must indeed try everything (which is a lot of things) and not just once, as if a political party might organize a single demonstration, fail to win immediate victory, and claim that it was now justified in moving on to murder. Politics is an art of repetition…. Last resort” has only a notional finality….”24

Walzer also points out that terrorism doesn’t work: “I doubt that terrorism has ever achieved national liberation.” 25 Moreover, the targets of terrorist violence are indiscriminate, incapable of separating the innocent from the putative wrongdoers. Lastly, is there an instance, real or hypothetical, in which Corlett’s six requirements conjointly justify terrorism? I for one cannot think of such an instance. It is clear that in ordinary language terrorism means violent wrongdoing. This meaning is entrenched in the history of this term and establishes its referents. As Rappaport points out, terrorists themselves refuse to be called terrorists due to the evil associations this term has acquired. Contrary to Corlett’s suggestion that the media have distorted the concept of terrorism, and that the public can be wrong in its condemnation of terrorism, the public meaning of “terrorism” is part of the meaning of terrorism.26 Could the public be mistaken in thinking cheating or selfishness mean wrongdoing? No. Arguments well-known both to intellectuals and the uneducated alike quickly establish cheating and selfishness as acts of wrongdoing. Of course the public and media could be mistaken in identifying this or that violent act as terrorism, but that would not alter the meaning of the term. Our case that terrorism is always unjustified does not rest entirely on the common meaning of terrorism but on considerations set out above. 24 Walzer,

Arguing About War, 53–54. 55. 26 Corlett, 143. 25 Ibid.,

280

M. H. DeArmey

Terrorist Thinking Is Bad Philosophy There are errors of various kinds in the thinking of both secular and sacred terrorists. Setting aside the rich detail in the descriptions of particular acts of sacred and secular terror, the major errors in the thinking of terrorists are common elements of human frailty. First and foremost are dangerous mistakes in epistemology. Sacred and secular terrorists alike are true believers who confuse the feeling of certainty with genuine certainty. The former is just a psychic event, a feature of someone’s autobiography at the moment, usually associated with something familiar (what you’ve grown up with). Genuine certainty is something quite different. It is based on evidence and corroboration by a community of focused inquirers. Terrorists are “true believers,” dogmatic and fanatical. Many are incapable of coping with change. All in all, sacred as well as secular terrorists violate what Charles S. Peirce calls “the principle of fallibilism,” acceptance of the fact that any belief can be mistaken and that every human being is frail and subject to errors. This principle leads in turn to the principle of toleration—the other group’s religion, politics, etc., just might be correct. Another major error that leads to violent evil-doing is bad metaphysics. Sacred terrorism transforms and elevates ordinary events into events of cosmic import. Instead of viewing nightclubs, alcohol consumption, homosexuality, abortion, fornication, taxation, and licentious television programs as merely common preferences (good or bad), terrorists of the religious type view them as part and parcel of a cosmic battle between good and evil. Concurrent with this is viewing those who enjoy such activities as possessing a metaphysical essence, Satanic in nature. This is apparent within the Christian movement called “Dominion Theology,” which advocates violence against the secular world. Its publication, Crosswinds, advocates violence in order to “re-capture every institution for Jesus Christ.”27 Before Jesus can return, it is first necessary that Christians rule for a thousand years, and that the secular features cited above are extirpated. 27 Quoted by Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2001), 27–28.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

281

Another cluster of errors concerns bad moral reasoning. Terrorists apparently regard the end or aim as justifying the means—violence and terror. As John Dewey once noted, the end or goal cannot be specified without incorporating details about the means into the defining characteristics of the end. So if the means used are morally corrupt then the end is morally corrupt. Another failure, noted by De Witze in Chapter 6, is that terrorists apparently fail to reflect upon the strongest case for not engaging in violence and terror. Perhaps many are ignorant of alternatives to violence—for example, those strategies set out by Thoreau, Gandhi, and King. A third flaw in terrorist reasoning is the doctrine of corporate guilt—one or some guilty, all guilty, and therefore anyone in or associated with the targeted group can justly be attacked. This is the quite ancient notion that if you do wrong you pollute your family and tribe. A final flaw in moral reasoning is the unwillingness to follow an argument to its logical conclusion (for Dewey an inherent feature of conservatism) if at some point it raises doubts about the terrorists’ favored rallying point, be it tradition, gut feeling, or the teachings of some cleric or charismatic leader.

Cosmopolitan Responses to Terrorism The U. S. State Department has “four basic policy tenets” for addressing terrorism. These are: 1. Make no concession to terrorists and strike no deal. 2. Bring terrorists to justice for their crimes. 3. Isolate and apply pressure on states that sponsor terrorism to force them to change their behavior. 4. Bolster the counterterrorism capabilities of those countries that work with the United States and require assistance.28

28 Cited

by Tomis Kapitan, “The Terrorism of ‘Terrorism’,” in Sterba’s Terrorism and International Justice, 60.

