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Slide 1: Cyclopedia Of Philosophy 4th EDITION Sam Vaknin, Ph.D. Editing and Design: Lidija Rangelovska Lidija Rangelovska A Narcissus Publications Imprint, Skopje 2007 Not for Sale! Non-commercial edition.
Slide 2: © 2004-7 Copyright Lidija Rangelovska. All rights reserved. This book, or any part thereof, may not be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from: Lidija Rangelovska – write to: palma@unet.com.mk or to samvaknin@gmail.com Philosophical Essays and Musings: http://philosophos.tripod.com The Silver Lining – Ethical Dilemmas in Modern Films http://samvak.tripod.com/film.html Download free anthologies here: http://samvak.tripod.com/freebooks.html Created by: LIDIJA RANGELOVSKA REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
Slide 3: CONTENTS I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. A B C D E F G H I-J K L M N O P-Q R S T U-V-W X-Y-Z The Author
Slide 4: A Abortion I. The Right to Life It is a fundamental principle of most moral theories that all human beings have a right to life. The existence of a right implies obligations or duties of third parties towards the right-holder. One has a right AGAINST other people. The fact that one possesses a certain right - prescribes to others certain obligatory behaviours and proscribes certain acts or omissions. This Janus-like nature of rights and duties as two sides of the same ethical coin - creates great confusion. People often and easily confuse rights and their attendant duties or obligations with the morally decent, or even with the morally permissible. What one MUST do as a result of another's right - should never be confused with one SHOULD or OUGHT to do morally (in the absence of a right). The right to life has eight distinct strains: IA. The right to be brought to life IB. The right to be born IC. The right to have one's life maintained ID. The right not to be killed IE. The right to have one's life saved IF. The right to save one's life (erroneously limited to the right to self-defence) IG. The Right to terminate one's life
Slide 5: IH. The right to have one's life terminated IA. The Right to be Brought to Life Only living people have rights. There is a debate whether an egg is a living person - but there can be no doubt that it exists. Its rights - whatever they are - derive from the fact that it exists and that it has the potential to develop life. The right to be brought to life (the right to become or to be) pertains to a yet non-alive entity and, therefore, is null and void. Had this right existed, it would have implied an obligation or duty to give life to the unborn and the not yet conceived. No such duty or obligation exist. IB. The Right to be Born The right to be born crystallizes at the moment of voluntary and intentional fertilization. If a woman knowingly engages in sexual intercourse for the explicit and express purpose of having a child - then the resulting fertilized egg has a right to mature and be born. Furthermore, the born child has all the rights a child has against his parents: food, shelter, emotional nourishment, education, and so on. It is debatable whether such rights of the fetus and, later, of the child, exist if the fertilization was either involuntary (rape) or unintentional ("accidental" pregnancies). It would seem that the fetus has a right to be kept alive outside the mother's womb, if possible. But it is not clear whether it has a right to go on using the mother's body, or resources, or to burden her in any way in order to sustain its own life (see IC below). IC. The Right to have One's Life Maintained Does one have the right to maintain one's life and prolong
Slide 6: them at other people's expense? Does one have the right to use other people's bodies, their property, their time, their resources and to deprive them of pleasure, comfort, material possessions, income, or any other thing? The answer is yes and no. No one has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at another INDIVIDUAL's expense (no matter how minimal and insignificant the sacrifice required is). Still, if a contract has been signed - implicitly or explicitly - between the parties, then such a right may crystallize in the contract and create corresponding duties and obligations, moral, as well as legal. Example: No fetus has a right to sustain its life, maintain, or prolong them at his mother's expense (no matter how minimal and insignificant the sacrifice required of her is). Still, if she signed a contract with the fetus - by knowingly and willingly and intentionally conceiving it - such a right has crystallized and has created corresponding duties and obligations of the mother towards her fetus. On the other hand, everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at SOCIETY's expense (no matter how major and significant the resources required are). Still, if a contract has been signed implicitly or explicitly - between the parties, then the abrogation of such a right may crystallize in the contract and create corresponding duties and obligations, moral, as well as legal. Example: Everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or
Slide 7: prolong them at society's expense. Public hospitals, state pension schemes, and police forces may be required to fulfill society's obligations - but fulfill them it must, no matter how major and significant the resources are. Still, if a person volunteered to join the army and a contract has been signed between the parties, then this right has been thus abrogated and the individual assumed certain duties and obligations, including the duty or obligation to give up his or her life to society. ID. The Right not to be Killed Every person has the right not to be killed unjustly. What constitutes "just killing" is a matter for an ethical calculus in the framework of a social contract. But does A's right not to be killed include the right against third parties that they refrain from enforcing the rights of other people against A? Does A's right not to be killed preclude the righting of wrongs committed by A against others - even if the righting of such wrongs means the killing of A? Not so. There is a moral obligation to right wrongs (to restore the rights of other people). If A maintains or prolongs his life ONLY by violating the rights of others and these other people object to it - then A must be killed if that is the only way to right the wrong and re-assert their rights. IE. The Right to have One's Life Saved There is no such right as there is no corresponding moral obligation or duty to save a life. This "right" is a demonstration of the aforementioned muddle between the morally commendable, desirable and decent ("ought", "should") and the morally obligatory, the result of other
Slide 8: people's rights ("must"). In some countries, the obligation to save life is legally codified. But while the law of the land may create a LEGAL right and corresponding LEGAL obligations - it does not always or necessarily create a moral or an ethical right and corresponding moral duties and obligations. IF. The Right to Save One's Own Life The right to self-defence is a subset of the more general and all-pervasive right to save one's own life. One has the right to take certain actions or avoid taking certain actions in order to save his or her own life. It is generally accepted that one has the right to kill a pursuer who knowingly and intentionally intends to take one's life. It is debatable, though, whether one has the right to kill an innocent person who unknowingly and unintentionally threatens to take one's life. IG. The Right to Terminate One's Life See "The Murder of Oneself". IH. The Right to Have One's Life Terminated The right to euthanasia, to have one's life terminated at will, is restricted by numerous social, ethical, and legal rules, principles, and considerations. In a nutshell - in many countries in the West one is thought to has a right to have one's life terminated with the help of third parties if one is going to die shortly anyway and if one is going to be tormented and humiliated by great and debilitating agony for the rest of one's remaining life if not helped to die. Of course, for one's wish to be helped to die to be accommodated, one has to be in sound mind and to will
Slide 9: one's death knowingly, intentionally, and forcefully. II. Issues in the Calculus of Rights IIA. The Hierarchy of Rights All human cultures have hierarchies of rights. These hierarchies reflect cultural mores and lores and there cannot, therefore, be a universal, or eternal hierarchy. In Western moral systems, the Right to Life supersedes all other rights (including the right to one's body, to comfort, to the avoidance of pain, to property, etc.). Yet, this hierarchical arrangement does not help us to resolve cases in which there is a clash of EQUAL rights (for instance, the conflicting rights to life of two people). One way to decide among equally potent claims is randomly (by flipping a coin, or casting dice). Alternatively, we could add and subtract rights in a somewhat macabre arithmetic. If a mother's life is endangered by the continued existence of a fetus and assuming both of them have a right to life we can decide to kill the fetus by adding to the mother's right to life her right to her own body and thus outweighing the fetus' right to life. IIB. The Difference between Killing and Letting Die There is an assumed difference between killing (taking life) and letting die (not saving a life). This is supported by IE above. While there is a right not to be killed - there is no right to have one's own life saved. Thus, while there is an obligation not to kill - there is no obligation to save a life. IIC. Killing the Innocent
Slide 10: Often the continued existence of an innocent person (IP) threatens to take the life of a victim (V). By "innocent" we mean "not guilty" - not responsible for killing V, not intending to kill V, and not knowing that V will be killed due to IP's actions or continued existence. It is simple to decide to kill IP to save V if IP is going to die anyway shortly, and the remaining life of V, if saved, will be much longer than the remaining life of IP, if not killed. All other variants require a calculus of hierarchically weighted rights. (See "Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life" by Baruch A. Brody). One form of calculus is the utilitarian theory. It calls for the maximization of utility (life, happiness, pleasure). In other words, the life, happiness, or pleasure of the many outweigh the life, happiness, or pleasure of the few. It is morally permissible to kill IP if the lives of two or more people will be saved as a result and there is no other way to save their lives. Despite strong philosophical objections to some of the premises of utilitarian theory - I agree with its practical prescriptions. In this context - the dilemma of killing the innocent - one can also call upon the right to self defence. Does V have a right to kill IP regardless of any moral calculus of rights? Probably not. One is rarely justified in taking another's life to save one's own. But such behaviour cannot be condemned. Here we have the flip side of the confusion understandable and perhaps inevitable behaviour (self defence) is mistaken for a MORAL RIGHT. That most V's would kill IP and that we would all sympathize with V and understand its behaviour does not mean that V had a RIGHT to kill IP. V may have had a right to kill IP - but this right is not automatic, nor is it all-encompassing.
Slide 11: III. Abortion and the Social Contract The issue of abortion is emotionally loaded and this often makes for poor, not thoroughly thought out arguments. The questions: "Is abortion immoral" and "Is abortion a murder" are often confused. The pregnancy (and the resulting fetus) are discussed in terms normally reserved to natural catastrophes (force majeure). At times, the embryo is compared to cancer, a thief, or an invader: after all, they are both growths, clusters of cells. The difference, of course, is that no one contracts cancer willingly (except, to some extent, smokers -–but, then they gamble, not contract). When a woman engages in voluntary sex, does not use contraceptives and gets pregnant – one can say that she signed a contract with her fetus. A contract entails the demonstrated existence of a reasonably (and reasonable) free will. If the fulfillment of the obligations in a contract between individuals could be life-threatening – it is fair and safe to assume that no rational free will was involved. No reasonable person would sign or enter such a contract with another person (though most people would sign such contracts with society). Judith Jarvis Thomson argued convincingly ("A Defence of Abortion") that pregnancies that are the result of forced sex (rape being a special case) or which are life threatening should or could, morally, be terminated. Using the transactional language: the contract was not entered to willingly or reasonably and, therefore, is null and void. Any actions which are intended to terminate it and to annul its consequences should be legally and morally permissible. The same goes for a contract which was entered into
Slide 12: against the express will of one of the parties and despite all the reasonable measures that the unwilling party adopted to prevent it. If a mother uses contraceptives in a manner intended to prevent pregnancy, it is as good as saying: " I do not want to sign this contract, I am doing my reasonable best not to sign it, if it is signed – it is contrary to my express will". There is little legal (or moral) doubt that such a contract should be voided. Much more serious problems arise when we study the other party to these implicit agreements: the embryo. To start with, it lacks consciousness (in the sense that is needed for signing an enforceable and valid contract). Can a contract be valid even if one of the "signatories" lacks this sine qua non trait? In the absence of consciousness, there is little point in talking about free will (or rights which depend on sentience). So, is the contract not a contract at all? Does it not reflect the intentions of the parties? The answer is in the negative. The contract between a mother and her fetus is derived from the larger Social Contract. Society – through its apparatuses – stands for the embryo the same way that it represents minors, the mentally retarded, and the insane. Society steps in – and has the recognized right and moral obligation to do so – whenever the powers of the parties to a contract (implicit or explicit) are not balanced. It protects small citizens from big monopolies, the physically weak from the thug, the tiny opposition from the mighty administration, the barely surviving radio station from the claws of the devouring state mechanism. It also has the right and obligation to intervene, intercede and represent the unconscious: this is why euthanasia is absolutely forbidden without the consent of the dying person. There
Slide 13: is not much difference between the embryo and the comatose. A typical contract states the rights of the parties. It assumes the existence of parties which are "moral personhoods" or "morally significant persons" – in other words, persons who are holders of rights and can demand from us to respect these rights. Contracts explicitly elaborate some of these rights and leaves others unmentioned because of the presumed existence of the Social Contract. The typical contract assumes that there is a social contract which applies to the parties to the contract and which is universally known and, therefore, implicitly incorporated in every contract. Thus, an explicit contract can deal with the property rights of a certain person, while neglecting to mention that person's rights to life, to free speech, to the enjoyment the fruits of his lawful property and, in general to a happy life. There is little debate that the Mother is a morally significant person and that she is a rights-holder. All born humans are and, more so, all adults above a certain age. But what about the unborn fetus? One approach is that the embryo has no rights until certain conditions are met and only upon their fulfillment is he transformed into a morally significant person ("moral agent"). Opinions differ as to what are the conditions. Rationality, or a morally meaningful and valued life are some of the oft cited criteria. The fallaciousness of this argument is easy to demonstrate: children are irrational – is this a licence to commit infanticide? A second approach says that a person has the right to life because it desires it.
Slide 14: But then what about chronic depressives who wish to die – do we have the right to terminate their miserable lives? The good part of life (and, therefore, the differential and meaningful test) is in the experience itself – not in the desire to experience. Another variant says that a person has the right to life because once his life is terminated – his experiences cease. So, how should we judge the right to life of someone who constantly endures bad experiences (and, as a result, harbors a death wish)? Should he better be "terminated"? Having reviewed the above arguments and counterarguments, Don Marquis goes on (in "Why Abortion is Immoral", 1989) to offer a sharper and more comprehensive criterion: terminating a life is morally wrong because a person has a future filled with value and meaning, similar to ours. But the whole debate is unnecessary. There is no conflict between the rights of the mother and those of her fetus because there is never a conflict between parties to an agreement. By signing an agreement, the mother gave up some of her rights and limited the others. This is normal practice in contracts: they represent compromises, the optimization (and not the maximization) of the parties' rights and wishes. The rights of the fetus are an inseparable part of the contract which the mother signed voluntarily and reasonably. They are derived from the mother's behaviour. Getting willingly pregnant (or assuming the risk of getting pregnant by not using contraceptives reasonably) – is the behaviour which validates and ratifies a contract between her and the fetus. Many contracts are by behaviour, rather than by a signed piece of paper. Numerous contracts are verbal or
Slide 15: behavioural. These contracts, though implicit, are as binding as any of their written, more explicit, brethren. Legally (and morally) the situation is crystal clear: the mother signed some of her rights away in this contract. Even if she regrets it – she cannot claim her rights back by annulling the contract unilaterally. No contract can be annulled this way – the consent of both parties is required. Many times we realize that we have entered a bad contract, but there is nothing much that we can do about it. These are the rules of the game. Thus the two remaining questions: (a) can this specific contract (pregnancy) be annulled and, if so (b) in which circumstances – can be easily settled using modern contract law. Yes, a contract can be annulled and voided if signed under duress, involuntarily, by incompetent persons (e.g., the insane), or if one of the parties made a reasonable and full scale attempt to prevent its signature, thus expressing its clear will not to sign the contract. It is also terminated or voided if it would be unreasonable to expect one of the parties to see it through. Rape, contraception failure, life threatening situations are all such cases. This could be argued against by saying that, in the case of economic hardship, f or instance, the damage to the mother's future is certain. True, her value- filled, meaningful future is granted – but so is the detrimental effect that the fetus will have on it, once born. This certainty cannot be balanced by the UNCERTAIN valuefilled future life of the embryo. Always, preferring an uncertain good to a certain evil is morally wrong. But surely this is a quantitative matter – not a qualitative one. Certain, limited aspects of the rest of the mother's life will be adversely effected (and can be ameliorated by society's
Slide 16: helping hand and intervention) if she does have the baby. The decision not to have it is both qualitatively and qualitatively different. It is to deprive the unborn of all the aspects of all his future life – in which he might well have experienced happiness, values, and meaning. The questions whether the fetus is a Being or a growth of cells, conscious in any manner, or utterly unconscious, able to value his life and to want them – are all but irrelevant. He has the potential to lead a happy, meaningful, value-filled life, similar to ours, very much as a one minute old baby does. The contract between him and his mother is a service provision contract. She provides him with goods and services that he requires in order to materialize his potential. It sounds very much like many other human contracts. And this contract continue well after pregnancy has ended and birth given. Consider education: children do not appreciate its importance or value its potential – still, it is enforced upon them because we, who are capable of those feats, want them to have the tools that they will need in order to develop their potential. In this and many other respects, the human pregnancy continues well into the fourth year of life (physiologically it continues in to the second year of life - see "Born Alien"). Should the location of the pregnancy (in uterus, in vivo) determine its future? If a mother has the right to abort at will, why should the mother be denied her right to terminate the " pregnancy" AFTER the fetus emerges and the pregnancy continues OUTSIDE her womb? Even after birth, the woman's body is the main source of food to the baby and, in any case, she has to endure physical hardship to raise the child. Why not extend the woman's ownership of her body and right to it further in time and space to the post-natal
Slide 17: period? Contracts to provide goods and services (always at a personal cost to the provider) are the commonest of contracts. We open a business. We sell a software application, we publish a book – we engage in helping others to materialize their potential. We should always do so willingly and reasonably – otherwise the contracts that we sign will be null and void. But to deny anyone his capacity to materialize his potential and the goods and services that he needs to do so – after a valid contract was entered into - is immoral. To refuse to provide a service or to condition it provision (Mother: " I will provide the goods and services that I agreed to provide to this fetus under this contract only if and when I benefit from such provision") is a violation of the contract and should be penalized. Admittedly, at times we have a right to choose to do the immoral (because it has not been codified as illegal) – but that does not turn it into moral. Still, not every immoral act involving the termination of life can be classified as murder. Phenomenology is deceiving: the acts look the same (cessation of life functions, the prevention of a future). But murder is the intentional termination of the life of a human who possesses, at the moment of death, a consciousness (and, in most cases, a free will, especially the will not to die). Abortion is the intentional termination of a life which has the potential to develop into a person with consciousness and free will. Philosophically, no identity can be established between potential and actuality. The destruction of paints and cloth is not tantamount (not to say identical) to the destruction of a painting by Van Gogh, made up of these very elements. Paints and cloth are converted to a painting through the intermediacy and
Slide 18: agency of the Painter. A cluster of cells a human makes only through the agency of Nature. Surely, the destruction of the painting materials constitutes an offence against the Painter. In the same way, the destruction of the fetus constitutes an offence against Nature. But there is no denying that in both cases, no finished product was eliminated. Naturally, this becomes less and less so (the severity of the terminating act increases) as the process of creation advances. Classifying an abortion as murder poses numerous and insurmountable philosophical problems. No one disputes the now common view that the main crime committed in aborting a pregnancy – is a crime against potentialities. If so, what is the philosophical difference between aborting a fetus and destroying a sperm and an egg? These two contain all the information (=all the potential) and their destruction is philosophically no less grave than the destruction of a fetus. The destruction of an egg and a sperm is even more serious philosophically: the creation of a fetus limits the set of all potentials embedded in the genetic material to the one fetus created. The egg and sperm can be compared to the famous wave function (state vector) in quantum mechanics – the represent millions of potential final states (=millions of potential embryos and lives). The fetus is the collapse of the wave function: it represents a much more limited set of potentials. If killing an embryo is murder because of the elimination of potentials – how should we consider the intentional elimination of many more potentials through masturbation and contraception? The argument that it is difficult to say which sperm cell will impregnate the egg is not serious. Biologically, it does not matter – they all carry the same genetic
Slide 19: content. Moreover, would this counter-argument still hold if, in future, we were be able to identify the chosen one and eliminate only it? In many religions (Catholicism) contraception is murder. In Judaism, masturbation is "the corruption of the seed" and such a serious offence that it is punishable by the strongest religious penalty: eternal excommunication ("Karet"). If abortion is indeed murder how should we resolve the following moral dilemmas and questions (some of them patently absurd): Is a natural abortion the equivalent of manslaughter (through negligence)? Do habits like smoking, drug addiction, vegetarianism – infringe upon the right to life of the embryo? Do they constitute a violation of the contract? Reductio ad absurdum: if, in the far future, research will unequivocally prove that listening to a certain kind of music or entertaining certain thoughts seriously hampers the embryonic development – should we apply censorship to the Mother? Should force majeure clauses be introduced to the Mother-Embryo pregnancy contract? Will they give the mother the right to cancel the contract? Will the embryo have a right to terminate the contract? Should the asymmetry persist: the Mother will have no right to terminate – but the embryo will, or vice versa? Being a rights holder, can the embryo (=the State) litigate against his Mother or Third Parties (the doctor that aborted him, someone who hit his mother and brought about a natural abortion) even after he died?