282

M. H. DeArmey

The first cosmopolitan response is to insist upon learning about the perpetrators or potential perpetrators and to address their concerns, if possible before terrorist acts occur. Insufficient attention has been given by the State Department and comparable agencies in other countries to the causes underlying terrorist actions. What led them to violent extremes in behavior? What is the history of the group to which the perpetrators belong? If an accurate understanding of these causes and history can be reached, what actions, if any, can be taken to diminish the terrorists’ motivation? Perhaps an indirect action can weaken the motivation. Perhaps moving U. S. military out of the perpetrators’ country (e.g., Saudi Arabia) or monetary or other aid to the perpetrators’ country or ethnic group. An interesting albeit short article published by the Brookings Institute underscores what must be done at the international or cosmopolitan level. First, intelligence gathering about the group is important, as indicated above. Secondly, integration of violence-prone groups into the mainstream of a society: There is little that can inflame more hatred than the feeling of being excluded, and a misguided search for a sense of belonging can be the trigger that incites religious, ethnic, and ideological radicalization. This may explain why France has suffered more from terrorist acts perpetrated by their own residents than the U.S. or U.K., that paradoxically are substantially more engaged in the war against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Social integration— especially of immigrants—through explicit and targeted programs from education at an early age to immigration and citizenship reforms is a key component in the fight against terrorism.29

The author supports the necessity for integration from cases like this: A couple of decades ago, thousands of unemployed young people joined terrorist organizations in Cambodia, Colombia, and Peru, when these

29 Norman Loayza “How to Defeat Terrorism: Intelligence, Integration, and Development,” The Brookings Institution, Monday, July 25, 2016. My italics. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/futuredevelopment/2016/07/25/how-to-defeat-terrorism-intelligence-integration-and-development/.

12 Terrorism: Cruelty, and Destructiveness for Everyone

283

countries were fragile. Since their economies started growing and providing employment, these armies for criminal and political violence have started to fade away.30

This book’s chapter on Kant, care and hospitality lays down requirements for entry into a foreign country and the required just and reasonable procedures (following Seyla Benhabib’s discussion and her discourse ethics) for citizenship. The second insight, one that cannot be overemphasized, is the education of children. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle states that “It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.”31 The future of the human family turns on how children around the world are educated. So a second cosmopolitan recommendation is necessary. The U.N. and the aforementioned Peoples Assembly concur in banning hateful teaching and hateful comments against people of other countries or ethnicities. Individual countries or ethnic groups are responsible for monitoring their schools, whether they be secular public, private, or religious in nature. Hateful comments by Muslim teachers at madrasabs are passed on to their young students who recite over and over these hateful sayings. The same venomous comments may appear in Jewish schools as well as evangelical schools in America. No matter where these occur they must be deracinated. Corlett argues in the strongest terms for proper education. He states that Most, if not all, societies do poor jobs of educating our children from pre-school through college of the virtues and wonderful successes of nonviolent change. I insist that critical moral education is a major component to decreasing acts of terrorism…. A society [must] actually engage in the Socratic practice of knowing itself.32

The third requirement in the Brookings article is development. Job opportunities must be open so that young adults can lead productive 30 Ibid. 31 Nicomachean 32 Corlett,

169.

Ethics, Book II, “Moral Virtue,” 1103a33.

284

M. H. DeArmey

lives and have an enhanced self-image. Inexpensive computers can be donated. Lecturers from foreign countries who speak the native language can be guest speakers. As noted previously, increasing the number of exchange students and invigorating programs like the Peace Corps are a wonderful way in which steps can be taken toward a world community, preserving national differences yet acknowledging cosmopolitan principles.

List of Cosmopolitan Recommendations

A. Cosmopolitan Reform of the United Nations Cosmopolitan recommendations are recommendations for changes worldwide. These changes can be best be achieved by the United Nations in some cases, by multinational agreement/cooperation in other cases, or by industry-wide agreement. Multinational and industry-wide agreement must conform to the United Nations’ mandates and conventions. 1. U. N. Charter is recognized as a World Constitution for Nations and Peoples. 2. COPRE, the Council for the Preservation and Restoration of the Environment, is the new and basic structural component of the United Nations. 3. COPRE will have legal powers similar to the Security Council. 4. The United Nations General Assembly will be bicameral, one chamber for nations the other for peoples (represented by NGOs). 5. The People’s Assembly will have the power, through its representatives, to address the General Assembly’s ambassadors, cite nation-state misconduct, and make proposals for a vote by the nation’s chamber. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2

285

286

List of Cosmopolitan Recommendations

6. The People’s Assembly by a 2/3 vote or greater will have the power to rescind a resolution by the nation-state assembly and force reconsideration and further discussion. 7. The United Nations and Peoples of the Earth will maintain and utilize a rapid deployment Force (RDF) of 10,000–15,000 soldiers, with its own base of operations and under the control of the Security Council or COPRE, as the situation demands. 8. The new structure of the United Nations is indicated by the figure below: I________I__________ __I__________ _I___________I_________I____________ _I I I I I I I I Secretariat

General Assembly Security Council Council for the Economic & Internaonal Court Trustees (can use RDF) Preservaon & Social Council of Jusce (ICJ) Restoraon of the Environment (COPRE) (can use RDF)

Naons’ Assembly Peoples’ Assembly

Linked to ICJ

Environmental subjects Transferred to COPRE

B. Basic Knowledge Requirements 9. Government officials and chief executive officers of publicly owned corporations are required to have a permit or license, obtained through successful completion of a seven-day workshop in basic knowledge, and to be renewed every 3 years.

C. Reducing the Human Population 10. The United Nations with the cooperation of nation states and NGOs will distribute worldwide and free of charge morning after pills and other contraceptive devices. 11. The United Nations with the cooperation of nation states and NGOs will initiate an educational program for both city and urban populations worldwide on the importance of small families and the consequences of overpopulation.