Slide 20: Should anyone who knows about an abortion be considered an accomplice to murder? If abortion is murder – why punish it so mildly? Why is there a debate regarding this question? "Thou shalt not kill" is a natural law, it appears in virtually every legal system. It is easily and immediately identifiable. The fact that abortion does not "enjoy" the same legal and moral treatment says a lot. Absence That which does not exist - cannot be criticized. We can pass muster only on that which exists. When we say "this is missing" - we really mean to say: "there is something that IS NOT in this, which IS." Absence is discernible only against the background of existence. Criticism is aimed at changing. In other words, it relates to what is missing. But it is no mere sentence, or proposition. It is an assertion. It is goal-oriented. It strives to alter that which exists with regards to its quantity, its quality, its functions, or its program / vision. All these parameters of change cannot relate to absolute absence. They emanate from the existence of an entity. Something must exist as a precondition. Only then can criticism be aired: "(In that which exists), the quantity, quality, or functions are wrong, lacking, altogether missing". The common error - that we criticize the absent - is the outcome of the use made of an ideal. We compare that which exists with a Platonic Idea or Form (which, according to modern thinking, does not REALLY exist). We feel that the criticism is the product not of the process of comparison - but of these ideal Ideas or Forms. Since they do not exist - the thing criticized is felt not to exist, either.
Slide 21: But why do we assign the critical act and its outcomes not to the real - but to the ideal? Because the ideal is judged to be preferable, superior, a criterion of measurement, a yardstick of perfection. Naturally, we will be inclined to regard it as the source, rather than as the by-product, or as the finished product (let alone as the raw material) of the critical process. To refute this intuitive assignment is easy: criticism is always quantitative. At the least, it can always be translated into quantitative measures, or expressed in quantitative-propositions. This is a trait of the real - never of the ideal. That which emanates from the ideal is not likely to be quantitative. Therefore, criticism must be seen to be the outcome of the interaction between the real and the ideal - rather than as the absolute emanation from either. Achievement If a comatose person were to earn an interest of 1 million USD annually on the sum paid to him as compensatory damages – would this be considered an achievement of his? To succeed to earn 1 million USD is universally judged to be an achievement. But to do so while comatose will almost as universally not be counted as one. It would seem that a person has to be both conscious and intelligent to have his achievements qualify. Even these conditions, though necessary, are not sufficient. If a totally conscious (and reasonably intelligent) person were to accidentally unearth a treasure trove and thus be transformed into a multi-billionaire – his stumbling across a fortune will not qualify as an achievement. A lucky turn of events does not an achievement make. A person must be intent on achieving to have his deeds classified as achievements. Intention is a paramount criterion in the classification of events and
Slide 22: actions, as any intensionalist philosopher will tell you. Supposing a conscious and intelligent person has the intention to achieve a goal. He then engages in a series of absolutely random and unrelated actions, one of which yields the desired result. Will we then say that our person is an achiever? Not at all. It is not enough to intend. One must proceed to produce a plan of action, which is directly derived from the overriding goal. Such a plan of action must be seen to be reasonable and pragmatic and leading – with great probability – to the achievement. In other words: the plan must involve a prognosis, a prediction, a forecast, which can be either verified or falsified. Attaining an achievement involves the construction of an ad-hoc mini theory. Reality has to be thoroughly surveyed, models constructed, one of them selected (on empirical or aesthetic grounds), a goal formulated, an experiment performed and a negative (failure) or positive (achievement) result obtained. Only if the prediction turns out to be correct can we speak of an achievement. Our would-be achiever is thus burdened by a series of requirements. He must be conscious, must possess a wellformulated intention, must plan his steps towards the attainment of his goal, and must correctly predict the results of his actions. But planning alone is not sufficient. One must carry out one's plan of action (from mere plan to actual action). An effort has to be seen to be invested (which must be commensurate with the achievement sought and with the qualities of the achiever). If a person consciously intends to obtain a university degree and constructs a plan of action, which involves bribing the professors into
Slide 23: conferring one upon him – this will not be considered an achievement. To qualify as an achievement, a university degree entails a continuous and strenuous effort. Such an effort is commensurate with the desired result. If the person involved is gifted – less effort will be expected of him. The expected effort is modified to reflect the superior qualities of the achiever. Still, an effort, which is deemed to be inordinately or irregularly small (or big!) will annul the standing of the action as an achievement. Moreover, the effort invested must be seen to be continuous, part of an unbroken pattern, bounded and guided by a clearly defined, transparent plan of action and by a declared intention. Otherwise, the effort will be judged to be random, devoid of meaning, haphazard, arbitrary, capricious, etc. – which will erode the achievement status of the results of the actions. This, really, is the crux of the matter: the results are much less important than the coherent, directional, patterns of action. It is the pursuit that matters, the hunt more than the game and the game more than victory or gains. Serendipity cannot underlie an achievement. These are the internal-epistemological-cognitive determinants as they are translated into action. But whether an event or action is an achievement or not also depends on the world itself, the substrate of the actions. An achievement must bring about change. Changes occur or are reported to have occurred – as in the acquisition of knowledge or in mental therapy where we have no direct observational access to the events and we have to rely on testimonials. If they do not occur (or are not reported to have occurred) – there would be no meaning to the word achievement. In an entropic, stagnant world – no achievement is ever possible. Moreover: the mere
Slide 24: occurrence of change is grossly inadequate. The change must be irreversible or, at least, induce irreversibility, or have irreversible effects. Consider Sisyphus: forever changing his environment (rolling that stone up the mountain slope). He is conscious, is possessed of intention, plans his actions and diligently and consistently carries them out. He is always successful at achieving his goals. Yet, his achievements are reversed by the spiteful gods. He is doomed to forever repeat his actions, thus rendering them meaningless. Meaning is linked to irreversible change, without it, it is not to be found. Sisyphean acts are meaningless and Sisyphus has no achievements to talk about. Irreversibility is linked not only to meaning, but also to free will and to the lack of coercion or oppression. Sisyphus is not his own master. He is ruled by others. They have the power to reverse the results of his actions and, thus, to annul them altogether. If the fruits of our labour are at the mercy of others – we can never guarantee their irreversibility and, therefore, can never be sure to achieve anything. If we have no free will – we can have no real plans and intentions and if our actions are determined elsewhere – their results are not ours and nothing like achievement exists but in the form of self delusion. We see that to amply judge the status of our actions and of their results, we must be aware of many incidental things. The context is critical: what were the circumstances, what could have been expected, what are the measures of planning and of intention, of effort and of perseverance which would have "normally" been called for, etc. Labelling a complex of actions and results "an achievement" requires social judgement and social
Slide 25: recognition. Take breathing: no one considers this to be an achievement unless Stephen Hawking is involved. Society judges the fact that Hawking is still (mentally and sexually) alert to be an outstanding achievement. The sentence: "an invalid is breathing" would be categorized as an achievement only by informed members of a community and subject to the rules and the ethos of said community. It has no "objective" or ontological weight. Events and actions are classified as achievements, in other words, as a result of value judgements within given historical, psychological and cultural contexts. Judgement has to be involved: are the actions and their results negative or positive in the said contexts. Genocide, for instance, would have not qualified as an achievement in the USA – but it would have in the ranks of the SS. Perhaps to find a definition of achievement which is independent of social context would be the first achievement to be considered as such anywhere, anytime, by everyone. Affiliation and Morality The Anglo-Saxon members of the motley "Coalition of the Willing" were proud of their aircraft's and missiles' "surgical" precision. The legal (and moral) imperative to spare the lives of innocent civilians was well observed, they bragged. "Collateral damage" was minimized. They were lucky to have confronted a dilapidated enemy. Precision bombing is expensive, in terms of lives - of fighter pilots. Military planners are well aware that there is a hushed trade-off between civilian and combatant casualties. This dilemma is both ethical and practical. It is often "resolved" by applying - explicitly or implicitly - the
Slide 26: principle of "over-riding affiliation". As usual, Judaism was there first, agonizing over similar moral conflicts. Two Jewish sayings amount to a reluctant admission of the relativity of moral calculus: "One is close to oneself" and "Your city's poor denizens come first (with regards to charity)". One's proper conduct, in other words, is decided by one's self-interest and by one's affiliations. Affiliation (to a community, or a fraternity), in turn, is determined by one's positions and, more so, perhaps, by one's oppositions. What are these "positions" and "oppositions"? The most fundamental position - from which all others are derived - is the positive statement "I am a human being". Belonging to the human race is an immutable and inalienable position. Denying this leads to horrors such as the Holocaust. The Nazis did not regard as humans the Jews, the Slavs, homosexuals, and other minorities - so they sought to exterminate them. All other, synthetic, positions are made of couples of positive and negative statements with the structure "I am and I am not". But there is an important asymmetry at the heart of this neat arrangement. The negative statements in each couple are fully derived from - and thus are entirely dependent on and implied by the positive statements. Not so the positive statements. They cannot be derived from, or be implied by, the negative one. Lest we get distractingly abstract, let us consider an example.
Slide 27: Study the couple "I am an Israeli" and "I am not a Syrian". Assuming that there are 220 countries and territories, the positive statement "I am an Israeli" implies about 220 certain (true) negative statements. You can derive each and every one of these negative statements from the positive statement. You can thus create 220 perfectly valid couples. "I am an Israeli ..." Therefore: "I am not ... (a citizen of country X, which is not Israel)". You can safely derive the true statement "I am not a Syrian" from the statement "I am an Israeli". Can I derive the statement "I am an Israeli" from the statement "I am not a Syrian"? Not with any certainty. The negative statement "I am not a Syrian" implies 220 possible positive statements of the type "I am ... (a citizen of country X, which is not India)", including the statement "I am an Israeli". "I am not a Syrian and I am a citizen of ... (220 possibilities)" Negative statements can be derived with certainty from any positive statement. Negative statements as well as positive statements cannot be derived with certainty from any negative statement. This formal-logical trait reflects a deep psychological reality with unsettling consequences.
Slide 28: A positive statement about one's affiliation ("I am an Israeli") immediately generates 220 certain negative statements (such as "I am not a Syrian"). One's positive self-definition automatically excludes all others by assigning to them negative values. "I am" always goes with "I am not". The positive self-definitions of others, in turn, negate one's self-definition. Statements about one's affiliation are inevitably exclusionary. It is possible for many people to share the same positive self-definition. About 6 million people can truly say "I am an Israeli". Affiliation - to a community, fraternity, nation, state, religion, or team - is really a positive statement of selfdefinition ("I am an Israeli", for instance) shared by all the affiliated members (the affiliates). One's moral obligations towards one's affiliates override and supersede one's moral obligations towards nonaffiliated humans. Thus, an American's moral obligation to safeguard the lives of American fighter pilots overrides and supersedes (subordinates) his moral obligation to save the lives of innocent civilians, however numerous, if they are not Americans. The larger the number of positive self-definitions I share with someone (i.e., the more affiliations we have in common) , the larger and more overriding is my moral obligation to him or her.
Slide 29: Example: I have moral obligations towards all other humans because I share with them my affiliation to the human species. But my moral obligations towards my countrymen supersede these obligation. I share with my compatriots two affiliations rather than one. We are all members of the human race - but we are also citizens of the same state. This patriotism, in turn, is superseded by my moral obligation towards the members of my family. With them I share a third affiliation - we are all members of the same clan. I owe the utmost to myself. With myself I share all the aforementioned affiliations plus one: the affiliation to the one member club that is me. But this scheme raises some difficulties. We postulated that the strength of one's moral obligations towards other people is determined by the number of positive self-definitions ("affiliations") he shares with them. Moral obligations are, therefore, contingent. They are, indeed, the outcomes of interactions with others - but not in the immediate sense, as the personalist philosopher Emmanuel Levinas suggested. Rather, ethical principles, rights, and obligations are merely the solutions yielded by a moral calculus of shared affiliations. Think about them as matrices with specific moral values and obligations attached to the numerical strengths of one's affiliations.
Slide 30: Some moral obligations are universal and are the outcomes of one's organic position as a human being (the "basic affiliation"). These are the "transcendent moral values". Other moral values and obligations arise only as the number of shared affiliations increases. These are the "derivative moral values". Moreover, it would wrong to say that moral values and obligations "accumulate", or that the more fundamental ones are the strongest. On the very contrary. The universal ethical principles - the ones related to one's position as a human being - are the weakest. They are subordinate to derivative moral values and obligations yielded by one's affiliations. The universal imperative "thou shall not kill (another human being)" is easily over-ruled by the moral obligation to kill for one's country. The imperative "though shall not steal" is superseded by one's moral obligation to spy for one's nation. Treason is when we prefer universal ethical principles to derivatives ones, dictated by our affiliation (citizenship). This leads to another startling conclusion: There is no such thing as a self-consistent moral system. Moral values and obligations often contradict and conflict with each other. In the examples above, killing (for one's country) and stealing (for one's nation) are moral obligations, the outcomes of the application of derivative moral values. Yet, they contradict the universal moral value of the sanctity of life and property and the universal moral
Slide 31: obligation not to kill. Hence, killing the non-affiliated (civilians of another country) to defend one's own (fighter pilots) is morally justified. It violates some fundamental principles - but upholds higher moral obligations, to one's kin and kith. Note - The Exclusionary Conscience The self-identity of most nation-states is exclusionary and oppositional: to generate solidarity, a sense of shared community, and consensus, an ill-defined "we" is unfavorably contrasted with a fuzzy "they". While hate speech has been largely outlawed the world over, these often counterfactual dichotomies between "us" and "them" still reign supreme. In extreme - though surprisingly frequent - cases, whole groups (typically minorities) are excluded from the nation's moral universe and from the ambit of civil society. Thus, they are rendered "invisible", "subhuman", and unprotected by laws, institutions, and ethics. This process of distancing and dehumanization I call "exclusionary conscience". The most recent examples are the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Holocaust of the Jews in Nazi Germany's Third Reich, and the Armenian Genocide in Turkey. Radical Islamists are now advocating the mass slaughter of Westerners, particularly of Americans and Israelis, regardless of age, gender, and alleged culpability. But the phenomenon of exclusionary conscience far predates these horrendous events. In the Bible, the ancient Hebrews are instructed to exterminate all Amalekites, men, women, and children. In her book, "The Nazi Conscience", Claudia Koontz
Slide 32: quotes from Freud's "Civilization and its Discontents": "If (the Golden Rule of morality) commanded 'Love thy neighbor as thy neighbor loves thee', I should not take exception to it. If he is a stranger to me ... it will be hard for me to love him." (p. 5) Agent-Principal Problem In the catechism of capitalism, shares represent the partownership of an economic enterprise, usually a firm. The value of shares is determined by the replacement value of the assets of the firm, including intangibles such as goodwill. The price of the share is determined by transactions among arm's length buyers and sellers in an efficient and liquid market. The price reflects expectations regarding the future value of the firm and the stock's future stream of income - i.e., dividends. Alas, none of these oft-recited dogmas bears any resemblance to reality. Shares rarely represent ownership. The float - the number of shares available to the public - is frequently marginal. Shareholders meet once a year to vent and disperse. Boards of directors are appointed by management - as are auditors. Shareholders are not represented in any decision making process - small or big. The dismal truth is that shares reify the expectation to find future buyers at a higher price and thus incur capital gains. In the Ponzi scheme known as the stock exchange, this expectation is proportional to liquidity - new suckers - and volatility. Thus, the price of any given stock reflects merely the consensus as to how easy it would be to offload one's holdings and at what price. Another myth has to do with the role of managers. They
Slide 33: are supposed to generate higher returns to shareholders by increasing the value of the firm's assets and, therefore, of the firm. If they fail to do so, goes the moral tale, they are booted out mercilessly. This is one manifestation of the "Principal-Agent Problem". It is defined thus by the Oxford Dictionary of Economics: "The problem of how a person A can motivate person B to act for A's benefit rather than following (his) selfinterest." The obvious answer is that A can never motivate B not to follow B's self-interest - never mind what the incentives are. That economists pretend otherwise - in "optimal contracting theory" - just serves to demonstrate how divorced economics is from human psychology and, thus, from reality. Managers will always rob blind the companies they run. They will always manipulate boards to collude in their shenanigans. They will always bribe auditors to bend the rules. In other words, they will always act in their selfinterest. In their defense, they can say that the damage from such actions to each shareholder is minuscule while the benefits to the manager are enormous. In other words, this is the rational, self-interested, thing to do. But why do shareholders cooperate with such corporate brigandage? In an important Chicago Law Review article whose preprint was posted to the Web a few weeks ago titled "Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation" - the authors demonstrate how the typical stock option granted to managers as part of their remuneration rewards mediocrity rather than encourages excellence.