List of Cosmopolitan Recommendations

287

D. Controlling Corporations 12. CEOs and other high-ranking officers of publicly owned corporations, including members of boards of trustees, are required to have a license. 13. High-ranking officers of publicly owned corporations are to be taxed at 90% for personal income over 10 million dollars per year, and nation states will each use this money for environmental restoration and the alleviation of human poverty within their borders and for no other purpose. 14. Each publicly owned corporation will issue an annual report stating that neither the corporation nor its subcontracted businesses will utilize slaves or people in slave-like conditions. 15. Each publicly owned corporation will include in its annual report what efforts it has made in alleviating poverty and improving the environment. 16. Requirements of a license and requirements 12–15 above apply to large corporations which are owned privately or owned by workers. 17. Corporations may be judged as too large and too dominant over a market, and may be broken up into smaller enterprises. Worker ownership is a long-term goal.

E. Holistic Reconstruction of Failing States 18. The United Nations, utilizing portions of its rapid deployment force when required, and in cooperation with wealthier nation states, and with the permission of the state government officials, will focus on the holistic reconstruction of failing nation states, always employing the local populations whenever possible.

F. Immigrants and Displaced Persons 19. Applications for citizenship must be accompanied by interpersonal dialogue between the applicant and the judge, and conducted in the applicant’s native language with the applicant’s attorney present.

288

List of Cosmopolitan Recommendations

20. Refusal of entry or refusal of citizenship must be for universally accepted reasons, accompanied by a statement of how deficiencies can be rectified, if possible.

G. Strengthening Ties in the World Community 21. Cosmopolitan principles dictate that closer ties between people of diverse backgrounds and cultures can be strengthened by hospitality clubs, cities of refuge, peace corps, and exchange programs. 22. Cosmopolitan principles dictate that a better understanding of differences can be furthered by a required course for western high school and university students in a non-western culture, and for Asian students a required course in a western culture. Minimally rudiments of the native language should be included. 23. An Art Olympics will begin with competition in visual arts within each nation state and winners will have their artwork circulated throughout major cities in the world. People will vote on their favorite work of art within each category (sculpture, painting, decorative arts).

H. Cessation of Environmental Destruction 24. The immediate cessation of the manufacture of single-use plastic (bags, straws, cups, containers, etc.). Enforced by COPRE. 25. Immediate cessation of the cutting of prime forests and cancelation of any agreement that would allow cutting of prime forests. Enforced by COPRE. 26. Buffer zones around prime forests will be established, along with restoration of endangered trees and other plants through seeds, cuttings. An international tree planting day will be established with the goal of one million planted trees per year, encouraged and monitored by NGOs. 27. Mandate to nation states to monitor agribusiness operations for pesticide use, run-offs of pesticides and granular fertilizer, and progress toward phased-in organic farms.

List of Cosmopolitan Recommendations

289

28. Restoration of trees and plants to deserts. 29. Mandate to nation states to have their cities utilize abandoned urban areas, buildings, and land, rather than expansion into the countryside. 30. The United Nations, through COPRE, will monitor the oceans with its own or leased vessels, looking for illegal dumping, plastic waste, and illegal fishing. 31. Moratoria will be placed on areas in which seafood is over-harvested, allowing for marine life to replenish itself. 32. Within three years no passenger automobile or light truck will be manufactured that is not hybrid gas/electric, electric plug-in, or hydrogen. 33. The use of coal by power plants is to be terminated, replaced by natural gas and methane capture. 34. Within five years every new home must have solar panels, with power from the grid at night if necessary. Black asphalt roofing is to be banned. 35. Each habitat with one or more endangered species will be “adopted” by a local NGO, which will report on the habitat conditions to the Peoples’ Assembly through the chain of federated NGOs.

I. Elimination of Slavery 36. Reduction of poverty worldwide must begin in earnest with the U.N., NGOs, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund providing seed money for credit unions in small Villages worldwide. 37. Children traveling with someone other than their parents or legal guardians must have a universal travel card, validated by state authorities and containing full information on the reasons for moving the child and what its future will be.

290

List of Cosmopolitan Recommendations

J. Weapons 38. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons are genocidal weapons of indeterminate and uncontrollable mass destruction, and are banned. 39. Private (individual or group) ownership of military-grade assault rifles is illegal, except for law enforcement officials, military personnel, and farmers whose land is being destroyed by large numbers of feral hogs (this would require a special exemption). Storing, selling, and using these weapons is illegal.

K. Banishing Torture 40. All torture is banned. There is no justification whatever for the torments of torture. 41. NGO Amnesty International will report to the full U. N. Assembly the existence of torture sites and evidence that torture has occurred. Countries have one year to eliminate these sites and to arrest torture personnel. 42. Governments are to be educated on the efficiency of humane methods of interrogation.

L. Eliminating Terrorism 43. Every effort must be made to curtail terrorism before it occurs by listening to groups and their complaints, understanding their history, and accommodating their needs in some way. 44. Cosmopolitan principles dictate that teaching children to be hateful, venomous, toward some group, country, or “race” is harmful to the family of mankind and civilization itself.

Works Consulted

The following list is selective of books and articles. For other references please consult the indices. Alexander, Matthew. How to Break a Terrorist. New York: Free Press, 2008. Amery, Jean. At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor of Auschwitz and Its Realities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. Anscombe, G. E. M. Intention. 2nd edition. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2000. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2006. Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics. David Ross translator. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. Arrigo, Jean Marie. “A Utilitarian Argument Against Torture Interrogation of Terrorists.” Science and Engineering Ethics 10 (2004): 543–572. Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. In Marcus Aurelius, Loeb Classical Library, Volume 58. C. R. Haines translator. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, revised 1916. Axelrod, Robert. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books, 1984.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2

291

292

Works Consulted

Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2004. ———. Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2005. Barnosky, Anthony. “Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived?” Nature 471 (2011): 51–57. Bedau, Mark. “Goal-Directed Systems and the Good.” The Monist 75 (1992): 34–51. Bekoff, Marc, and Pierce, Janet. Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. Benhabib, Seyla. The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Benn, S. I., “Wickedness.” In Doing and Being: Selected Readings in Moral Philosophy. Joram Graf Haber editor. New York and Toronto: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993. Campbell, Jason J. On the Nature of Genocidal Intent. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, and Plymouth, England: Lexington Books, 2013. Card, Claudia. Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring: Fortieth Anniversary Edition. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin First Mariner, 1962. ———. The Sea Around Us. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Cicero. Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations. C. D. Yonge translator. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1977. Cohen, Morris. The Faith of a Liberal: Selected Essays. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1946. Corlett, J. Angelo. Terrorism: A Philosophical Analysis. Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. Cummisky, David. Kantian Consequentialism. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Dennett, Daniel. “How to Protect Human Dignity from Science.” Human Dignity and Bioethics. Washington, DC: President’s Council on Bioethics, 2008: 39–59. ———. “True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why It Works.” In Scientific Explanation: Papers Based on Herbert Spencer Lectures. A. F. Heath editor. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981: 53–75. Derrida, Jacques. On Hospitality. Rachel Bowlby translator. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Works Consulted

293

Dershowitz, Alan M. Why Terrorism Works. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. de Wijze, Stephen. “Defining Evil: Insights from the Problem of ‘Dirty Hands’.” The Monist 85 (2002): 210–238. Doyle, Michael W. “The UN Charter: A Global Constitution?” In Ruling the World? Constitutionalism, International Law and Global Governance. Jeffrey L. Dunoff editor. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009: 113–132. Dreyfus, Hubert. “Starting Points: An Interview with Hubert Dreyfus.” The Harvard Review of Philosophy XIII (2005): 123–152. Dryzek, John, Norgaard, Richard, and Schlosberg, David. “Climate Change and Society: Approaches and Responses.” In Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. John Dryzek, Richard Nergaard, and David Schlosbert, editors. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011: 3–17. Edmonds, Mary, and Pinzon, Natalia. “Soil Life: Microbiology on the Farm.” Rodale Institute 12 (2012). Enzensberger, Magnes. Civil Wars from L. A. to Bosnia. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993. Epictetus. The Discourses as Reported by Arrion, the Manual, and Fragments. W. A. Oldfather translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925. Evenson, Elizabeth. “The International Criminal Court as Risk.” Human Rights Watch. May 2015. Fahmy, Melissa. “Kantian Practical Love.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 91 (2010): 313–331. Fassbender, Bardo. The United Nations Charter as the Constitution of the International Community. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2009. Feinberg, Joel. “Autonomy.” In The Inner Citadel: Essays on Individual Autonomy. John Christman editor. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Harm to Others: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Foot, P. R., and Harrison, Jonathan. “Symposium: When Is a Principle a Moral Principle?” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 28 (1954): 95–134. French, Peter A. Cowboy Metaphysics: Ethics and Death in Westerns. Lanham, Boulder, New York, and Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1997. ———. The Virtues of Vengeance. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2001. French, Shannon. “Murderers Not Warriors: The Moral Distinction Between Terrorists and Legitimate Fighters in Asymmetric Conflicts.” In Terrorism

294

Works Consulted

and International Justice. James Sterba editor. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Gaita, Raimond. A Common Humanity: Thinking About Love and Truth and Justice. London and New York: Routledge, 2000. ———. Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception. 2nd edition. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. Gardenfors, Peter. How Homo Became Sapiens: On the Evolution of Thinking. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2003. Genugten, Willem, Homan, Kees, de Waart, Paul, and Schrivers, N. The United Nations of the Future: Globalization with a Human Face. Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2006. George, Susan. The Debt Boomerang: How the Third World Debt Harms US All. London: Pluto Press, 1992. Ginn, Colin. Ethics, Evil, and Fiction. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Glover, Jonathan. Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996. Goldberg, Carl. Speaking with the Devil: A Dialogue with Evil. New York: Viking Press, 1996. ———. The Evil We Do: The Psychoanalysis of Destructive People. Amherst and New York: Prometheus Books, 2000. Gourevich, Philip. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. Goodman-Delahunty, Jane, Martschuk, Natalie, and Dhami, Mandeep. “Interviewing High Value Detainees: Securing Cooperation and Disclosures.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 28 (2014): 883–897. Greer, John Michael. Dark Age America: Climate Change, Cultural Collapse and the Hard Future Ahead. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 2016. Habermas, Jurgen. “Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace, with the Benefit of Two Hundred Years’ Hindsight.” In Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Idea. James Bohan and Mattias Lutz-Bachman editor. Cambridge, MA and London, England: MIT Press, 1997. ———. The Divided West. Ciaran Cronin editor and translator. Cambridge, England and Malden MA: Polity Press, 2006. Haskell, Lindsay. “Modern-Day Slavery: Haiti’s Restavec System.” Law, Crime and Justice. November 22, 2010. Homer-Dixon, Thomas. “Synchronous Failure: The Real Danger of the 21st Century.” Speech given at George Washington University, December 4,