Slide 34: But everything falls into place if we realize that shareholders and managers are allied against the firm - not pitted against each other. The paramount interest of both shareholders and managers is to increase the value of the stock - regardless of the true value of the firm. Both are concerned with the performance of the share - rather than the performance of the firm. Both are preoccupied with boosting the share's price - rather than the company's business. Hence the inflationary executive pay packets. Shareholders hire stock manipulators - euphemistically known as "managers" - to generate expectations regarding the future prices of their shares. These snake oil salesmen and snake charmers - the corporate executives - are allowed by shareholders to loot the company providing they generate consistent capital gains to their masters by provoking persistent interest and excitement around the business. Shareholders, in other words, do not behave as owners of the firm - they behave as free-riders. The Principal-Agent Problem arises in other social interactions and is equally misunderstood there. Consider taxpayers and their government. Contrary to conservative lore, the former want the government to tax them providing they share in the spoils. They tolerate corruption in high places, cronyism, nepotism, inaptitude and worse - on condition that the government and the legislature redistribute the wealth they confiscate. Such redistribution often comes in the form of pork barrel projects and benefits to the middle-class. This is why the tax burden and the government's share of GDP have been soaring inexorably with the consent of the citizenry. People adore government spending precisely because it is inefficient and distorts the proper allocation
Slide 35: of economic resources. The vast majority of people are rent-seekers. Witness the mass demonstrations that erupt whenever governments try to slash expenditures, privatize, and eliminate their gaping deficits. This is one reason the IMF with its austerity measures is universally unpopular. Employers and employees, producers and consumers these are all instances of the Principal-Agent Problem. Economists would do well to discard their models and go back to basics. They could start by asking: Why do shareholders acquiesce with executive malfeasance as long as share prices are rising? Why do citizens protest against a smaller government even though it means lower taxes? Could it mean that the interests of shareholders and managers are identical? Does it imply that people prefer tax-and-spend governments and pork barrel politics to the Thatcherite alternative? Nothing happens by accident or by coercion. Shareholders aided and abetted the current crop of corporate executives enthusiastically. They knew well what was happening. They may not have been aware of the exact nature and extent of the rot - but they witnessed approvingly the public relations antics, insider trading, stock option resetting , unwinding, and unloading, share price manipulation, opaque transactions, and outlandish pay packages. Investors remained mum throughout the corruption of corporate America. It is time for the hangover. Althusser – See: Interpellation
Slide 36: Anarchism "The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface." Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963), British writer I. Overview of Theories of Anarchism Politics, in all its forms, has failed. The notion that we can safely and successfully hand over the management of our daily lives and the setting of priorities to a political class or elite is thoroughly discredited. Politicians cannot be trusted, regardless of the system in which they operate. No set of constraints, checks, and balances, is proved to work and mitigate their unconscionable acts and the pernicious effects these have on our welfare and longevity. Ideologies - from the benign to the malign and from the divine to the pedestrian - have driven the gullible human race to the verge of annihilation and back. Participatory democracies have degenerated everywhere into venal plutocracies. Socialism and its poisoned fruits - MarxismLeninism, Stalinism, Maoism - have wrought misery on a scale unprecedented even by medieval standards. Only Fascism and Nazism compare with them unfavorably. The idea of the nation-state culminated in the Yugoslav succession wars. It is time to seriously consider a much-derided and decried alternative: anarchism. Anarchism is often mistaken for left-wing thinking or the advocacy of anarchy. It is neither. If anything, the
Slide 37: libertarian strain in anarchism makes it closer to the right. Anarchism is an umbrella term covering disparate social and political theories - among them classic or cooperative anarchism (postulated by William Godwin and, later, Pierre Joseph Proudhon), radical individualism (Max Stirner), religious anarchism (Leo Tolstoy), anarchocommunism (Kropotkin) and anarcho-syndicalism, educational anarchism (Paul Goodman), and communitarian anarchism (Daniel Guerin). The narrow (and familiar) form of political anarchism springs from the belief that human communities can survive and thrive through voluntary cooperation, without a coercive central government. Politics corrupt and subvert Man's good and noble nature. Governments are instruments of self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement, and the reification and embodiment of said subversion. The logical outcome is to call for the overthrow of all political systems, as Michael Bakunin suggested. Governments should therefore be opposed by any and all means, including violent action. What should replace the state? There is little agreement among anarchists: biblical authority (Tolstoy), self-regulating co-opertaives of craftsmen (Proudhon), a federation of voluntary associations (Bakunin), trade unions (anarchosyndicalists), ideal communism (Kropotkin). What is common to this smorgasbord is the affirmation of freedom as the most fundamental value. Justice, equality, and welfare cannot be sustained without it. The state and its oppressive mechanisms is incompatible with it. Figures of authority and the ruling classes are bound to abuse their remit and use the instruments of government to further and enforce their own interests. The state is conceived and laws are enacted for this explicit purpose of gross and
Slide 38: unjust exploitation. The state perpetrates violence and is the cause rather than the cure of most social ills. Anarchists believe that human beings are perfectly capable of rational self-government. In the Utopia of anarchism, individuals choose to belong to society (or to exclude themselves from it). Rules are adopted by agreement of all the members/citizens through direct participation in voting. Similar to participatory democracy, holders of offices can be recalled by constituents. It is important to emphasize that: " ... (A)narchism does not preclude social organization, social order or rules, the appropriate delegation of authority, or even of certain forms of government, as long as this is distinguished from the state and as long as it is administrative and not oppressive, coercive, or bureaucratic." (Honderich, Ted, ed. - The Oxford Companion to Philosophy - Oxford University Press, New York, 1995 p. 31) Anarchists are not opposed to organization, law and order, or the existence of authority. They are against the usurpation of power by individuals or by classes (groups) of individuals for personal gain through the subjugation and exploitation (however subtle and disguised) of other, less fortunate people. Every social arrangement and institution should be put to the dual acid tests of personal autonomy and freedom and moral law. If it fails either of the two it should be promptly abolished. II. Contradictions in Anarchism
Slide 39: Anarchism is not prescriptive. Anarchists believe that the voluntary members of each and every society should decide the details of the order and functioning of their own community. Consequently, anarchism provides no coherent recipe on how to construct the ideal community. This, of course, is its Achilles' heel. Consider crime. Anarchists of all stripes agree that people have the right to exercise self-defense by organizing voluntarily to suppress malfeasance and put away criminals. Yet, is this not the very quiddity of the oppressive state, its laws, police, prisons, and army? Are the origins of the coercive state and its justification not firmly rooted in the need to confront evil? Some anarchists believe in changing society through violence. Are these anarcho-terrorists criminals or freedom fighters? If they are opposed by voluntary grassroots (vigilante) organizations in the best of anarchist tradition - should they fight back and thus frustrate the authentic will of the people whose welfare they claim to be seeking? Anarchism is a chicken and egg proposition. It is predicated on people's well-developed sense of responsibility and grounded in their "natural morality". Yet, all anarchists admit that these endowments are decimated by millennia of statal repression. Life in anarchism is, therefore, aimed at restoring the very preconditions to life in anarchism. Anarchism seeks to restore its constituents' ethical constitution - without which there can be no anarchism in the first place. This self-defeating bootstrapping leads to convoluted and halfbaked transitory phases between the nation-state and pure anarchism (hence anarcho-syndicalism and some forms of proto-Communism).
Slide 40: Primitivist and green anarchists reject technology, globalization, and capitalism as well as the state. Yet, globalization, technology, (and capitalism) are as much in opposition to the classical, hermetic nation-state as is philosophical anarchism. They are manifestly less coercive and more voluntary, too. This blanket defiance of everything modern introduces insoluble contradictions into the theory and practice of late twentieth century anarchism. Indeed, the term anarchism has been trivialized and debauched. Animal rights activists, environmentalists, feminists, peasant revolutionaries, and techno-punk performers all claim to be anarchists with equal conviction and equal falsity. III. Reclaiming Anarchism Errico Malatesta and Voltairine de Cleyre distilled the essence of anarchism to encompass all the philosophies that oppose the state and abhor capitalism ("anarchism without adjectives"). At a deeper level, anarchism wishes to identify and rectify social asymmetries. The state, men, and the rich - are, respectively, more powerful than the individuals, women, and the poor. These are three inequalities out of many. It is the task of anarchism to fight against them. This can be done in either of two ways: 1. By violently dismantling existing structures and institutions and replacing them with voluntary, selfregulating organizations of free individuals. The Zapatistas movement in Mexico is an attempt to do just that. 2. Or, by creating voluntary, self-regulating organizations
Slide 41: of free individuals whose functions parallel those of established hierarchies and institutions ("dual power"). Gradually, the former will replace the latter. The evolution of certain non-government organizations follows this path. Whichever strategy is adopted, it is essential to first identify those asymmetries that underlie all others ("primary asymmetries" vs. "secondary asymmetries"). Most anarchists point at the state and at the ownership of property as the primary asymmetries. The state is an asymmetrical transfer of power from the individual to a coercive and unjust social hyperstructure. Property represents the disproportionate accumulation of wealth by certain individuals. Crime is merely the natural reaction to these glaring injustices. But the state and property are secondary asymmetries, not primary ones. There have been periods in human history and there have been cultures devoid of either or both. The primary asymmetry seems to be natural: some people are born more clever and stronger than others. The game is skewed in their favor not because of some sinister conspiracy but because they merit it (meritocracy is the foundation stone of capitalism), or because they can force themselves, their wishes, and their priorities and preferences on others, or because their adherents and followers believe that rewarding their leaders will maximize their own welfare (aggression and self-interest are the cornerstone of all social organizations). It is this primary asymmetry that anarchism must address. Anarchy (as Organizing Principle) The recent spate of accounting fraud scandals signals the
Slide 42: end of an era. Disillusionment and disenchantment with American capitalism may yet lead to a tectonic ideological shift from laissez faire and self regulation to state intervention and regulation. This would be the reversal of a trend dating back to Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the USA. It would also cast some fundamental and way more ancient - tenets of free-marketry in grave doubt. Markets are perceived as self-organizing, self-assembling, exchanges of information, goods, and services. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is the sum of all the mechanisms whose interaction gives rise to the optimal allocation of economic resources. The market's great advantages over central planning are precisely its randomness and its lack of self-awareness. Market participants go about their egoistic business, trying to maximize their utility, oblivious of the interests and action of all, bar those they interact with directly. Somehow, out of the chaos and clamor, a structure emerges of order and efficiency unmatched. Man is incapable of intentionally producing better outcomes. Thus, any intervention and interference are deemed to be detrimental to the proper functioning of the economy. It is a minor step from this idealized worldview back to the Physiocrats, who preceded Adam Smith, and who propounded the doctrine of "laissez faire, laissez passer" the hands-off battle cry. Theirs was a natural religion. The market, as an agglomeration of individuals, they thundered, was surely entitled to enjoy the rights and freedoms accorded to each and every person. John Stuart Mill weighed against the state's involvement in the economy in his influential and exquisitely-timed "Principles of Political Economy", published in 1848.
Slide 43: Undaunted by mounting evidence of market failures - for instance to provide affordable and plentiful public goods this flawed theory returned with a vengeance in the last two decades of the past century. Privatization, deregulation, and self-regulation became faddish buzzwords and part of a global consensus propagated by both commercial banks and multilateral lenders. As applied to the professions - to accountants, stock brokers, lawyers, bankers, insurers, and so on - selfregulation was premised on the belief in long-term selfpreservation. Rational economic players and moral agents are supposed to maximize their utility in the long-run by observing the rules and regulations of a level playing field. This noble propensity seemed, alas, to have been tampered by avarice and narcissism and by the immature inability to postpone gratification. Self-regulation failed so spectacularly to conquer human nature that its demise gave rise to the most intrusive statal stratagems ever devised. In both the UK and the USA, the government is much more heavily and pervasively involved in the minutia of accountancy, stock dealing, and banking than it was only two years ago. But the ethos and myth of "order out of chaos" - with its proponents in the exact sciences as well - ran deeper than that. The very culture of commerce was thoroughly permeated and transformed. It is not surprising that the Internet - a chaotic network with an anarchic modus operandi - flourished at these times. The dotcom revolution was less about technology than about new ways of doing business - mixing umpteen irreconcilable ingredients, stirring well, and hoping for the
Slide 44: best. No one, for instance, offered a linear revenue model of how to translate "eyeballs" - i.e., the number of visitors to a Web site - to money ("monetizing"). It was dogmatically held to be true that, miraculously, traffic - a chaotic phenomenon - will translate to profit - hitherto the outcome of painstaking labour. Privatization itself was such a leap of faith. State owned assets - including utilities and suppliers of public goods such as health and education - were transferred wholesale to the hands of profit maximizers. The implicit belief was that the price mechanism will provide the missing planning and regulation. In other words, higher prices were supposed to guarantee an uninterrupted service. Predictably, failure ensued - from electricity utilities in California to railway operators in Britain. The simultaneous crumbling of these urban legends - the liberating power of the Net, the self-regulating markets, the unbridled merits of privatization - inevitably gave rise to a backlash. The state has acquired monstrous proportions in the decades since the Second world War. It is about to grow further and to digest the few sectors hitherto left untouched. To say the least, these are not good news. But we libertarians - proponents of both individual freedom and individual responsibility - have brought it on ourselves by thwarting the work of that invisible regulator - the market. Anger Anger is a compounded phenomenon. It has dispositional properties, expressive and motivational components, situational and individual variations, cognitive and
Slide 45: excitatory interdependent manifestations and psychophysiological (especially neuroendocrine) aspects. From the psychobiological point of view, it probably had its survival utility in early evolution, but it seems to have lost a lot of it in modern societies. Actually, in most cases it is counterproductive, even dangerous. Dysfunctional anger is known to have pathogenic effects (mostly cardiovascular). Most personality disordered people are prone to be angry. Their anger is always sudden, raging, frightening and without an apparent provocation by an outside agent. It would seem that people suffering from personality disorders are in a CONSTANT state of anger, which is effectively suppressed most of the time. It manifests itself only when the person's defences are down, incapacitated, or adversely affected by circumstances, inner or external. We have pointed at the psychodynamic source of this permanent, bottled-up anger, elsewhere in this book. In a nutshell, the patient was, usually, unable to express anger and direct it at "forbidden" targets in his early, formative years (his parents, in most cases). The anger, however, was a justified reaction to abuses and mistreatment. The patient was, therefore, left to nurture a sense of profound injustice and frustrated rage. Healthy people experience anger, but as a transitory state. This is what sets the personality disordered apart: their anger is always acute, permanently present, often suppressed or repressed. Healthy anger has an external inducing agent (a reason). It is directed at this agent (coherence). Pathological anger is neither coherent, not externally induced. It emanates from the inside and it is diffuse, directed at the "world" and at "injustice" in general. The patient does identify the IMMEDIATE cause of the anger.
Slide 46: Still, upon closer scrutiny, the cause is likely to be found lacking and the anger excessive, disproportionate, incoherent. To refine the point: it might be more accurate to say that the personality disordered is expressing (and experiencing) TWO layers of anger, simultaneously and always. The first layer, the superficial anger, is indeed directed at an identified target, the alleged cause of the eruption. The second layer, however, is anger directed at himself. The patient is angry at himself for being unable to vent off normal anger, normally. He feels like a miscreant. He hates himself. This second layer of anger also comprises strong and easily identifiable elements of frustration, irritation and annoyance. While normal anger is connected to some action regarding its source (or to the planning or contemplation of such action) – pathological anger is mostly directed at oneself or even lacks direction altogether. The personality disordered are afraid to show that they are angry to meaningful others because they are afraid to lose them. The Borderline Personality Disordered is terrified of being abandoned, the narcissist (NPD) needs his Narcissistic Supply Sources, the Paranoid – his persecutors and so on. These people prefer to direct their anger at people who are meaningless to them, people whose withdrawal will not constitute a threat to their precariously balanced personality. They yell at a waitress, berate a taxi driver, or explode at an underling. Alternatively, they sulk, feel anhedonic or pathologically bored, drink or do drugs – all forms of self-directed aggression. From time to time, no longer able to pretend and to suppress, they have it out with the real source of their anger. They rage and, generally, behave like lunatics. They shout incoherently, make absurd accusations, distort facts, pronounce allegations and suspicions. These episodes are followed
Slide 47: by periods of saccharine sentimentality and excessive flattering and submissiveness towards the victim of the latest rage attack. Driven by the mortal fear of being abandoned or ignored, the personality disordered debases and demeans himself to the point of provoking repulsion in the beholder. These pendulum-like emotional swings make life with the personality disordered difficult. Anger in healthy persons is diminished through action. It is an aversive, unpleasant emotion. It is intended to generate action in order to eradicate this uncomfortable sensation. It is coupled with physiological arousal. But it is not clear whether action diminishes anger or anger is used up in action. Similarly, it is not clear whether the consciousness of anger is dependent on a stream of cognition expressed in words? Do we become angry because we say that we are angry (=we identify the anger and capture it) – or do we say that we are angry because we are angry to start with? Anger is induced by numerous factors. It is almost a universal reaction. Any threat to one's welfare (physical, emotional, social, financial, or mental) is met with anger. But so are threats to one's affiliates, nearest, dearest, nation, favourite football club, pet and so on. The territory of anger is enlarged to include not only the person – but all his real and perceived environment, human and nonhuman. This does not sound like a very adaptative strategy. Threats are not the only situations to be met with anger. Anger is the reaction to injustice (perceived or real), to disagreements, to inconvenience. But the two main sources of anger are threat (a disagreement is potentially threatening) and injustice (inconvenience is injustice inflicted on the angry person by the world). These are also the two sources of personality disorders.