Works Consulted

295

2002. Accessed at: https://homerdixon.com/synchronous-failure-the-realdanger-of-the-21st-century. Homer-Dixon, Thomas, et al. “Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis.” Ecology and Society 20 (2015, article 6): 1–16. Hume, David. “Of the Dignity or Meanness of Human Nature.” In Essays: Moral, Political and Literary. Eugene F. Miller editor. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985. Ignatieff, Michael. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993. Jackall, Robert. Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. James, William. The Principles of Psychology Volume I. New York: Dover Publications, 1950. Jamieson, Dale. “The City Around Us.” In Morality’s Progress, Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Jelloun, Tahar Ben. French Hospitality: Racism and North African Immigrants. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2001. Kant, Immanuel. Kant’s Political Writings. Hans Reiss editor, H. B. Nisbet translator. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. ———. Metaphysical Elements of Justice: Part I of the Metaphysics of Morals. John Ladd translator. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1999. Kara, Siddharth. Modern Slavery: A Global Pespective. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Kleingold, Pauline. “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth Century Germany.” Journal of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 505–524. Kolnai, Aurel. “Dignity.” Philosophy 51 (1976): 251–271. Kovel, Joel. The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2007. Khroustov, G. E. “Formation and Highest Frontier of the Implemental Activity of Anthropoids.” Reprinted in Phillip V. Tobias. The Brain in Hominid Evolution. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971. Kropotkin, Petr. Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution. London: William Heinemann, 1910.

296

Works Consulted

Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of Eminent Philosophers Books 6–10. R. D. Hicks translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925: 3. Lang, Beryl. “The Evil in Genocide.” In Genocide and Human Rights: A Philosophical Guide. John K. Roth editor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Laquer, Walter. Terrorism. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977. Lemkin, Raphael. Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government Proposals for Redress. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, 1944. ———. Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin. Donna-Lee Frieze editor. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation from Round River. New York: Ballantine Books, 1966. Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1986. Loayza, Norman. “How to Defeat Terrorism: Intelligence, Integration, and Development.” The Brookings Institute, July 25, 2016. Accessed at: https:// www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2016/07/25/how-to-defeatterrorism-intelligence-integration-and-development/. Maloof, Joan. Nature’s Temples: The Complex World of Old-Growth Forests. Portland, OR: Timber Press, 2016. Margalit, Avishai. “Human Dignity Between Kitsch and Deification.” The Hedgehog Review: Dignity and Justice 9 (2007): 7–19. Martin, James L. The Man Who Invented Genocide: The Public Career and Consequences of Raphael Lemkin. Torrance, CA: Institute of Historical Review, 1984. Martens, Kristen. “Examining the Non-Status of NGOs in International Law.” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 10 (2003): 1–24. McKinnon, Christine. “Ways of Wrongdoing: A Theory of the Vices.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 23 (1989): 319–335. Mele, Alfred R. Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Mitchell, Silas Weir. Injuries to Nerves and Their Consequences. Philadelphia: Lippicott, 1872. Montaigne, Michel. “The Education of Children.” In Essays. J. M. Cohen translator. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. Murphy, Jeffrie. “The Elusive Nature of Human Dignity.” The Hedgehog Review: Dignity and Justice 9 (2007): 20–31. Murray, Gilbert. Five Stages of Greek Religion. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishers, 2010.

Works Consulted

297

Nussbaum, Martha. The Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2006. ———. Women and Human Development. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000. O’Keefe, Brian. “Inside Big Chocolate’s Child Labor Problem.” Fortune, March 1, 2016. Accessed at: http://fortune.com/big-chocolate-child-labor/. Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1982. Peirce, Charles S. “The Fixation of Belief.” The Popular Science Monthly 12 (November, 1877): 1–15. Perry, Ralph Barton. The Thought and Character of William James. 2 volumes. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1935. Portmann, Adolf. Animals as Social Beings. New York: Harper & Row, 1961. Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell: American and the Age of Genocide. New York, London, Toronto, and Sydney: HarperCollins, 2002. Plutarch. Moralia: Volume VII on Exile. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959. Rapoport, David C. “The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism.” Current History 100 (December, 2001): 419–424. Rejali, Darius. Torture and Democracy. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Rhind, S. M. “Anthropogenic Pollutants: A Threat to Ecosystem Sustainability.” Transactions of the Royal Society Biological Sciences 364 (2009): 3391–3401. Rogers, Alex D. “Editorial: Introduction to the Special Issue: International Programme on Global State of the Ocean (IPSO).” Marine Pollution Bulletin 74, #2 (2013): 491–494. Rolston III, Holmes. Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values of the Natural World. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988. Rowlands, Mark. Can Animals Be Moral? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Royce, Josiah. Race and Other American Problems. New York: Macmillan Company, 1908. Russell-Brown, Sherrie L. “Rape as an Act of Genocide.” Berkeley Journal of International Law 21 (2003): 350–374. Sartre, Jean Paul. On Genocide. New York: Beacon Press, 1968. Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1985.