Slide 48: The personality disordered is moulded by recurrent and frequent injustice and he is constantly threatened both by his internal and by his external universes. No wonder that there is a close affinity between the personality disordered and the acutely angry person. And, as opposed to common opinion, the angry person becomes angry whether he believes that what was done to him was deliberate or not. If we lose a precious manuscript, even unintentionally, we are bound to become angry at ourselves. If his home is devastated by an earthquake – the owner will surely rage, though no conscious, deliberating mind was at work. When we perceive an injustice in the distribution of wealth or love – we become angry because of moral reasoning, whether the injustice was deliberate or not. We retaliate and we punish as a result of our ability to morally reason and to get even. Sometimes even moral reasoning is lacking, as in when we simply wish to alleviate a diffuse anger. What the personality disordered does is: he suppresses the anger, but he has no effective mechanisms of redirecting it in order to correct the inducing conditions. His hostile expressions are not constructive – they are destructive because they are diffuse, excessive and, therefore, unclear. He does not lash out at people in order to restore his lost self-esteem, his prestige, his sense of power and control over his life, to recover emotionally, or to restore his well being. He rages because he cannot help it and is in a selfdestructive and self-loathing mode. His anger does not contain a signal, which could alter his environment in general and the behaviour of those around him, in particular. His anger is primitive, maladaptive, pent up. Anger is a primitive, limbic emotion. Its excitatory components and patterns are shared with sexual excitation
Slide 49: and with fear. It is cognition that guides our behaviour, aimed at avoiding harm and aversion or at minimising them. Our cognition is in charge of attaining certain kinds of mental gratification. An analysis of future values of the relief-gratification versus repercussions (reward to risk) ratio – can be obtained only through cognitive tools. Anger is provoked by aversive treatment, deliberately or unintentionally inflicted. Such treatment must violate either prevailing conventions regarding social interactions or some otherwise deeply ingrained sense of what is fair and what is just. The judgement of fairness or justice (namely, the appraisal of the extent of compliance with conventions of social exchange) – is also cognitive. The angry person and the personality disordered both suffer from a cognitive deficit. They are unable to conceptualise, to design effective strategies and to execute them. They dedicate all their attention to the immediate and ignore the future consequences of their actions. In other words, their attention and information processing faculties are distorted, skewed in favour of the here and now, biased on both the intake and the output. Time is "relativistically dilated" – the present feels more protracted, "longer" than any future. Immediate facts and actions are judged more relevant and weighted more heavily than any remote aversive conditions. Anger impairs cognition. The angry person is a worried person. The personality disordered is also excessively preoccupied with himself. Worry and anger are the cornerstones of the edifice of anxiety. This is where it all converges: people become angry because they are excessively concerned with bad things which might happen to them. Anger is a result of anxiety (or, when the anger is not acute, of fear).
Slide 50: The striking similarity between anger and personality disorders is the deterioration of the faculty of empathy. Angry people cannot empathise. Actually, "counterempathy" develops in a state of acute anger. All mitigating circumstances related to the source of the anger – are taken as meaning to devalue and belittle the suffering of the angry person. His anger thus increases the more mitigating circumstances are brought to his attention. Judgement is altered by anger. Later provocative acts are judged to be more serious – just by "virtue" of their chronological position. All this is very typical of the personality disordered. An impairment of the empathic sensitivities is a prime symptom in many of them (in the Narcissistic, Antisocial, Schizoid and Schizotypal Personality Disordered, to mention but four). Moreover, the aforementioned impairment of judgement (=impairment of the proper functioning of the mechanism of risk assessment) appears in both acute anger and in many personality disorders. The illusion of omnipotence (power) and invulnerability, the partiality of judgement – are typical of both states. Acute anger (rage attacks in personality disorders) is always incommensurate with the magnitude of the source of the emotion and is fuelled by extraneous experiences. An acutely angry person usually reacts to an ACCUMULATION, an amalgamation of aversive experiences, all enhancing each other in vicious feedback loops, many of them not directly related to the cause of the specific anger episode. The angry person may be reacting to stress, agitation, disturbance, drugs, violence or aggression witnessed by him, to social or to national conflict, to elation and even to sexual excitation. The same is true of the personality disordered. His inner world is fraught with unpleasant, ego-dystonic, discomfiting, unsettling, worrisome experiences. His
Slide 51: external environment – influenced and moulded by his distorted personality – is also transformed into a source of aversive, repulsive, or plainly unpleasant experiences. The personality disordered explodes in rage – because he implodes AND reacts to outside stimuli, simultaneously. Because he is a slave to magical thinking and, therefore, regards himself as omnipotent, omniscient and protected from the consequences of his own acts (immune) – the personality disordered often acts in a self-destructive and self-defeating manner. The similarities are so numerous and so striking that it seems safe to say that the personality disordered is in a constant state of acute anger. Finally, acutely angry people perceive anger to have been the result of intentional (or circumstantial) provocation with a hostile purpose (by the target of their anger). Their targets, on the other hand, invariably regard them as incoherent people, acting arbitrarily, in an unjustified manner. Replace the words "acutely angry" with the words "personality disordered" and the sentence would still remain largely valid. Animal Rights According to MSNBC, in a May 2005 Senate hearing, John Lewis, the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, asserted that "environmental and animal rights extremists who have turned to arson and explosives are the nation's top domestic terrorism threat ... Groups such as the Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front and the Britain-based SHAC, or Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, are 'way out in front' in terms of damage and number of crimes ...". Lewis averred that " ... (t)here is nothing else going on in this country over the last
Slide 52: several years that is racking up the high number of violent crimes and terrorist actions". MSNBC notes that "(t)he Animal Liberation Front says on its Web site that its small, autonomous groups of people take 'direct action' against animal abuse by rescuing animals and causing financial loss to animal exploiters, usually through damage and destruction of property." "Animal rights" is a catchphrase akin to "human rights". It involves, however, a few pitfalls. First, animals exist only as a concept. Otherwise, they are cuddly cats, curly dogs, cute monkeys. A rat and a puppy are both animals but our emotional reaction to them is so different that we cannot really lump them together. Moreover: what rights are we talking about? The right to life? The right to be free of pain? The right to food? Except the right to free speech – all other rights could be applied to animals. Law professor Steven Wise, argues in his book, "Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights", for the extension to animals of legal rights accorded to infants. Many animal species exhibit awareness, cognizance and communication skills typical of human toddlers and of humans with arrested development. Yet, the latter enjoy rights denied the former. According to Wise, there are four categories of practical autonomy - a legal standard for granting "personhood" and the rights it entails. Practical autonomy involves the ability to be desirous, to intend to fulfill and pursue one's desires, a sense of self-awareness, and self-sufficiency. Most animals, says Wise, qualify. This may be going too far. It is easier to justify the moral rights of animals than their legal rights. But when we say "animals", what we really mean is non-
Slide 53: human organisms. This is such a wide definition that it easily pertains to extraterrestrial aliens. Will we witness an Alien Rights movement soon? Unlikely. Thus, we are forced to narrow our field of enquiry to non-human organisms reminiscent of humans, the ones that provoke in us empathy. Even this is way too fuzzy. Many people love snakes, for instance, and deeply empathize with them. Could we accept the assertion (avidly propounded by these people) that snakes ought to have rights – or should we consider only organisms with extremities and the ability to feel pain? Historically, philosophers like Kant (and Descartes, Malebranche, and Aquinas) rejected the idea of animal rights. They regarded animals as the organic equivalents of machines, driven by coarse instincts, unable to experience pain (though their behavior sometimes deceives us into erroneously believing that they do). Thus, any ethical obligation that we have towards animals is a derivative of our primary obligation towards our fellow humans (the only ones possessed of moral significance). These are called the theories of indirect moral obligations. Thus, it is wrong to torture animals only because it desensitizes us to human suffering and makes us more prone to using violence on humans. Malebranche augmented this line of thinking by "proving" that animals cannot suffer pain because they are not descended from Adam. Pain and suffering, as we all know, are the exclusive outcomes of Adam's sins. Kant and Malebranche may have been wrong. Animals may be able to suffer and agonize. But how can we tell whether another Being is truly suffering pain or not?
Slide 54: Through empathy. We postulate that - since that Being resembles us – it must have the same experiences and, therefore, it deserves our pity. Yet, the principle of resemblance has many drawbacks. One, it leads to moral relativism. Consider this maxim from the Jewish Talmud: "Do not do unto thy friend that which you hate". An analysis of this sentence renders it less altruistic than it appears. We are encouraged to refrain from doing only those things that WE find hateful. This is the quiddity of moral relativism. The saying implies that it is the individual who is the source of moral authority. Each and every one of us is allowed to spin his own moral system, independent of others. The Talmudic dictum establishes a privileged moral club (very similar to later day social contractarianism) comprised of oneself and one's friend(s). One is encouraged not to visit evil upon one's friends, all others seemingly excluded. Even the broadest interpretation of the word "friend" could only read: "someone like you" and substantially excludes strangers. Two, similarity is a structural, not an essential, trait. Empathy as a differentiating principle is structural: if X looks like me and behaves like me – then he is privileged. Moreover, similarity is not necessarily identity. Monkeys, dogs and dolphins are very much like us, both structurally and behaviorally. Even according to Wise, it is quantity (the degree of observed resemblance), not quality (identity, essence), that is used in determining whether an animal is worthy of holding rights, whether is it a morally significant person. The degree of figurative and functional likenesses decide whether one deserves to live, pain-free
Slide 55: and happy. The quantitative test includes the ability to communicate (manipulate vocal-verbal-written symbols within structured symbol systems). Yet, we ignore the fact that using the same symbols does not guarantee that we attach to them the same cognitive interpretations and the same emotional resonance ('private languages"). The same words, or symbols, often have different meanings. Meaning is dependent upon historical, cultural, and personal contexts. There is no telling whether two people mean the same things when they say "red", or "sad", or "I", or "love". That another organism looks like us, behaves like us and communicates like us is no guarantee that it is - in its essence - like us. This is the subject of the famous Turing Test: there is no effective way to distinguish a machine from a human when we rely exclusively on symbol manipulation. Consider pain once more. To say that something does not experience pain cannot be rigorously defended. Pain is a subjective experience. There is no way to prove or to disprove that someone is or is not in pain. Here, we can rely only on the subject's reports. Moreover, even if we were to have an analgometer (pain gauge), there would have been no way to show that the phenomenon that activates the meter is one and the same for all subjects, SUBJECTIVELY, i.e., that it is experienced in the same way by all the subjects examined. Even more basic questions regarding pain are impossible to answer: What is the connection between the piercing needle and the pain REPORTED and between these two
Slide 56: and electrochemical patterns of activity in the brain? A correlation between these three phenomena can be established – but not their identity or the existence of a causative process. We cannot prove that the waves in the subject's brain when he reports pain – ARE that pain. Nor can we show that they CAUSED the pain, or that the pain caused them. It is also not clear whether our moral percepts are conditioned on the objective existence of pain, on the reported existence of pain, on the purported existence of pain (whether experienced or not, whether reported or not), or on some independent laws. If it were painless, would it be moral to torture someone? Is the very act of sticking needles into someone immoral – or is it immoral because of the pain it causes, or supposed to inflict? Are all three components (needle sticking, a sensation of pain, brain activity) morally equivalent? If so, is it as immoral to merely generate the same patterns of brain activity, without inducing any sensation of pain and without sticking needles in the subject? If these three phenomena are not morally equivalent – why aren't they? They are, after all, different facets of the very same pain – shouldn't we condemn all of them equally? Or should one aspect of pain (the subject's report of pain) be accorded a privileged treatment and status? Yet, the subject's report is the weakest proof of pain! It cannot be verified. And if we cling to this descriptivebehavioural-phenomenological definition of pain than animals qualify as well. They also exhibit all the behaviours normally ascribed to humans in pain and they report feeling pain (though they do tend to use a more limited and non-verbal vocabulary).
Slide 57: Pain is, therefore, a value judgment and the reaction to it is culturally dependent. In some cases, pain is perceived as positive and is sought. In the Aztec cultures, being chosen to be sacrificed to the Gods was a high honour. How would we judge animal rights in such historical and cultural contexts? Are there any "universal" values or does it all really depend on interpretation? If we, humans, cannot separate the objective from the subjective and the cultural – what gives us the right or ability to decide for other organisms? We have no way of knowing whether pigs suffer pain. We cannot decide right and wrong, good and evil for those with whom we can communicate, let alone for organisms with which we fail to do even this. Is it GENERALLY immoral to kill, to torture, to pain? The answer seems obvious and it automatically applies to animals. Is it generally immoral to destroy? Yes, it is and this answer pertains to the inanimate as well. There are exceptions: it is permissible to kill and to inflict pain in order to prevent a (quantitatively or qualitatively) greater evil, to protect life, and when no reasonable and feasible alternative is available. The chain of food in nature is morally neutral and so are death and disease. Any act which is intended to sustain life of a higher order (and a higher order in life) – is morally positive or, at least neutral. Nature decreed so. Animals do it to other animals – though, admittedly, they optimize their consumption and avoid waste and unnecessary pain. Waste and pain are morally wrong. This is not a question of hierarchy of more or less important Beings (an outcome of the fallacy of anthropomorphesizing Nature).
Slide 58: The distinction between what is (essentially) US – and what just looks and behaves like us (but is NOT us) is false, superfluous and superficial. Sociobiology is already blurring these lines. Quantum Mechanics has taught us that we can say nothing about what the world really IS. If things look the same and behave the same, we better assume that they are the same. The attempt to claim that moral responsibility is reserved to the human species is self defeating. If it is so, then we definitely have a moral obligation towards the weaker and meeker. If it isn't, what right do we have to decide who shall live and who shall die (in pain)? The increasingly shaky "fact" that species do not interbreed "proves" that species are distinct, say some. But who can deny that we share most of our genetic material with the fly and the mouse? We are not as dissimilar as we wish we were. And ever-escalating cruelty towards other species will not establish our genetic supremacy merely our moral inferiority. Anthropy The Second Law of Thermodynamics predicts the gradual energetic decay of physical closed systems ("entropy"). Arguably, the Universe as a whole is precisely such a system. Locally, though, order is often fighting disorder for dominance. In other words, in localized, open systems, order sometimes tends to increase and, by definition, statistical entropy tends to decrease. This is the orthodoxy. Personally, I believe otherwise. Some physical systems increase disorder, either by
Slide 59: decaying or by actively spreading disorder onto other systems. Such vectors we call "Entropic Agents". Conversely, some physical systems increase order or decrease disorder either in themselves or in their environment. We call these vectors "Negentropic Agents". Human Beings are Negentropic Agents gone awry. Now, through its excesses, Mankind is slowly being transformed into an Entropic Agent. Antibiotics, herbicides, insecticides, pollution, deforestation, etc. are all detrimental to the environment and reduce the amount of order in the open system that is Earth. Nature must balance this shift of allegiance, this deviation from equilibrium, by constraining the number of other Entropic Agents on Earth – or by reducing the numbers of humans. To achieve the latter (which is the path of least resistance and a typical self-regulatory mechanism), Nature causes humans to begin to internalize and assimilate the Entropy that they themselves generate. This is done through a series of intricate and intertwined mechanisms: The Malthusian Mechanism – Limited resources lead to wars, famine, diseases and to a decrease in the populace (and, thus, in the number of human Entropic Agents). The Assimilative Mechanism – Diseases, old and new, and other phenomena yield negative demographic effects directly related to the entropic actions of humans. Examples: excessive use of antibiotics leads to drugresistant strains of pathogens, cancer is caused by
Slide 60: pollution, heart ailments are related to modern Western diet, AIDS, avian flu, SARS, and other diseases are a result of hitherto unknown or mutated strains of viruses. The Cognitive Mechanism – Humans limit their own propagation, using "rational", cognitive arguments, devices, and procedures: abortion, birth control, the pill. Thus, combining these three mechanisms, nature controls the damage and disorder that Mankind spreads and restores equilibrium to the terrestrial ecosystem. Appendix - Order and the Universe Earth is a complex, orderly, and open system. If it were an intelligent being, we would have been compelled to say that it had "chosen" to preserve and locally increase form (structure), order and complexity. This explains why evolution did not stop at the protozoa level. After all, these mono-cellular organisms were (and still are, hundreds of millions of years later) superbly adapted to their environment. It was Bergson who posed the question: why did nature prefer the risk of unstable complexity over predictable and reliable and durable simplicity? The answer seems to be that Nature has a predilection (not confined to the biological realm) to increase complexity and order and that this principle takes precedence over "utilitarian" calculations of stability. The battle between the entropic arrow and the negentropic one is more important than any other (in-built) "consideration". Time and the Third Law of Thermodynamics are pitted against Life (as an integral and ubiquitous part of the Universe) and Order (a systemic, extensive parameter) against Disorder.
Slide 61: In this context, natural selection is no more "blind" or "random" than its subjects. It is discriminating, encourages structure, complexity and order. The contrast that Bergson stipulated between Natural Selection and Élan Vitale is misplaced: Natural Selection IS the vital power itself. Modern Physics is converging with Philosophy (possibly with the philosophical side of Religion as well) and the convergence is precisely where concepts of order and disorder emerge. String theories, for instance, come in numerous versions which describe many possible different worlds (though, admittedly, they may all be facets of the same Being - distant echoes of the new versions of the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics). Still, why do we, intelligent conscious observers, see (why are we exposed to) only one kind of world? How is our world as we know it "selected"? The Universe is constrained in this "selection process" by its own history, but its history is not synonymous with the Laws of Nature. We know that the latter determine the former - but did the former also determine the latter? In other words: were the Laws of Nature "selected" as well and, if so, how? The answer seems self evident: the Universe "selected" both the Natural Laws and, as a result, its own history, in a process akin to Natural Selection. Whatever increased order, complexity, and structure - survived. Our Universe - having itself survived - must be have been naturally selected. We can assume that only order-increasing Universes do not succumb to entropy and death (the weak hypothesis). It could even be argued (as we do here) that our Universe
Slide 62: is the only possible kind of Universe (the semi-strong hypothesis) or even the only Universe (the strong hypothesis). This is the essence of the Anthropic Principle. By definition, universal rules pervade all the realms of existence. Biological systems obey the same orderincreasing (natural) laws as do physical and social ones. We are part of the Universe in the sense that we are subject to the same discipline and adhere to the same "religion". We are an inevitable result - not a chance happening. We are the culmination of orderly processes - not the outcome of random events. The Universe enables us and our world because - and only for as long as - we increase order. That is not to imply that there is an "intention" involved on the part of the Universe (or the existence of a "higher being" or a "higher power"). There is no conscious or God-like spirit. All I am saying is that a system founded on order as a fundamental principle will tend to favor order and opt for it, to proactively select its proponents and deselect its opponents, and to give birth to increasingly more sophisticated weapons in the pro-order arsenal. We, humans, were such an order-increasing weapon until recently. These intuitive assertions can be easily converted into a formalism. In Quantum Mechanics, the State Vector can be constrained to collapse to the most order-enhancing event. If we had a computer the size of the Universe that could infallibly model it, we would have been able to predict which events will increase order in the Universe overall. These, then, would be the likeliest events. It is easy to prove that events follow a path of maximum
Slide 63: order, simply because the world is orderly and getting ever more so. Had this not been the case, statistically evenly-scattered events would have led to an increase in entropy (thermodynamic laws are the offspring of statistical mechanics). But this simply does not happen. And it is wrong to think that order increases only in isolated "pockets", in local regions of our universe. It is increasing everywhere, all the time, on all scales of measurement. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that quantum events are guided by some non-random principle (such as the increase in order). This, exactly, is the case in biology. There is no reason in principle why not to construct a life wavefunction which will always collapse to the most order increasing event. If we were to construct and apply this wave function to our world - we, humans, would probably have found ourselves as one of the events selected by its collapse. Appendix - Live and Let Live, Nature's Message Both now-discarded Lamarckism (the supposed inheritance of acquired characteristics) and Evolution Theory postulate that function determines form. Natural selection rewards those forms best suited to carry out the function of survival ("survival of the fittest") in each and every habitat (through the mechanism of adaptive radiation). But whose survival is natural selection concerned with? Is it the survival of the individual? Of the species? Of the habitat or ecosystem? These three - individual, species, habitat - are not necessarily compatible or mutually reinforcing in their goals and actions. If we set aside the dewy-eyed arguments of altruism, we
Slide 64: are compelled to accept that individual survival sometimes threatens and endangers the survival of the species (for instance, if the individual is sick, weak, or evil). As every environmental scientist can attest, the thriving of some species puts at risk the existence of whole habitats and ecological niches and leads other species to extinction. To prevent the potential excesses of egotistic selfpropagation, survival is self-limiting and self-regulating. Consider epidemics: rather than go on forever, they abate after a certain number of hosts have been infected. It is a kind of Nash equilibrium. Macroevolution (the coordinated emergence of entire groups of organisms) trumps microevolution (the selective dynamics of species, races, and subspecies) every time. This delicate and self-correcting balance between the needs and pressures of competing populations is manifest even in the single organism or species. Different parts of the phenotype invariably develop at different rates, thus preventing an all-out scramble for resources and maladaptive changes. This is known as "mosaic evolution". It is reminiscent of the "invisible hand of the market" that allegedly allocates resources optimally among various players and agents. Moreover, evolution favors organisms whose rate of reproduction is such that their populations expand to no more than the number of individuals that the habitat can support (the habitat's carrying capacity). These are called K-selection species, or K-strategists and are considered the poster children of adaptation. Live and let live is what evolution is all about - not the law of the jungle. The survival of all the species that are
Slide 65: fit to survive is preferred to the hegemony of a few rapacious, highly-adapted, belligerent predators. Nature is about compromise, not about conquest. Anti-Semitism Rabid anti-Semitism, coupled with inane and outlandish conspiracy theories of world dominion, is easy to counter and dispel. It is the more "reasoned", subtle, and stealthy variety that it pernicious. "No smoke without fire," - say people - "there must be something to it!". In this dialog I try to deconstruct a "mild" anti-Semitic text. I myself wrote the text - not an easy task considering my ancestry (a Jew) and my citizenship (an Israeli). But to penetrate the pertinent layers - historical, psychological, semantic, and semiotic - I had to "enter the skin" of "rational", classic anti-Semites, to grasp what makes them click and tick, and to think and reason like them. I dedicated the last few months to ploughing through reams of anti-Semitic tracts and texts. Steeped in more or less nauseating verbal insanity and sheer paranoia, I emerged to compose the following. The Anti-Semite: The rising tide of anti-Semitism the world over is universally decried. The proponents of ant-Semitism are cast as ignorant, prejudiced, lawless, and atavistic. Their arguments are dismissed off-handedly. But it takes one Jew to really know another. Conditioned by millennia of persecution, Jews are paranoid, defensive, and obsessively secretive. It is impossible for a gentile whom they hold to be inferior and reflexively hostile - to penetrate their counsels.
Slide 66: Let us examine anti-Semitic arguments more closely and in an unbiased manner: Argument number one - Being Jewish is a racial distinction - not only a religious one If race is defined in terms of genetic purity, then Jews are as much a race as the remotest and most isolated of the tribes of the Amazon. Genetic studies revealed that Jews throughout the world - largely due to centuries of inbreeding - share the same genetic makeup. Hereditary diseases which afflict only the Jews attest to the veracity of this discovery. Judaism is founded on shared biology as much as shared history and customs. As a religion, it proscribes a conjugal union with non-Jews. Jews are not even allowed to partake the food and wine of gentiles and have kept their distance from the communities which they inhabited maintaining tenaciously, through countless generations, their language, habits, creed, dress, and national ethos. Only Jews become automatic citizens of Israel (the infamous Law of Return). The Jewish Response: Race has been invariably used as an argument against the Jews. It is ironic that racial purists have always been the most fervent anti-Semites. Jews are not so much a race as a community, united in age-old traditions and beliefs, lore and myths, history and language. Anyone can become a Jew by following a set of clear (though, admittedly, demanding) rules. There is absolutely no biological test or restriction on joining the collective that is known as the Jewish people or the religion that is Judaism. It is true that some Jews are differentiated from their
Slide 67: gentile environments. But this distinction has largely been imposed on us by countless generations of hostile hosts and neighbors. The yellow Star of David was only the latest in a series of measures to isolate the Jews, clearly mark them, restrict their economic and intellectual activities, and limit their social interactions. The only way to survive was to stick together. Can you blame us for responding to what you yourselves have so enthusiastically instigated? The Anti-Semite: Argument number two - The Jews regard themselves as Chosen, Superior, or Pure Vehement protestations to the contrary notwithstanding this is largely true. Orthodox Jews and secular Jews differ, of course, in their perception of this supremacy. The religious attribute it to divine will, intellectuals to the outstanding achievements of Jewish scientists and scholars, the modern Israeli is proud of his invincible army and thriving economy. But they all share a sense of privilege and commensurate obligation to civilize their inferiors and to spread progress and enlightenment wherever they are. This is a pernicious rendition of the colonial White Man's Burden and it is coupled with disdain and contempt for the lowly and the great unwashed (namely, the gentiles). The Jewish Response: There were precious few Jews among the great colonizers and ideologues of imperialism (Disraeli being the exception). Moreover, to compare the dissemination of knowledge and enlightenment to colonialism is, indeed, a travesty.
Slide 68: We, the Jews, are proud of our achievements. Show me one group of people (including the anti-Semites) who isn't? But there is an abyss between being justly proud of one's true accomplishments and feeling superior as a result. Granted, there are narcissists and megalomaniacs everywhere and among the members of any human collective. Hitler and his Aryan superiority is a good example. The Anti-Semite: Argument number three - Jews have divided loyalties It is false to say that Jews are first and foremost Jews and only then are they the loyal citizens of their respective countries. Jews have unreservedly fought and sacrificed in the service of their homelands, often killing their coreligionists in the process. But it is true that Jews believe that what is good for the Jews is good for the country they reside in. By aligning the interests of their adopted habitat with their narrower and selfish agenda, Jews feel justified to promote their own interests to the exclusion of all else and all others. Moreover, the rebirth of the Jewish State presented the Jews with countless ethical dilemmas which they typically resolved by adhering uncritically to Tel-Aviv's official line. This often brought them into direct conflict with their governments and non-Jewish compatriots and enhanced their reputation as untrustworthy and treacherous. Hence the Jewish propensity to infiltrate decision-making centers, such as politics and the media. Their aim is to minimize conflicts of interests by transforming their peculiar concerns and preferences into official, if not always consensual, policy. This viral hijacking of the host
Slide 69: country's agenda is particularly evident in the United States where the interest of Jewry and of the only superpower have become inextricable. It is a fact - not a rant - that Jews are over-represented in certain, influential, professions (in banking, finance, the media, politics, the film industry, publishing, science, the humanities, etc.). This is partly the result of their emphases on education and social upward mobility. But it is also due to the tendency of well-placed Jews to promote their brethren and provide them with privileged access to opportunities, funding, and jobs. The Jewish Response: Most modern polities are multi-ethnic and multi-cultural (an anathema to anti-Semites, I know). Every ethnic, religious, cultural, political, intellectual, and economic or business group tries to influence policy-making by various means. This is both legitimate and desirable. Lobbying has been an integral and essential part of democracy since it was invented in Athens 2500 years ago. The Jews and Israelis are no exception. Jews are, indeed, over-represented in certain professions in the United States. But they are under-represented in other, equally important, vocations (for instance, among company CEOs, politicians, diplomats, managers of higher education institutions, and senior bankers). Globally, Jews are severely under-represented or notexistent in virtually all professions due to their demography (aging population, low birth-rates, unnatural deaths in wars and slaughters). The Anti-Semite: Argument number four - Jews act as a cabal or mafia
Slide 70: There is no organized, hierarchical, and centralized worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Rather the Jews act in a manner similar to al-Qaida: they freelance and selfassemble ad hoc in cross-border networks to tackle specific issues. Jewish organizations - many in cahoots with the Israeli government - serve as administrative backup, same as some Islamic charities do for militant Islam. The Jews' ability and readiness to mobilize and act to further their plans is a matter of record and the source of the inordinate influence of their lobby organizations in Washington, for instance. When two Jews meet, even randomly, and regardless of the disparities in their background, they immediately endeavor to see how they can further each other's interests, even and often at the expense of everyone else's. Still, the Jewish diaspora, now two millennia old, is the first truly global phenomenon in world affairs. Bound by a common history, a common set of languages, a common ethos, a common religion, common defenses and ubiquitous enemies - Jews learned to closely cooperate in order to survive. No wonder that all modern global networks - from Rothschild to Reuters - were established by Jews. Jews also featured prominently in all the revolutionary movements of the past three centuries. Individual Jews though rarely the Jewish community as a whole - seem to benefit no matter what. When Czarist Russia collapsed, Jews occupied 7 out of 10 prominent positions in both the Kerensky (a Jew himself) government and in the Lenin and early Stalin administrations. When the Soviet Union crumbled, Jews again benefited mightily. Three quarters of the famous
Slide 71: "oligarchs" (robber barons) that absconded with the bulk of the defunct empire's assets were - you guessed it Jews. The Jewish Response: Ignoring the purposefully inflammatory language for a minute, what group does not behave this way? Harvard alumni, the British Commonwealth, the European Union, the Irish or the Italians in the United States, political parties the world over ... As long as people co-operate legally and for legal ends, without breaching ethics and without discriminating against deserving non-members what is wrong with that? The Anti-Semite: Argument number five - The Jews are planning to take over the world and establish a world government This is the kind of nonsense that discredits a serious study of the Jews and their role in history, past and present. Endless lists of prominent people of Jewish descent are produced in support of the above contention. Yet, governments are not the mere sum of their constituent individuals. The dynamics of power subsist on more than the religious affiliation of office-holders, kingmakers, and string-pullers. Granted, Jews are well introduced in the echelons of power almost everywhere. But this is still a very far cry from a world government. Neither were Jews prominent in any of the recent moves - mostly by the Europeans - to strengthen the role of international law and attendant supranational organizations. The Jewish Response:
Slide 72: What can I say? I agree with you. I would only like to set the record straight by pointing out the fact that Jews are actually under-represented in the echelons of power everywhere (including in the United States). Only in Israel - where they constitute an overwhelming majority - do Jews run things. The Anti-Semite: Argument number six - Jews are selfish, narcissistic, haughty, double-faced, dissemblers. Zionism is an extension of this pathological narcissism as a colonial movement Judaism is not missionary. It is elitist. But Zionism has always regarded itself as both a (19th century) national movement and a (colonial) civilizing force. Nationalist narcissism transformed Zionism into a mission of acculturation ("White Man's Burden"). In "Altneuland" (translated to Hebrew as "Tel Aviv"), the feverish tome composed by Theodore Herzl, Judaism's improbable visionary - Herzl refers to the Arabs as pliant and compliant butlers, replete with gloves and tarbushes. In the book, a German Jewish family prophetically lands at Jaffa, the only port in erstwhile Palestine. They are welcomed and escorted by "Briticized" Arab gentlemen's gentlemen who are only too happy to assist their future masters and colonizers to disembark. This age-old narcissistic defence - the Jewish superiority complex - was only exacerbated by the Holocaust. Nazism posed as a rebellion against the "old ways" against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the European order. The Nazis borrowed the Leninist vocabulary and
Slide 73: assimilated it effectively. Hitler and the Nazis were an adolescent movement, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted upon a narcissistic (and rather psychopathic) toddler nation-state. Hitler himself was a malignant narcissist, as Fromm correctly noted. The Jews constituted a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that was "wrong" with Europe. They were an old nation, they were eerily disembodied (without a territory), they were cosmopolitan, they were part of the establishment, they were "decadent", they were hated on religious and socio-economic grounds (see Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners"), they were different, they were narcissistic (felt and acted as morally superior), they were everywhere, they were defenseless, they were credulous, they were adaptable (and thus could be coopted to collaborate in their own destruction). They were the perfect hated father figure and parricide was in fashion. The Holocaust was a massive trauma not because of its dimensions - but because Germans, the epitome of Western civilization, have turned on the Jews, the selfproclaimed missionaries of Western civilization in the Levant and Arabia. It was the betrayal that mattered. Rejected by East (as colonial stooges) and West (as agents of racial contamination) alike - the Jews resorted to a series of narcissistic responses reified by the State of Israel. The long term occupation of territories (metaphorical or physical) is a classic narcissistic behavior (of "annexation" of the other). The Six Days War was a war of self defence - but the swift victory only exacerbated the grandiose fantasies of the Jews. Mastery over the Palestinians became an important component in the
Slide 74: psychological makeup of the nation (especially the more rightwing and religious elements) because it constitutes "Narcissistic Supply". The Jewish Response: Happily, sooner or later most anti-Semitic arguments descend into incoherent diatribe. This dialog is no exception. Zionism was not conceived out of time. It was born in an age of colonialism, Kipling's "white man's burden", and Western narcissism. Regrettably, Herzl did not transcend the political discourse of his period. But Zionism is far more than Altneuland. Herzl died in 1904, having actually been deposed by Zionists from Russia who espoused ideals of equality for all, Jews and non-Jews alike. The Holocaust was an enormous trauma and a clarion call. It taught the Jews that they cannot continue with their historically abnormal existence and that all the formulas for accommodation and co-existence failed. There remained only one viable solution: a Jewish state as a member of the international community of nations. The Six Days War was, indeed, a classic example of preemptive self-defense. Its outcomes, however, deeply divide Jewish communities everywhere, especially in Israel. Many of us believe that occupation corrupts and reject the Messianic and millennial delusions of some Jews as dangerous and nefarious. Perhaps this is the most important thing to remember: Like every other group of humans, though molded by common experience, Jews are not a monolith. There are liberal Jews and orthodox Jews, narcissists and altruists,
Slide 75: unscrupulous and moral, educated and ignorant, criminals and law-abiding citizens. Jews, in other words, are like everyone else. Can we say the same about anti-Semites? I wonder. The Anti-Israeli: The State of Israel is likely to end as did the seven previous stabs at Jewish statehood - in total annihilation. And for the same reasons: conflicts between secular and religious Jews and a racist-colonialist pattern of deplorable behavior. The UN has noted this recidivist misconduct in numerous resolutions and when it justly compared Zionism to racism. The Jewish Response: Zionism is undoubtedly a typical 19th century national movement, promoting the interests of an ethnicallyhomogeneous nation. But it is not and never has been a racist movement. Zionists of all stripes never believed in the inherent inferiority or malevolence or impurity of any group of people (however arbitrarily defined or capriciously delimited) just because of their common origin or habitation. The State of Israel is not exclusionary. There are a million Israelis who are Arabs, both Christians and Muslims. It is true, though, that Jews have a special standing in Israel. The Law of Return grants them immediate citizenship. Because of obvious conflicts of interest, Arabs cannot serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Consequently, they don't enjoy the special benefits conferred on war veterans and ex-soldiers. Regrettably, it is also true that Arabs are discriminated against and hated by many Israelis, though rarely as a
Slide 76: matter of official policy. These are the bitter fruits of the ongoing conflict. Budget priorities are also heavily skewed in favor of schools and infrastructure in Jewish municipalities. A lot remains to be done. The Anti-Israeli: Zionism started off as a counter-revolution. It presented itself as an alternative to both orthodox religion and to assimilation in the age of European "Enlightenment". But it was soon hijacked by East European Jews who espoused a pernicious type of Stalinism and virulent antiArab racism. The Jewish Response: East European Jews were no doubt more nationalistic and etatist than the West European visionaries who gave birth to Zionism. But, again, they were not racist. On the very contrary. Their socialist roots called for close collaboration and integration of all the ethnicities and nationalities in Israel/Palestine. The Anti-Israeli: The "Status Quo" promulgated by Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, confined institutionalized religion to matters of civil law and to communal issues. All affairs of state became the exclusive domain of the secular-leftist nomenclature and its attendant bureaucratic apparatus. All this changed after the Six Days War in 1967 and, even more so, after the Yom Kippur War. Militant Messianic Jews with radical fundamentalist religious ideologies sought to eradicate the distinction between state and synagogue. They propounded a political agenda, thus