298

Works Consulted

Schiemann, John W. Does Terrorism Work? New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Sen, Amartya. “Equality of What?” In Tanner Lectures on Human Values I. S. Mcmurrin editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Shklar, Judith. Ordinary Vices. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1984. Shue, Henry. “Torture.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 7, #2 (1978): 124–143. ———. “Torture in Dreamland: Disposing of the Ticking Bomb.” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 38, #2 (2006): 231–240. Singer, Marcus. “Moral Rules and Principles.” In Essays in Moral Philosophy. A. I. Melden editor. St. Louis: Washington University Press, 1958. Singer, Peter. “A Utilitarian Defense of Animal Liberation.” Reprinted in Environmental Ethics. 6th edition. Louis Pojman and Paul Pojman editors. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012: 71–80. Singer, P. W. Children at War. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandre. The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation I–II. New York, Evanston, San Francisco, and London: Harper & Row, 1974. Steinkus, Melanie. “Dennett’s Intentional Strategy Applied to Animals.” Res Cogitans 6 (2015): 29–35. Stohr, Karen. “Kantian Beneficence and the Problem of Obligatory Aid.” Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (2011): 45–67. Taylor, Paul. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. Thomas, Laurence Mordekhai. Vessels of Evil: American Slavery and the Holocaust. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. Tipler, Frank. “Extraterrestrial Beings Do Not Exist.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 21, #267 (1981): 267–281. Valiant, George E. Adaptation to Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1977. Walzer, Michael. “Terrorism: A Critique of Excuses.” In Arguing About War. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004. Weil, Simone. Waiting on God. Emma Craufurd editor. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1951. Werth, Nicolas. “The Crimes of the Stalin Regime: Outline for an Inventory and Classification.” In The Historiography of Genocide. Dan Stone editor. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Wessells, Michael. Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2009. Willetts, Peter. Non-Governmental Organizations in World Politics. New York and London: Routledge, 2011.

Works Consulted

299

Wilshire, Bruce. Get ‘Em All! Kill ‘Em!: Genocide, Terrorism, Righteous Communities. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Wilson, Edward O. Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984. ———. The Future of Life. New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 2002. Zahavi, Dan. Self-Awareness and Alterity: A Phenomenological Approach. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1999.

Author Index

A

Alberts, Susan C. 61n Alexander, Matthew 260–261 Amery, Jean 197, 243, 247–248 Anscombe, G.E.M. 64 Appiah, Kwame Anthony 90–92, 94, 112–113 Archie, Elizabeth A. 61n Aristotle 118, 139, 201 Armstrong, Stuart 5n Arrigo, Jean Marie 249–252 Auerbach, Jonathan 160n Aurelius, Marcus 13 Axelrod, Robert 60n

B

Bales, Kevin 203–204, 207–209, 211–223 Barnosky, Anthony 145n

Bedau, Mark 51–52 Bekoff, Marc 58–60 Benhabib, Seyla 78, 85–90 Benn, S.I. 122–125 Bijman, Jelle 143n Blaustein, A.P. 30n Burgess, Thorton 56n Butcher, Gregory S. 165n

C

Cagan, Joanna 165n Callicott, J. Baird 61n, 134n Campbell, Jason J. 192 Card, Claudia 131–134, 187–190, 245, 268–269, 270–271, 277–278 Carson, Rachel 140 Casas, Bartolome de La 175 Charny, Israel 192n

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2

301

302

Author Index

Cheung, William W.I. 146 Christianson, S. 255n Cicero 11 Clark, David P. 50n Cohen, Morris 35n Cook, Captain 27 Corlett, J. Angelo 267, 271, 276–277, 279, 283 Cummisky, David 75n

D

Darwin, Charles 59–60 Da Silva, Vanderlei Rodrigues 156n Davidson, Donald 62 Dennett, Daniel 53, 62 Derrida, Jacques 80–83 Dershowitz, Alan 258–261 de Waart, Paul 98n Dewey, John 1, 281 de Wijze, Stephen 130, 135 Doyle, Michael W. 101 Dresser, Rebecca 30n Dreyfus, Hubert 67n Dryzek, John S. 140n

E

Edmonds, Mary 155n Elder, Tanya 185n Emlen, Stephen T. 58n Enzensberger, Magnes 3n Epictetus 11 Evenson, Elizabeth 262n

F

Fahmy, Melissa 75 Fassbender, Bardo 101n

Feinberg, Joel 128–129, 133–134 Fichte, Johann G. 25–27 Fitzsimmons, Allan K. 141n Flanz, G.H. 30n Foot, P.R. 121n Forster, Georg 27 Franklin, Benjamin 240n French, Peter A. 274–276 French, Shannon 274–276 Frey, R.G. 277n Friedel, Melanie 143n Fromm, Eric 126, 193

G

Gaita, Raimond 36–41 Gardenfors, Peter 66n Gautier, Celine Anay 223 George, Susan 106n Gibson, James J. 63n Gibson, Robert C. 225n Ginn, Colin 129n Glover, Jonathan 124n, 270n Goldberg, Carl 39n, 69–70, 126 Goldfarb, Ben 165n Goldman, Elizabeth Dow 152n Goodman-Delahunty, Jane 255 Gourevich, Philip 195 Greer, John Michael 107–108 Gross, Rita 61n, 218n