Slide 77: invading the traditionally secular turf, to the great consternation of their compatriots. This schism is unlikely to heal and will be further exacerbated by the inevitable need to confront harsh demographic and geopolitical realities. No matter how much occupied territory Israel gives up and how many ersatz Jews it imports from East Europe, the Palestinians are likely to become a majority within the next 50 years. Israel will sooner or later face the need to choose whether to institute a policy of strict and racist apartheid - or shrink into an indefensible (though majority Jewish) enclave. The fanatics of the religious right are likely to enthusiastically opt for the first alternative. All the rest of the Jews in Israel are bound to recoil. Civil war will then become unavoidable and with it the demise of yet another short-lived Jewish polity. The Jewish Response: Israel is, indeed, faced with the unpalatable choice and demographic realities described above. But don't bet on civil war and total annihilation just yet. There are numerous other political solutions - for instance, a confederacy of two national states, or one state with two nations. But, I agree, this is a serious problem further compounded by Palestinian demands for the right to return to their ancestral territories, now firmly within the Jewish State, even in its pre-1967 borders. With regards to the hijacking of the national agenda by right-wing, religious fundamentalist Jewish militants - as the recent pullout from Gaza and some of the West Bank proves conclusively, Israelis are pragmatists. The influence of Messianic groups on Israeli decision-making
Slide 78: is blown out of proportion. They are an increasingly isolated - though vocal and sometimes violent - minority. The Anti-Israeli: Israel could, perhaps, have survived, had it not committed a second mortal sin by transforming itself into an outpost and beacon of Western (first British-French, then American) neo-colonialism. As the representative of the oppressors, it was forced to resort to an official policy of unceasing war crimes and repeated grave violations of human and civil rights. The Jewish Response: Israel aligned itself with successive colonial powers in the region because it felt it had no choice, surrounded and outnumbered as it was by hostile, trigger-happy, and heavily armed neighbors. Israel did miss, though, quite a few chances to make peace, however intermittent and hesitant, with its erstwhile enemies. It is also true that it committed itself to a policy of settlements and oppression within the occupied territories which inevitably gave rise to grave and repeated violations on international law. Overlording another people had a corrosive corrupting influence on Israeli society. The Anti-Israeli: The Arabs, who first welcomed the Jewish settlers and the economic opportunities they represented, turned against the new emigrants when they learned of their agenda of occupation, displacement, and ethnic cleansing. Israel became a pivot of destabilization in the Middle East, embroiled in conflicts and wars too numerous to count. Unscrupulous and corrupt Arab rulers used its existence and the menace it reified as a pretext to avoid
Slide 79: democratization, transparency, and accountability. The Jewish Response: With the exception of the 1919 Faisal-Weitzman declaration, Arabs never really welcomed the Jews. Attacks on Jewish outposts and settlers started as early as 1921 and never ceased. The wars in 1948 and in 1967 were initiated or provoked by the Arab states. It is true, though, that Israel unwisely leveraged its victories to oppress the Palestinians and for territorial gains, sometimes in cahoots with much despised colonial powers, such as Britain and France in 1956. The Anti-Israeli: This volatile mixture of ideological racism, Messianic empire-building, malignant theocracy much resented by the vast majority of secular Jews, and alignment with all entities anti-Arab and anti-Muslim will doom the Jewish country. In the long run, the real inheritors and proprietors of the Middle East are its long-term inhabitants, the Arabs. A strong army is not a guarantee of longevity - see the examples of the USSR and Yugoslavia. Even now, it is not too late. Israel can transform itself into an important and benevolent regional player by embracing its Arab neighbors and by championing the causes of economic and scientific development, integration, and opposition to outside interference in the region's internal affairs. The Arabs, exhausted by decades of conflict and backwardness, are likely to heave a collective sigh of relief and embrace Israel - reluctantly at first and more warmly as it proves itself a reliable ally and friend. Israel's demographic problem is more difficult to resolve. It requires Israel to renounce its exclusive racist and
Slide 80: theocratic nature. Israel must suppress, by force if need be, the lunatic fringe of militant religious fanatics that has been haunting its politics in the last three decades. And it must extend a welcoming hand to its Arab citizens by legislating and enforcing a set of Civil Rights Laws. The Jewish Response: Whether this Jewish state is doomed or not, time will tell. Peace with our Arab neighbors and equal treatment of our Arab citizens should be our two over-riding strategic priorities. The Jewish State cannot continue to live by the sword, lest it perishes by it. If the will is there it can be done. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate. Art (as Private Language) The psychophysical problem is long standing and, probably, intractable. We have a corporeal body. It is a physical entity, subject to all the laws of physics. Yet, we experience ourselves, our internal lives, external events in a manner which provokes us to postulate the existence of a corresponding, non-physical ontos, entity. This corresponding entity ostensibly incorporates a dimension of our being which, in principle, can never be tackled with the instruments and the formal logic of science. A compromise was proposed long ago: the soul is nothing but our self awareness or the way that we experience ourselves. But this is a flawed solution. It is flawed because it assumes that the human experience is uniform, unequivocal and identical. It might well be so - but there is no methodologically rigorous way of proving it. We
Slide 81: have no way to objectively ascertain that all of us experience pain in the same manner or that pain that we experience is the same in all of us. This is even when the causes of the sensation are carefully controlled and monitored. A scientist might say that it is only a matter of time before we find the exact part of the brain which is responsible for the specific pain in our gedankenexperiment. Moreover, will add our gedankenscientist, in due course, science will even be able to demonstrate a monovalent relationship between a pattern of brain activity in situ and the aforementioned pain. In other words, the scientific claim is that the patterns of brain activity ARE the pain itself. Such an argument is, prima facie, inadmissible. The fact that two events coincide (even if they do so forever) does not make them identical. The serial occurrence of two events does not make one of them the cause and the other the effect, as is well known. Similarly, the contemporaneous occurrence of two events only means that they are correlated. A correlate is not an alter ego. It is not an aspect of the same event. The brain activity is what appears WHEN pain happens - it by no means follows that it IS the pain itself. A stronger argument would crystallize if it was convincingly and repeatedly demonstrated that playing back these patterns of brain activity induces the same pain. Even in such a case, we would be talking about cause and effect rather than identity of pain and its correlate in the brain. The gap is even bigger when we try to apply natural languages to the description of emotions and sensations. This seems close to impossible. How can one even half
Slide 82: accurately communicate one's anguish, love, fear, or desire? We are prisoners in the universe of our emotions, never to emerge and the weapons of language are useless. Each one of us develops his or her own, idiosyncratic, unique emotional language. It is not a jargon, or a dialect because it cannot be translated or communicated. No dictionary can ever be constructed to bridge this lingual gap. In principle, experience is incommunicable. People in the very far future - may be able to harbour the same emotions, chemically or otherwise induced in them. One brain could directly take over another and make it feel the same. Yet, even then these experiences will not be communicable and we will have no way available to us to compare and decide whether there was an identity of sensations or of emotions. Still, when we say "sadness", we all seem to understand what we are talking about. In the remotest and furthest reaches of the earth people share this feeling of being sad. The feeling might be evoked by disparate circumstances yet, we all seem to share some basic element of "being sad". So, what is this element? We have already said that we are confined to using idiosyncratic emotional languages and that no dictionary is possible between them. Now we will postulate the existence of a meta language. This is a language common to all humans, indeed, it seems to be the language of being human. Emotions are but phrases in this language. This language must exist otherwise all communication between humans would have ceased to exist. It would appear that the relationship between this universal language and the idiosyncratic, individualistic languages is a relation of correlation. Pain is correlated to brain activity, on the one hand - and to this
Slide 83: universal language, on the other. We would, therefore, tend to parsimoniously assume that the two correlates are but one and the same. In other words, it may well be that the brain activity which "goes together" is but the physical manifestation of the meta-lingual element "PAIN". We feel pain and this is our experience, unique, incommunicable, expressed solely in our idiosyncratic language. We know that we are feeling pain and we communicate it to others. As we do so, we use the meta, universal language. The very use (or even the thought of using) this language provokes the brain activity which is so closely correlated with pain. It is important to clarify that the universal language could well be a physical one. Possibly, even genetic. Nature might have endowed us with this universal language to improve our chances to survive. The communication of emotions is of an unparalleled evolutionary importance and a species devoid of the ability to communicate the existence of pain - would perish. Pain is our guardian against the perils of our surroundings. To summarize: we manage our inter-human emotional communication using a universal language which is either physical or, at least, has strong physical correlates. The function of bridging the gap between an idiosyncratic language (his or her own) and a more universal one was relegated to a group of special individuals called artists. Theirs is the job to experience (mostly emotions), to mould it into a the grammar, syntax and vocabulary of a universal language in order to communicate the echo of their idiosyncratic language. They are forever mediating between us and their experience. Rightly so, the quality of
Slide 84: an artist is measured by his ability to loyally represent his unique language to us. The smaller the distance between the original experience (the emotion of the artist) and its external representation - the more prominent the artist. We declare artistic success when the universally communicable representation succeeds at recreating the original emotion (felt by the artist) with us. It is very much like those science fiction contraptions which allow for the decomposition of the astronaut's body in one spot and its recreation, atom for atom in another (teleportation). Even if the artist fails to do so but succeeds in calling forth any kind of emotional response in his viewers/readers/listeners, he is deemed successful. Every artist has a reference group, his audience. They could be alive or dead (for instance, he could measure himself against past artists). They could be few or many, but they must exist for art, in its fullest sense, to exist. Modern theories of art speak about the audience as an integral and defining part of the artistic creation and even of the artefact itself. But this, precisely, is the source of the dilemma of the artist: Who is to determine who is a good, qualitative artist and who is not? Put differently, who is to measure the distance between the original experience and its representation? After all, if the original experience is an element of an idiosyncratic, non-communicable, language - we have no access to any information regarding it and, therefore, we
Slide 85: are in no position to judge it. Only the artist has access to it and only he can decide how far is his representation from his original experience. Art criticism is impossible. Granted, his reference group (his audience, however limited, whether among the living, or among the dead) has access to that meta language, that universal dictionary available to all humans. But this is already a long way towards the representation (the work of art). No one in the audience has access to the original experience and their capacity to pass judgement is, therefore, in great doubt. On the other hand, only the reference group, only the audience can aptly judge the representation for what it is. The artist is too emotionally involved. True, the cold, objective facts concerning the work of art are available to both artist and reference group - but the audience is in a privileged status, its bias is less pronounced. Normally, the reference group will use the meta language embedded in us as humans, some empathy, some vague comparisons of emotions to try and grasp the emotional foundation laid by the artist. But this is very much like substituting verbal intercourse for the real thing. Talking about emotions - let alone making assumptions about what the artist may have felt that we also, maybe, share is a far cry from what really transpired in the artist's mind. We are faced with a dichotomy: The epistemological elements in the artistic process belong exclusively and incommunicably to the artist. The ontological aspects of the artistic process belong largely to the group of reference but they have no access to the epistemological domain.
Slide 86: And the work of art can be judged only by comparing the epistemological to the ontological. Nor the artist, neither his group of reference can do it. This mission is nigh impossible. Thus, an artist must make a decision early on in his career: Should he remain loyal and close to his emotional experiences and studies and forgo the warmth and comfort of being reassured and directed from the outside, through the reactions of the reference group, or should he consider the views, criticism and advice of the reference group in his artistic creation - and, most probably, have to compromise the quality and the intensity of his original emotion in order to be more communicative. I wish to thank my brother, Sharon Vaknin, a gifted painter and illustrator, for raising these issues. ADDENDUM - Art as Self-Mutilation The internalized anger of Jesus - leading to his suicidal pattern of behaviour - pertained to all of Mankind. His sacrifice "benefited" humanity as a whole. A selfmutilator, in comparison, appears to be "selfish". His anger is autistic, self-contained, self-referential and, therefore, "meaningless" as far as we are concerned. His catharsis is a private language. But what people fail to understand is that art itself is an act of self mutilation, the etching of ephemeral pain into a lasting medium, the ultimate private language. They also ignore, at their peril, the fact that only a very
Slide 87: thin line separates self-mutilation - whether altruistic (Jesus) or "egoistic" - and the mutilation of others (serial killers, Hitler). About inverted saints: http://samvak.tripod.com/hitler.html About serial killers: http://samvak.tripod.com/serialkillers.html
Slide 88: B Birthdays Why do we celebrate birthdays? What is it that we are toasting? Is it the fact that we have survived another year against many odds? Are we marking the progress we have made, our cumulative achievements and possessions? Is a birthday the expression of hope sprung eternal to live another year? None of the above, it would seem. If it is the past year that we are commemorating, would we still drink to it if we were to receive some bad news about our health and imminent demise? Not likely. But why? What is the relevance of information about the future (our own looming death) when one is celebrating the past? The past is immutable. No future event can vitiate the fact that we have made it through another 12 months of struggle. Then why not celebrate this fact? Because it is not the past that is foremost on our minds. Our birthdays are about the future, not about the past. We are celebrating having arrived so far because such successful resilience allows us to continue forward. We proclaim our potential to further enjoy the gifts of life. Birthdays are expressions of unbridled, blind faith in our own suspended mortality. But, if this were true, surely as we grow older we have less and less cause to celebrate. What reason do octogenarians have to drink to another year if that gift is far from guaranteed? Life offers diminishing returns: the longer you are invested, the less likely you are to reap the
Slide 89: dividenda of survival. Indeed, based on actuary tables, it becomes increasingly less rational to celebrate one's future the older one gets. Thus, we are forced into the conclusion that birthdays are about self-delusionally defying death. Birthdays are about preserving the illusion of immortality. Birthdays are forms of acting out our magical thinking. By celebrating our existence, we bestow on ourselves protective charms against the meaninglessness and arbitrariness of a cold, impersonal, and often hostile universe. And, more often than not, it works. Happy birthday! Brain, Metaphors of The brain (and, by implication, the mind) have been compared to the latest technological innovation in every generation. The computer metaphor is now in vogue. Computer hardware metaphors were replaced by software metaphors and, lately, by (neuronal) network metaphors. Metaphors are not confined to the philosophy of neurology. Architects and mathematicians, for instance, have lately come up with the structural concept of "tensegrity" to explain the phenomenon of life. The tendency of humans to see patterns and structures everywhere (even where there are none) is well documented and probably has its survival value. Another trend is to discount these metaphors as erroneous, irrelevant, deceptive, and misleading. Understanding the mind is a recursive business, rife with self-reference. The entities or processes to which the brain is compared are also "brain-children", the results of "brain-storming", conceived by "minds". What is a computer, a software
Slide 90: application, a communications network if not a (material) representation of cerebral events? A necessary and sufficient connection surely exists between man-made things, tangible and intangible, and human minds. Even a gas pump has a "mind-correlate". It is also conceivable that representations of the "nonhuman" parts of the Universe exist in our minds, whether a-priori (not deriving from experience) or a-posteriori (dependent upon experience). This "correlation", "emulation", "simulation", "representation" (in short : close connection) between the "excretions", "output", "spin-offs", "products" of the human mind and the human mind itself - is a key to understanding it. This claim is an instance of a much broader category of claims: that we can learn about the artist by his art, about a creator by his creation, and generally: about the origin by any of the derivatives, inheritors, successors, products and similes thereof. This general contention is especially strong when the origin and the product share the same nature. If the origin is human (father) and the product is human (child) - there is an enormous amount of data that can be derived from the product and safely applied to the origin. The closer the origin to the product - the more we can learn about the origin from the product. We have said that knowing the product - we can usually know the origin. The reason is that knowledge about product "collapses" the set of probabilities and increases our knowledge about the origin. Yet, the converse is not always true. The same origin can give rise to many types of entirely unrelated products. There are too many free variables here. The origin exists as a "wave function": a
Slide 91: series of potentialities with attached probabilities, the potentials being the logically and physically possible products. What can we learn about the origin by a crude perusal to the product? Mostly observable structural and functional traits and attributes. We cannot learn a thing about the "true nature" of the origin. We can not know the "true nature" of anything. This is the realm of metaphysics, not of physics. Take Quantum Mechanics. It provides an astonishingly accurate description of micro-processes and of the Universe without saying much about their "essence". Modern physics strives to provide correct predictions rather than to expound upon this or that worldview. It describes - it does not explain. Where interpretations are offered (e.g., the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics) they invariably run into philosophical snags. Modern science uses metaphors (e.g., particles and waves). Metaphors have proven to be useful scientific tools in the "thinking scientist's" kit. As these metaphors develop, they trace the developmental phases of the origin. Consider the software-mind metaphor. The computer is a "thinking machine" (however limited, simulated, recursive and mechanical). Similarly, the brain is a "thinking machine" (admittedly much more agile, versatile, non-linear, maybe even qualitatively different). Whatever the disparity between the two, they must be related to one another. This relation is by virtue of two facts: (1) Both the brain and the computer are "thinking machines" and (2) the
Slide 92: latter is the product of the former. Thus, the computer metaphor is an unusually tenable and potent one. It is likely to be further enhanced should organic or quantum computers transpire. At the dawn of computing, software applications were authored serially, in machine language and with strict separation of data (called: "structures") and instruction code (called: "functions" or "procedures"). The machine language reflected the physical wiring of the hardware. This is akin to the development of the embryonic brain (mind). In the early life of the human embryo, instructions (DNA) are also insulated from data (i.e., from amino acids and other life substances). In early computing, databases were handled on a "listing" basis ("flat file"), were serial, and had no intrinsic relationship to one another. Early databases constituted a sort of substrate, ready to be acted upon. Only when "intermixed" in the computer (as a software application was run) were functions able to operate on structures. This phase was followed by the "relational" organization of data (a primitive example of which is the spreadsheet). Data items were related to each other through mathematical formulas. This is the equivalent of the increasing complexity of the wiring of the brain as pregnancy progresses. The latest evolutionary phase in programming is OOPS (Object Oriented Programming Systems). Objects are modules which encompass both data and instructions in self contained units. The user communicates with the functions performed by these objects - but not with their structure and internal processes.
Slide 93: Programming objects, in other words, are "black boxes" (an engineering term). The programmer is unable to tell how the object does what it does, or how does an external, useful function arise from internal, hidden functions or structures. Objects are epiphenomenal, emergent, phase transient. In short: much closer to reality as described by modern physics. Though these black boxes communicate - it is not the communication, its speed, or efficacy which determine the overall efficiency of the system. It is the hierarchical and at the same time fuzzy organization of the objects which does the trick. Objects are organized in classes which define their (actualized and potential) properties. The object's behaviour (what it does and what it reacts to) is defined by its membership of a class of objects. Moreover, objects can be organized in new (sub) classes while inheriting all the definitions and characteristics of the original class in addition to new properties. In a way, these newly emergent classes are the products while the classes they are derived from are the origin. This process so closely resembles natural - and especially biological phenomena that it lends additional force to the software metaphor. Thus, classes can be used as building blocks. Their permutations define the set of all soluble problems. It can be proven that Turing Machines are a private instance of a general, much stronger, class theory (a-la Principia Mathematica). The integration of hardware (computer, brain) and software (computer applications, mind) is done through "framework applications" which match the two elements structurally and functionally. The equivalent in the brain is sometimes called by philosophers and psychologists "a-priori categories", or "the collective
Slide 94: unconscious". Computers and their programming evolve. Relational databases cannot be integrated with object oriented ones, for instance. To run Java applets, a "virtual machine" needs to be embedded in the operating system. These phases closely resemble the development of the brainmind couplet. When is a metaphor a good metaphor? When it teaches us something new about the origin. It must possess some structural and functional resemblance. But this quantitative and observational facet is not enough. There is also a qualitative one: the metaphor must be instructive, revealing, insightful, aesthetic, and parsimonious - in short, it must constitute a theory and produce falsifiable predictions. A metaphor is also subject to logical and aesthetic rules and to the rigors of the scientific method. If the software metaphor is correct, the brain must contain the following features: 1. Parity checks through back propagation of signals. The brain's electrochemical signals must move back (to the origin) and forward, simultaneously, in order to establish a feedback parity loop. 2. The neuron cannot be a binary (two state) machine (a quantum computer is multi-state). It must have many levels of excitation (i.e., many modes of representation of information). The threshold ("all or nothing" firing) hypothesis must be wrong. 3. Redundancy must be built into all the aspects and dimensions of the brain and its activities. Redundant hardware -different centers to perform similar tasks. Redundant communications channels
Slide 95: with the same information simultaneously transferred across them. Redundant retrieval of data and redundant usage of obtained data (through working, "upper" memory). 4. The basic concept of the workings of the brain must be the comparison of "representational elements" to "models of the world". Thus, a coherent picture is obtained which yields predictions and allows to manipulate the environment effectively. 5. Many of the functions tackled by the brain must be recursive. We can expect to find that we can reduce all the activities of the brain to computational, mechanically solvable, recursive functions. The brain can be regarded as a Turing Machine and the dreams of Artificial Intelligence are likely come true. 6. The brain must be a learning, self organizing, entity. The brain's very hardware must disassemble, reassemble, reorganize, restructure, reroute, reconnect, disconnect, and, in general, alter itself in response to data. In most man-made machines, the data is external to the processing unit. It enters and exits the machine through designated ports but does not affect the machine's structure or functioning. Not so the brain. It reconfigures itself with every bit of data. One can say that a new brain is created every time a single bit of information is processed. Only if these six cumulative requirements are met - can we say that the software metaphor is useful.
Slide 96: C Cannibalism (and Human Sacrifice) "I believe that when man evolves a civilization higher than the mechanized but still primitive one he has now, the eating of human flesh will be sanctioned. For then man will have thrown off all of his superstitions and irrational taboos." (Diego Rivera) "One calls 'barbarism' whatever he is not accustomed to." (Montaigne, On Cannibalism) "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed." (New Testament, John 6:53-55) Cannibalism (more precisely, anthropophagy) is an ageold tradition that, judging by a constant stream of flabbergasted news reports, is far from extinct. Muchdebated indications exist that our Neanderthal, ProtoNeolithic, and Neolithic (Stone Age) predecessors were cannibals. Similarly contested claims were made with regards to the 12th century advanced Anasazi culture in the southwestern United States and the Minoans in Crete (today's Greece).
Slide 97: The Britannica Encyclopedia (2005 edition) recounts how the "Binderwurs of central India ate their sick and aged in the belief that the act was pleasing to their goddess, Kali." Cannibalism may also have been common among followers of the Shaktism cults in India. Other sources attribute cannibalism to the 16th century Imbangala in today's Angola and Congo, the Fang in Cameroon, the Mangbetu in Central Africa, the Ache in Paraguay, the Tonkawa in today's Texas, the Calusa in current day Florida, the Caddo and Iroquois confederacies of Indians in North America, the Cree in Canada, the Witoto, natives of Colombia and Peru, the Carib in the Lesser Antilles (whose distorted name - Canib - gave rise to the word "cannibalism"), to Maori tribes in today's New Zealand, and to various peoples in Sumatra (like the Batak). The Wikipedia numbers among the practitioners of cannibalism the ancient Chinese, the Korowai tribe of southeastern Papua, the Fore tribe in New Guinea (and many other tribes in Melanesia), the Aztecs, the people of Yucatan, the Purchas from Popayan, Colombia, the denizens of the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, and the natives of the captaincy of Sergipe in Brazil. From Congo and Central Africa to Germany and from Mexico to New Zealand, cannibalism is enjoying a morbid revival of interest, if not of practice. A veritable torrent of sensational tomes and movies adds to our ambivalent fascination with man-eaters. Cannibalism is not a monolithic affair. It can be divided thus: I. Non-consensual consumption of human flesh post-
Slide 98: mortem For example, when the corpses of prisoners of war are devoured by their captors. This used to be a common exercise among island tribes (e.g., in Fiji, the Andaman and Cook islands) and is still the case in godforsaken battle zones such as Congo (formerly Zaire), or among the defeated Japanese soldiers in World War II. Similarly, human organs and fetuses as well as mummies are still being gobbled up - mainly in Africa and Asia - for remedial and medicinal purposes and in order to enhance one's libido and vigor. On numerous occasions the organs of dead companions, colleagues, family, or neighbors were reluctantly ingested by isolated survivors of horrid accidents (the Uruguay rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes, the boat people fleeing Asia), denizens of besieged cities (e.g., during the siege of Leningrad), members of exploratory expeditions gone astray (the Donner Party in Sierra Nevada, California and John Franklin's Polar expedition), famine-stricken populations (Ukraine in the 1930s, China in the 1960s), and the like. Finally, in various pre-nation-state and tribal societies, members of the family were encouraged to eat specific parts of their dead relatives as a sign of respect or in order to partake of the deceased's wisdom, courage, or other positive traits (endocannibalism). II. Non-consensual consumption of human flesh from a live source For example, when prisoners of war are butchered for the express purpose of being eaten by their victorious enemies.
Slide 99: A notorious and rare representative of this category of cannibalism is the punitive ritual of being eaten alive. The kings of the tribes of the Cook Islands were thought to embody the gods. They punished dissent by dissecting their screaming and conscious adversaries and consuming their flesh piecemeal, eyeballs first. The Sawney Bean family in Scotland, during the reign of King James I, survived for decades on the remains (and personal belongings) of victims of their murderous sprees. Real-life serial killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, Albert Fish, Sascha Spesiwtsew, Fritz Haarmann, Issei Sagawa, and Ed Gein, lured, abducted, and massacred countless people and then consumed their flesh and preserved the inedible parts as trophies. These lurid deeds inspired a slew of books and films, most notably The Silence of the Lambs with Hannibal (Lecter) the Cannibal as its protagonist. III. Consensual consumption of human flesh from live and dead human bodies Armin Meiwes, the "Master Butcher (Der Metzgermeister)", arranged over the Internet to meet Bernd Jurgen Brandes on March 2001. Meiwes amputated the penis of his guest and they both ate it. He then proceeded to kill Brandes (with the latter's consent recorded on video), and snack on what remained of him. Sexual cannibalism is a paraphilia and an extreme - and thankfully, rare - form of fetishism. The Aztecs willingly volunteered to serve as human sacrifices (and to be tucked into afterwards). They firmly believed that they were offerings, chosen by the gods themselves, thus being rendered immortal. Dutiful sons and daughters in China made their amputated
Slide 100: organs and sliced tissues (mainly the liver) available to their sick parents (practices known as Ko Ku and Ko Kan). Such donation were considered remedial. Princess Miao Chuang who surrendered her severed hands to her ailing father was henceforth deified. Non-consensual cannibalism is murder, pure and simple. The attendant act of cannibalism, though aesthetically and ethically reprehensible, cannot aggravate this supreme assault on all that we hold sacred. But consensual cannibalism is a lot trickier. Modern medicine, for instance, has blurred the already thin line between right and wrong. What is the ethical difference between consensual, postmortem, organ harvesting and consensual, post-mortem cannibalism? Why is stem cell harvesting (from aborted fetuses) morally superior to consensual post-mortem cannibalism? When members of a plane-wrecked rugby team, stranded on an inaccessible, snow-piled, mountain range resort to eating each other in order to survive, we turn a blind eye to their repeated acts of cannibalism - but we condemn the very same deed in the harshest terms if it takes place between two consenting, and even eager adults in Germany. Surely, we don't treat murder, pedophilia, and incest the same way! As the Auxiliary Bishop of Montevideo said after the crash: "... Eating someone who has died in order to survive is incorporating their substance, and it is quite possible to compare this with a graft. Flesh survives when
Slide 101: assimilated by someone in extreme need, just as it does when an eye or heart of a dead man is grafted onto a living man..." (Read, P.P. 1974. Alive. Avon, New York) Complex ethical issues are involved in the apparently straightforward practice of consensual cannibalism. Consensual, in vivo, cannibalism (a-la Messrs. Meiwes and Brandes) resembles suicide. The cannibal is merely the instrument of voluntary self-destruction. Why would we treat it different to the way we treat any other form of suicide pact? Consensual cannibalism is not the equivalent of drug abuse because it has no social costs. Unlike junkies, the cannibal and his meal are unlikely to harm others. What gives society the right to intervene, therefore? If we own our bodies and, thus, have the right to smoke, drink, have an abortion, commit suicide, and will our organs to science after we die - why don't we possess the inalienable right to will our delectable tissues to a discerning cannibal post-mortem (or to victims of famine in Africa)? When does our right to dispose of our organs in any way we see fit crystallize? Is it when we die? Or after we are dead? If so, what is the meaning and legal validity of a living will? And why can't we make a living will and bequeath our cadaverous selves to the nearest cannibal? Do dead people have rights and can they claim and invoke them while they are still alive? Is the live person the same as his dead body, does he "own" it, does the state have any rights in it? Does the corpse stll retain its previous
Slide 102: occupant's "personhood"? Are cadavers still human, in any sense of the word? We find all three culinary variants abhorrent. Yet, this instinctive repulsion is a curious matter. The onerous demands of survival should have encouraged cannibalism rather than make it a taboo. Human flesh is protein-rich. Most societies, past and present (with the exception of the industrialized West), need to make efficient use of rare protein-intensive resources. If cannibalism enhances the chances of survival - why is it universally prohibited? For many a reason. I. The Sanctity of Life Historically, cannibalism preceded, followed, or precipitated an act of murder or extreme deprivation (such as torture). It habitually clashed with the principle of the sanctity of life. Once allowed, even under the strictest guidelines, cannibalism tended to debase and devalue human life and foster homicide, propelling its practitioners down a slippery ethical slope towards bloodlust and orgiastic massacres. II. The Afterlife Moreover, in life, the human body and form are considered by most religions (and philosophers) to be the abode of the soul, the divine spark that animates us all. The post-mortem integrity of this shrine is widely thought to guarantee a faster, unhindered access to the afterlife, to immortality, and eventual reincarnation (or karmic cycle in eastern religions). For this reason, to this very day, orthodox Jews refuse to subject their relatives to a post-mortem autopsy and organ
Slide 103: harvesting. Fijians and Cook Islanders used to consume their enemies' carcasses in order to prevent their souls from joining hostile ancestors in heaven. III. Chastening Reminders Cannibalism is a chilling reminder of our humble origins in the animal kingdom. To the cannibal, we are no better and no more than cattle or sheep. Cannibalism confronts us with the irreversibility of our death and its finality. Surely, we cannot survive our demise with our cadaver mutilated and gutted and our skeletal bones scattered, gnawed, and chewed on? IV. Medical Reasons Infrequently, cannibalism results in prion diseases of the nervous system, such as kuru. The same paternalism that gave rise to the banning of drug abuse, the outlawing of suicide, and the Prohibition of alcoholic drinks in the 1920s - seeks to shelter us from the pernicious medical outcomes of cannibalism and to protect others who might become our victims. V. The Fear of Being Objectified Being treated as an object (being objectified) is the most torturous form of abuse. People go to great lengths to seek empathy and to be perceived by others as three dimensional entities with emotions, needs, priorities, wishes, and preferences. The cannibal reduces others by treating them as so much meat. Many cannibal serial killers transformed the organs of their victims into trophies. The Cook Islanders sought to humiliate their enemies by eating, digesting, and then defecating them - having absorbed their mana (prowess,
Slide 104: life force) in the process. VI. The Argument from Nature Cannibalism is often castigated as "unnatural". Animals, goes the myth, don't prey on their own kind. Alas, like so many other romantic lores, this is untrue. Most species - including our closest relatives, the chimpanzees - do cannibalize. Cannibalism in nature is widespread and serves diverse purposes such as population control (chickens, salamanders, toads), food and protein security in conditions of scarcity (hippopotamuses, scorpions, certain types of dinosaurs), threat avoidance (rabbits, mice, rats, and hamsters), and the propagation of genetic material through exclusive mating (Red-back spider and many mantids). Moreover, humans are a part of nature. Our deeds and misdeeds are natural by definition. Seeking to tame nature is a natural act. Seeking to establish hierarchies and subdue or relinquish our enemies are natural propensities. By avoiding cannibalism we seek to transcend nature. Refraining from cannibalism is the unnatural act. VIII. The Argument from Progress It is a circular syllogism involving a tautology and goes like this: Cannibalism is barbaric. Cannibals are, therefore, barbarians. Progress entails the abolition of this practice. The premises - both explicit and implicit - are axiomatic and, therefore, shaky. What makes cannibalism barbarian? And why is progress a desirable outcome? There is a prescriptive fallacy involved, as well:
Slide 105: Because we do not eat the bodies of dead people - we ought not to eat them. VIII. Arguments from Religious Ethics The major monotheistic religions are curiously mute when it comes to cannibalism. Human sacrifice is denounced numerous times in the Old Testament - but man-eating goes virtually unmentioned. The Eucharist in Christianity - when the believers consume the actual body and blood of Jesus - is an act of undisguised cannibalism: "That the consequence of Transubstantiation, as a conversion of the total substance, is the transition of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, is the express doctrine of the Church ...." (Catholic Encyclopedia) "CANON lI.-If any one saith, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood-the species Only of the bread and wine remaining-which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema. CANON VIII.-lf any one saith, that Christ, given in the Eucharist, is eaten spiritually only, and not also sacramentally and really; let him be anathema." (The Council of Trent, The Thirteenth Session - The canons and decrees of the sacred and oecumenical
Slide 106: Council of Trent, Ed. and trans. J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848), 75-91.) Still, most systems of morality and ethics impute to Man a privileged position in the scheme of things (having been created in the "image of God"). Men and women are supposed to transcend their animal roots and inhibit their baser instincts (an idea incorporated into Freud's tripartite model of the human psyche). The anthropocentric chauvinistic view is that it is permissible to kill all other animals in order to consume their flesh. Man, in this respect, is sui generis. Yet, it is impossible to rigorously derive a prohibition to eat human flesh from any known moral system. As Richard Routley-Silvan observes in his essay "In Defence of Cannibalism", that something is innately repugnant does not make it morally prohibited. Moreover, that we find cannibalism nauseating is probably the outcome of upbringing and conditioning rather than anything innate. Causes, External Some philosophers say that our life is meaningless because it has a prescribed end. This is a strange assertion: is a movie rendered meaningless because of its finiteness? Some things acquire a meaning precisely because they are finite: consider academic studies, for instance. It would seem that meaningfulness does not depend upon matters temporary. We all share the belief that we derive meaning from external sources. Something bigger than us – and outside us – bestows meaning upon our lives: God, the State, a social institution, an historical cause.