H

Habermas, Jurgen 102 Hamilton, W.D. 61n Hansen, James 144 Harbury, Jennifer 246 Hardesty, Denise 148n Harrison, Jonathan 121n

Author Index

Haskell, Lindsay 216n Hegewisch, Dietrich Hermann 27 Herman, Barbara 75n Hershman, Michelle 167n Holmberg, U. 255n Homan, Kees 98n Homer-Dixon, Thomas 3–4 Hooker, Brad 75n Hughes, Donna M. 219n Hume, David 47 Husserl, Edmund 65

I

Ignatieff, Michael 3n

J

Jackall, Robert 109–111 James, William 50, 65, 67, 197n Jamieson, Dale 124n, 190n, 197 Jelloun, Ben 83–85 Jones, Kendall R. 142n Juergensmeyer, Mark 280n

K

Kaiser, Sarah 163n Kant, Immanuel 1, 14–24, 31–32, 71–80 Kapitan, Tomis 281n Kara, Siddharth 203–205, 224–225 Kelly, Annie 226n Kennedy, John F. 93n Kerr, Tom 167n Khroustov, G.F. 65 Killcoat, Phillip 236n King, Jr., Martin Luther 30n Kleingeld, Pauline 19–24

303

Kleisner, Karel 57n Kolnai, Aurel 47n, 52n Kovel, Joel 106n, 110n, 111, 111n, 134n Krishna, V.R. 54n Kropotkin, Peter 60

L

Ladd, John 31 Laertius, Diogenes 13n Lang, Beryl 176 Laqueur, Walter 266 Lemkin, Raphael 177–185 Leopold, Aldo 46 Lifton, Robert Jay 137, 193, 256 Linton, Marisa 265n Loayza, Norman 282n

M

Machel, G. 233n Maloof, Joan 167n Margalit, Avishai 33–34 Marosi, Richard 223n Martens, Kristen 98n May, Dennis 165n Mazurana, Michael 156n, 159n Melden, A.I. 121n Mele, Alfred R. 64 Michod, Richard E. 49n Milo, Ronald 121n, 122–124 Mitchell, Silas Weir 246 Montaigne, Michel de 12 Morris, Christopher 277n Moss, Cynthia J. 61n Muller, Robert T. 256n Murphy, Jeffrey 34–36 Murray, Gilbert 3

304

Author Index

O

Rejali, Darius 253–255 RenatoLevien, Alberto Vasconcellos 156n Richard, Amy O’Neill 216n Robbins, John 222n Rogers, Alex D. 142n Rolston, Holmes III 139, 171n, 185n Roosevelt, Franklin D. 11 Rosenthal, A.M. 185n Rowlands, Mark 59 Russell-Brown, Sherri L. 196

O’Keefe, Brian 222n O’Mara, Shane 256 On, Bat-Ami 278n

S

N

Narveson, Jan 277 Nichols, Shaun 122n Niven, Daniel K. 165n Norgaard, Richard B. 140n Novalis 27 Nozick, Robert 35 Nussbaum, Martha 40–44, 46–47, 102n

P

Parker, Laura 148n Patterson, Orlando 201, 203, 205–207, 210–211 Pazderik, Nanette J. 50n Pearce, Ralph 159n Peirce, Charles S. 140–141 Perry, Ralph Barton 67n Pierce, Janet 58–60 Pinzon, Natalia 155n Pitcher, Tony J. 146 Plutarch 11 Pojman, Louis P. 269n Portmann, Adolf 52, 52n Portner, Hans 143n Power, Samantha 183n

R

Rand, S.M. 150n, 151n Rapoport, David C. 266 Rawls, John 40

Sandberg, Anders 5n Sartre, Jean-Paul 191, 193 Sato, Makiko 144 Scarry, Elaine 246–247 Schaller, Dominik J. 185n Schiemann, John W. 251–254 Schlegel, Friedrich 25 Schlosbert, David 140n Schopenhauer, Arthur 123n Schrijver, Nico 98n Sebille, Erik van 148n Sen, Amartya 40 Shklar, Judith 127 Shue, Henry 257–259 Singer, Marcus 121n Singer, Peter 70 Singer, P.W. 233n, 235, 237, 239 Sober, Elliot 60n Socrates 11, 35n Soldz, Stephen 250n Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandre 248–249 Steiner, Jean-Francois 34n Steinkus, Melanie 53n Sterba, James P. 269n

Author Index

Stocker, Michael 120 Stohr, Karen 75–76 T

Taylor, Paul 52 Temmerman, Els De 237n Teresa, Mother 39 Thomas, Laurence M. 129n, 129–130 Thompson, Warren K. 123n Tipler, Frank 5 V

Valliant, George E. 123n van Genugten, Willem 98n Vehrencamp, Sandral 58n

305

Weil, Simone 36, 37 Weisse, Mikaela 152n Werth, Nicolas 191 Wessells, Michael 234 Whitaker, Ben 186–187 Wieland, Christoph Martin 25 Wilcox, Chris 148n Willetts, Peter 95 Wilmer, Harry A. 131n Wilshire, Bruce 193 Wilson, Alexander 46n Wilson, David Sloan 60n Wilson, Edward O. 29, 161, 161n, 163, 169–170, 174 Woodruff, Paul 131n Wright, Pam 164n Wright, Richard 123

W

Z

Waal, Frans de 57, 57n Walzer, Michael 269, 273, 279

Zahavi, Dan 59n Zimmerer, Jurgen 185n

Subject Index

A

animal belief 61, 62 animal morality 61 art Olympics 94 autonomy 63–67

B

bad 118–120 basic knowledge requirement 105–107 beneficence and benevolence, 71–78 bracketing. See epoche

C

capabilities theory 40–44 capitalism 109–112 care, and evolution 153–154 Kant on, 71–78

meanings of, 56 types, 56–59 caring and alterity 55 and pairing, 55 chance, cosmological 47–50 children, travel card 229–230 child soldiers, definition 233–234 abduction of, 236–237 DDRR process, 240 escape from, 239 why appealing to children, 236 cities of refuge 81, 83, 93 citizenship, requirements for 88 civilization, collapse 4 inversion of, 134–135 COPRE 104–105, 112 cosmology 48–50 cosmopolitanism, ancient 11–14 18th century types, 24–28

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 M. H. DeArmey, Cosmopolitanism and the Evils of the World, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42978-2

307

308

Subject Index

epistemology for understanding others, 90–92 influences on Kant, 14n Kant’s theory, 11, 14–20, 22 right, 79–80, 85 cruelty 129

D

deforestation 151–153 dignity, difficult to know, skepticism 30, 33–35 a relational concept, 47 an aesthetic, ethical concept, 44–45 and constitutions, 30n and humiliation, 34 and love, 36–38 and majesty and nobility, 44–47 and tragedy, 47 appears when value appears, 53 Hitler-Manson objection, 68 Kantian, 31–33 levels of, 31 Singer objection, 70 discourse ethics 85, 87 doubling 137n

new definition of, 135–137 passive and active, 172–174 extinction, sixth 145

F

failed states 112–113 failure of nerve 3 Fermi paradox 4–5 Fisheries 145–146 forests, primary 167–168 freedom, in Kant 17, 31

G

Geneva Convention on refugees 86 genocide 176, 181 acts and instruments, 195 and design, 190–192 and personal identity, 196–198 and relocation, 190 and social death, 187–190 motivations for, 193 origin of concept, 177–181 U.N. Convention on, 185–187 versus mass murder, 182, 198–199 why evil, 184 greenhouse gases 149

E

EDCs 150 endangered species, and NGOs 104–105 restoration of, 166–170 superkilling, 171 epoche 65–66 evil 127–137 inversion characteristics, 134–137 inversion of civilization, 134–135

H

harm, four kinds 133–134 intolerable, 133 setback theory, 133–134 severity of, 133–134 HIPPO 162–165 homogenization of cultures 3–4 Hospitality, and Kant 20–23, 20–23

Subject Index

Immigrants & stateless, 85–86 Moroccan ideal, 84–85 Two types, 80–81 human fertility loss and EDCs 150

I

immigrants, cost of 89 fear of identity loss, 89 intentional strategy 53 intentions 64–65 International Criminal Court (ICC) 261–262

309

P

pain 119–120 Paris Agreement 149 Particulates 150 Passive wrongdoing 125 and the environment, 172 peace corps 93 peace federation 17, 19, 20 Perpetual Peace 15–23 Pesticides 157–160 plasticity in behavior 50–52 plastics, ban on 166 psychoanalysis 126 recovery ethics, 69 public reason 23

M

methane capture 166–167 moral rules and standards 121–123

N

needs 43n New England heath hen 56n NGOs 97–99, 101–103, 148, 227, 228, 261 and environment, 104, 169 and United Nations, 104

O

Oceans 141–144 and plastic waste, 147 deadly trio, 143 dumping, 143n future of, 144–145 melting ice, 144–145 overpopulation 107–109

R

Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) 100, 199 regards 66 republican government, Kant on 16 respect 77 rights of strangers 22

S

science, best method by far 140–141 self, cleansing of 37 self-control 64 Singer objection to dignity 70 Slavery, definition of 203–205 and corporations, 221–227 as parasitism, 206 child soldiers, 233–241 cosmopolitanism, 227–231 evil of, 205, 209 numbers of, 201–203 procuring of, 210–211

310

Subject Index

questions about, 202 types of, 211–227 United Kingdom Slavery Act, 228 Soil, structure of 154–156 compaction, 155, 168 sovereignty and transnational evils 99 species, methods for analyzing 160–162 sunshine principle 24 synchronous catastrophic causation 3

U

United Nations, beginning of 96 Charter, 97–98 Charter as world constitution, 101 Convention on Refugees, 86 Convention on Rights of the Child, 229 Environmental Council (COPRE), 104–105, 112 problems with, 96–98 Security Council, 100 solutions to problems, 99–105

T

terrorism, definition of 132 and cosmopolitanism, 261–263, 281–284 and evil, 278 bad philosophy, 280–281 history of, 266–267 justification of, 272–278 torture 132 and cosmopolitanism, 261 effectiveness of, 249–255 justifying, 257–261 nature of, 244–246 ticking bomb scenario, 257–259 torturer’s experiences, 255–256 victim’s experiences, 246–249 transcendental argument 35, 68, 244 transnational evils 1–2, 243

V

value, first appearance of 52 expanded values, 63 social values appear, 55 vices 127 von Neumann machines 5

W

war, Kant on 14–15 weapons, AK-47s 234 wood thrush 55n world community 92–94 wrongdoing, types 121–137