Slide 107: Yet, this belief is misplaced and mistaken. If such an external source of meaning were to depend upon us for its definition (hence, for its meaning) – how could we derive meaning from it? A cyclical argument ensues. We can never derive meaning from that whose very meaning (or definition) is dependent on us. The defined cannot define the definer. To use the defined as part of its own definition (by the vice of its inclusion in the definer) is the very definition of a tautology, the gravest of logical fallacies. On the other hand: if such an external source of meaning were NOT dependent on us for its definition or meaning – again it would have been of no use in our quest for meaning and definition. That which is absolutely independent of us – is absolutely free of any interaction with us because such an interaction would inevitably have constituted a part of its definition or meaning. And that, which is devoid of any interaction with us – cannot be known to us. We know about something by interacting with it. The very exchange of information – through the senses - is an interaction. Thus, either we serve as part of the definition or the meaning of an external source – or we do not. In the first case, it cannot constitute a part of our own definition or meaning. In the second case, it cannot be known to us and, therefore, cannot be discussed at all. Put differently: no meaning can be derived from an external source. Despite the above said, people derive meaning almost exclusively from external sources. If a sufficient number of questions is asked, we will always reach an external source of meaning. People believe in God and in a divine plan, an order inspired by Him and manifest in both the inanimate and the animate universe. Their lives acquire
Slide 108: meaning by realizing the roles assigned to them by this Supreme Being. They are defined by the degree with which they adhere to this divine design. Others relegate the same functions to the Universe (to Nature). It is perceived by them to be a grand, perfected, design, or mechanism. Humans fit into this mechanism and have roles to play in it. It is the degree of their fulfilment of these roles which characterizes them, provides their lives with meaning and defines them. Other people attach the same endowments of meaning and definition to human society, to Mankind, to a given culture or civilization, to specific human institutions (the Church, the State, the Army), or to an ideology. These human constructs allocate roles to individuals. These roles define the individuals and infuse their lives with meaning. By becoming part of a bigger (external) whole – people acquire a sense of purposefulness, which is confused with meaningfulness. Similarly, individuals confuse their functions, mistaking them for their own definitions. In other words: people become defined by their functions and through them. They find meaning in their striving to attain goals. Perhaps the biggest and most powerful fallacy of all is teleology. Again, meaning is derived from an external source: the future. People adopt goals, make plans to achieve them and then turn these into the raisons d'etre of their lives. They believe that their acts can influence the future in a manner conducive to the achievement of their pre-set goals. They believe, in other words, that they are possessed of free will and of the ability to exercise it in a manner commensurate with the attainment of their goals in accordance with their set plans. Furthermore, they believe that there is a physical, unequivocal, monovalent
Slide 109: interaction between their free will and the world. This is not the place to review the mountainous literature pertaining to these (near eternal) questions: is there such a thing as free will or is the world deterministic? Is there causality or just coincidence and correlation? Suffice it to say that the answers are far from being clear-cut. To base one's notions of meaningfulness and definition on any of them would be a rather risky act, at least philosophically. But, can we derive meaning from an inner source? After all, we all "emotionally, intuitively, know" what is meaning and that it exists. If we ignore the evolutionary explanation (a false sense of meaning was instilled in us by Nature because it is conducive to survival and it motivates us to successfully prevail in hostile environments) - it follows that it must have a source somewhere. If the source is internal – it cannot be universal and it must be idiosyncratic. Each one of us has a different inner environment. No two humans are alike. A meaning that springs forth from a unique inner source – must be equally unique and specific to each and every individual. Each person, therefore, is bound to have a different definition and a different meaning. This may not be true on the biological level. We all act in order to maintain life and increase bodily pleasures. But it should definitely hold true on the psychological and spiritual levels. On those levels, we all form our own narratives. Some of them are derived from external sources of meaning – but all of them rely heavily on inner sources of meaning. The answer to the last in a chain of questions will always be: "Because it makes me feel good". In the absence of an external, indisputable, source of meaning – no rating and no hierarchy of actions are possible. An act is preferable to another (using any
Slide 110: criterion of preference) only if there is an outside source of judgement or of comparison. Paradoxically, it is much easier to prioritize acts with the use of an inner source of meaning and definition. The pleasure principle ("what gives me more pleasure") is an efficient (inner-sourced) rating mechanism. To this eminently and impeccably workable criterion, we usually attach another, external, one (ethical and moral, for instance). The inner criterion is really ours and is a credible and reliable judge of real and relevant preferences. The external criterion is nothing but a defence mechanism embedded in us by an external source of meaning. It comes to defend the external source from the inevitable discovery that it is meaningless. Chinese Room Whole forests have been wasted in the effort to refute the Chinese Room Thought Experiment proposed by Searle in 1980 and refined (really derived from axioms) in 1990. The experiment envisages a room in which an English speaker sits, equipped with a book of instructions in English. Through one window messages in Chinese are passed on to him (in the original experiment, two types of messages). He is supposed to follow the instructions and correlate the messages received with other pieces of paper, already in the room, also in Chinese. This collage he passes on to the outside through yet another window. The comparison with a computer is evident. There is input, a processing unit and output. What Searle tried to demonstrate is that there is no need to assume that the central processing unit (the English speaker) understands (or, for that matter, performs any other cognitive or mental function) the input or the output (both in Chinese). Searle generalized and stated that this shows that
Slide 111: computers will never be capable of thinking, being conscious, or having other mental states. In his picturesque language "syntax is not a sufficient base for semantics". Consciousness is not reducible to computations. It takes a certain "stuff" (the brain) to get these results. Objections to the mode of presentation selected by Searle and to the conclusions that he derived were almost immediately raised. Searle fought back effectively. But throughout these debates a few points seemed to have escaped most of those involved. First, the English speaker inside the room himself is a conscious entity, replete and complete with mental states, cognition, awareness and emotional powers. Searle went to the extent of introducing himself to the Chinese Room (in his disputation). Whereas Searle would be hard pressed to prove (to himself) that the English speaker in the room is possessed of mental states – this is not the case if he himself were in the room. The Cartesian maxim holds: "Cogito, ergo sum". But this argument – though valid – is not strong. The English speaker (and Searle, for that matter) can easily be replaced in the thought experiment by a Turing machine. His functions are recursive and mechanical. But there is a much more serious objection. Whomever composed the book of instructions must have been conscious, possessed of mental states and of cognitive processes. Moreover, he must also have had a perfect understanding of Chinese to have authored it. It must have been an entity capable of thinking, analysing, reasoning, theorizing and predicting in the deepest senses of the words. In other words: it must have been intelligent. So, intelligence (we will use it hitherto as a catchphrase for
Slide 112: the gamut of mental states) was present in the Chinese Room. It was present in the book of instructions and it was present in the selection of the input of Chinese messages and it was present when the results were deciphered and understood. An intelligent someone must have judged the results to have been coherent and "right". An intelligent agent must have fed the English speaker with the right input. A very intelligent, conscious, being with a multitude of cognitive mental states must have authored the "program" (the book of instructions). Depending on the content of correlated inputs and outputs, it is conceivable that this intelligent being was also possessed of emotions or an aesthetic attitude as we know it. In the case of real life computers – this would be the programmer. But it is the computer that Searle is talking about – not its programmer, or some other, external source of intelligence. The computer is devoid of intelligence, the English speaker does not understand Chinese (="Mentalese")– not the programmer (or who authored the book of instructions). Yet, is the SOURCE of the intelligence that important? Shouldn't we emphasize the LOCUS (site) of the intelligence, where it is stored and used? Surely, the programmer is the source of any intelligence that a computer possesses. But is this relevant? If the computer were to effectively make use of the intelligence bestowed upon it by the programmer – wouldn't we say that it is intelligent? If tomorrow we will discover that our mental states are induced in us by a supreme intelligence (known to many as God) – should we then say that we are devoid of mental states? If we were to discover in a distant future that what we call "our" intelligence is really
Slide 113: a clever program run from a galactic computer centre – will we then feel less entitled to say that we are intelligent? Will our subjective feelings, the way that we experience our selves, change in the wake of this newly acquired knowledge? Will we no longer feel the mental states and the intelligence that we used to feel prior to these discoveries? If Searle were to live in that era – would he have declared himself devoid of mental, cognitive, emotional and intelligent states – just because the source and the mechanism of these phenomena have been found out to be external or remote? Obviously, not. Where the intelligence emanates from, what is its source, how it is conferred, stored, what are the mechanisms of its bestowal – are all irrelevant to the question whether a given entity is intelligent. The only issue relevant is whether the discussed entity is possessed of intelligence, contains intelligence, has intelligent components, stores intelligence and is able to make a dynamic use of it. The locus and its properties (behaviour) matter. If a programmer chose to store intelligence in a computer – then he created an intelligent computer. He conferred his intelligence onto the computer. Intelligence can be replicated endlessly. There is no quantitative law of conservation of mental states. We teach our youngsters – thereby replicating our knowledge and giving them copies of it without "eroding" the original. We shed tears in the movie theatre because the director succeeded to replicate an emotion in us – without losing one bit of original emotion captured on celluloid. Consciousness, mental states, intelligence are transferable and can be stored and conferred. Pregnancy is a process of conferring intelligence. The book of instructions is stored in our genetic material. We pass on this book to our off spring. The decoding and unfolding of the book are what
Slide 114: we call the embryonic phases. Intelligence, therefore, can (and is) passed on (in this case, through the genetic material, in other words: through hardware). We can identify an emitter (or transmitter) of mental states and a receiver of mental states (equipped with an independent copy of a book of instructions). The receiver can be passive (as television is). In such a case we will not be justified in saying that it is "intelligent" or has a mental life. But – if it possesses the codes and the instructions – it could make independent use of the data, process it, decide upon it, pass it on, mutate it, transform it, react to it. In the latter case we will not be justified in saying that the receiver does NOT possess intelligence or mental states. Again, the source, the trigger of the mental states are irrelevant. What is relevant is to establish that the receiver has a copy of the intelligence or of the other mental states of the agent (the transmitter). If so, then it is intelligent in its own right and has a mental life of its own. Must the source be point-like, an identifiable unit? Not necessarily. A programmer is a point-like source of intelligence (in the case of a computer). A parent is a point-like source of mental states (in the case of his child). But other sources are conceivable. For instance, we could think about mental states as emergent. Each part of an entity might not demonstrate them. A neurone cell in the brain has no mental states of it own. But when a population of such parts crosses a quantitatively critical threshold – an epiphenomenon occurs. When many neurones are interlinked – the results are mental states and intelligence. The quantitative critical mass – happens also to be an important qualitative threshold.
Slide 115: Imagine a Chinese Gymnasium instead of a Chinese Room. Instead of one English speaker – there is a multitude of them. Each English speaker is the equivalent of a neurone. Altogether, they constitute a brain. Searle says that if one English speaker does not understand Chinese, it would be ridiculous to assume that a multitude of English speakers would. But reality shows that this is exactly what will happen. A single molecule of gas has no temperature or pressure. A mass of them – does. Where did the temperature and pressure come from? Not from any single molecule – so we are forced to believe that both these qualities emerged. Temperature and pressure (in the case of gas molecules), thinking (in the case of neurones) – are emergent phenomena. All we can say is that there seems to be an emergent source of mental states. As an embryo develops, it is only when it crosses a certain quantitative threshold (number of differentiated cells) – that he begins to demonstrate mental states. The source is not clear – but the locus is. The residence of the mental states is always known – whether the source is point-like and identifiable, or diffusely emerges as an epiphenomenon. It is because we can say very little about the source of mental states – and a lot about their locus, that we developed an observer bias. It is much easier to observe mental states in their locus – because they create behaviour. By observing behaviour – we deduce the existence of mental states. The alternative is solipsism (or religious panpsychism, or mere belief). The dichotomy is clear and painful: either we, as observers, cannot recognize mental states, in principle – or, we can recognize them only through their products. Consider a comatose person. Does he have a mental life
Slide 116: going on? Comatose people have been known to have reawakened in the past. So, we know that they are alive in more than the limited physiological sense. But, while still, do they have a mental life of any sort? We cannot know. This means that in the absence of observables (behaviour, communication) – we cannot be certain that mental states exist. This does not mean that mental states ARE those observables (a common fallacy). This says nothing about the substance of mental states. This statement is confined to our measurements and observations and to their limitations. Yet, the Chinese Room purports to say something about the black box that we call "mental states". It says that we can know (prove or refute) the existence of a TRUE mental state – as distinct from a simulated one. That, despite appearances, we can tell a "real" mental state apart from its copy. Confusing the source of the intelligence with its locus is at the bottom of this thought experiment. It is conceivable to have an intelligent entity with mental states – that derives (or derived) its intelligence and mental states from a point-like source or acquired these properties in an emergent, epiphenomenal way. The identity of the source and the process through which the mental states were acquired are irrelevant. To say that the entity is not intelligent (the computer, the English speaker) because it got its intelligence from the outside (the programmer) – is like saying that someone is not rich because he got his millions from the national lottery. Cloning In a paper, published in "Science" in May 2005, 25 scientists, led by Woo Suk Hwang of Seoul National University, confirmed that they were able to clone dozens of blastocysts (the clusters of tiny cells that develop into
Slide 117: embryos). Blastocysts contain stem cells that can be used to generate replacement tissues and, perhaps, one day, whole organs. The fact that cloned cells are identical to the original cell guarantees that they will not be rejected by the immune system of the recipient. The results were later proven faked by the disgraced scientist - but they pointed the way for future research non the less. There are two types of cloning. One involves harvesting stem cells from embryos ("therapeutic cloning"). Stem cells are the biological equivalent of a template or a blueprint. They can develop into any kind of mature functional cell and thus help cure many degenerative and auto-immune diseases. The other kind of cloning, known as "nuclear transfer", is much decried in popular culture - and elsewhere - as the harbinger of a Brave, New World. A nucleus from any cell of a donor is embedded in an (either mouse or human) egg whose own nucleus has been removed. The egg can then be coaxed into growing specific kinds of tissues (e.g., insulin-producing cells or nerve cells). These can be used in a variety of treatments. Opponents of the procedure point out that when a treated human egg is implanted in a woman's womb a cloned baby will be born nine months later. Biologically, the infant is a genetic replica of the donor. When the donor of both nucleus and egg is the same woman, the process is known as "auto-cloning" (which was achieved by Woo Suk Hwang). Cloning is often confused with other advances in biomedicine and bio-engineering - such as genetic selection.
Slide 118: It cannot - in itself - be used to produce "perfect humans" or select sex or other traits. Hence, some of the arguments against cloning are either specious or fuelled by ignorance. It is true, though, that cloning, used in conjunction with other bio-technologies, raises serious bio-ethical questions. Scare scenarios of humans cultivated in sinister labs as sources of spare body parts, "designer babies", "master races", or "genetic sex slaves" - formerly the preserve of B sci-fi movies - have invaded mainstream discourse. Still, cloning touches upon Mankind's most basic fears and hopes. It invokes the most intractable ethical and moral dilemmas. As an inevitable result, the debate is often more passionate than informed. See the Appendix - Arguments from the Right to Life But is the Egg - Alive? This question is NOT equivalent to the ancient quandary of "when does life begin". Life crystallizes, at the earliest, when an egg and a sperm unite (i.e., at the moment of fertilization). Life is not a potential - it is a process triggered by an event. An unfertilized egg is neither a process - nor an event. It does not even possess the potential to become alive unless and until it merges with a sperm. Should such merger not occur - it will never develop life. The potential to become X is not the ontological equivalent of actually being X, nor does it spawn moral and ethical rights and obligations pertaining to X. The transition from potential to being is not trivial, nor is it automatic, or inevitable, or independent of context. Atoms
Slide 119: of various elements have the potential to become an egg (or, for that matter, a human being) - yet no one would claim that they ARE an egg (or a human being), or that they should be treated as one (i.e., with the same rights and obligations). Moreover, it is the donor nucleus embedded in the egg that endows it with life - the life of the cloned baby. Yet, the nucleus is usually extracted from a muscle or the skin. Should we treat a muscle or a skin cell with the same reverence the critics of cloning wish to accord an unfertilized egg? Is This the Main Concern? The main concern is that cloning - even the therapeutic kind - will produce piles of embryos. Many of them close to 95% with current biotechnology - will die. Others can be surreptitiously and illegally implanted in the wombs of "surrogate mothers". It is patently immoral, goes the precautionary argument, to kill so many embryos. Cloning is such a novel technique that its success rate is still unacceptably low. There are alternative ways to harvest stem cells - less costly in terms of human life. If we accept that life begins at the moment of fertilization, this argument is valid. But it also implies that - once cloning becomes safer and scientists more adept - cloning itself should be permitted. This is anathema to those who fear a slippery slope. They abhor the very notion of "unnatural" conception. To them, cloning is a narcissistic act and an ignorant and dangerous interference in nature's sagacious ways. They would ban procreative cloning, regardless of how safe it is. Therapeutic cloning - with its mounds of discarded fetuses
Slide 120: - will allow rogue scientists to cross the boundary between permissible (curative cloning) and illegal (baby cloning). Why Should Baby Cloning be Illegal? Cloning's opponents object to procreative cloning because it can be abused to design babies, skew natural selection, unbalance nature, produce masters and slaves and so on. The "argument from abuse" has been raised with every scientific advance - from in vitro fertilization to space travel. Every technology can be potentially abused. Television can be either a wonderful educational tool - or an addictive and mind numbing pastime. Nuclear fission is a process that yields both nuclear weapons and atomic energy. To claim, as many do, that cloning touches upon the "heart" of our existence, the "kernel" of our being, the very "essence" of our nature - and thus threatens life itself - would be incorrect. There is no "privileged" form of technological abuse and no hierarchy of potentially abusive technologies. Nuclear fission tackles natural processes as fundamental as life. Nuclear weapons threaten life no less than cloning. The potential for abuse is not a sufficient reason to arrest scientific research and progress - though it is a necessary condition. Some fear that cloning will further the government's enmeshment in the healthcare system and in scientific research. Power corrupts and it is not inconceivable that governments will ultimately abuse and misuse cloning and other biotechnologies. Nazi Germany had a statesponsored and state-mandated eugenics program in the 1930's.
Slide 121: Yet, this is another variant of the argument from abuse. That a technology can be abused by governments does not imply that it should be avoided or remain undeveloped. This is because all technologies - without a single exception - can and are abused routinely - by governments and others. This is human nature. Fukuyama raised the possibility of a multi-tiered humanity in which "natural" and "genetically modified" people enjoy different rights and privileges. But why is this inevitable? Surely this can easily by tackled by proper, prophylactic, legislation? All humans, regardless of their pre-natal history, should be treated equally. Are children currently conceived in vitro treated any differently to children conceived in utero? They are not. There is no reason that cloned or genetically-modified children should belong to distinct legal classes. Unbalancing Nature It is very anthropocentric to argue that the proliferation of genetically enhanced or genetically selected children will somehow unbalance nature and destabilize the precarious equilibrium it maintains. After all, humans have been modifying, enhancing, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of species for well over 10,000 years now. Genetic modification and bio-engineering are as natural as agriculture. Human beings are a part of nature and its manifestation. By definition, everything they do is natural. Why would the genetic alteration or enhancement of one more species - homo sapiens - be of any consequence? In what way are humans "more important" to nature, or "more crucial" to its proper functioning? In our short
Slide 122: history on this planet, we have genetically modified and enhanced wheat and rice, dogs and cows, tulips and orchids, oranges and potatoes. Why would interfering with the genetic legacy of the human species be any different? Effects on Society Cloning - like the Internet, the television, the car, electricity, the telegraph, and the wheel before it - is bound to have great social consequences. It may foster "embryo industries". It may lead to the exploitation of women - either willingly ("egg prostitution") or unwillingly ("womb slavery"). Charles Krauthammer, a columnist and psychiatrist, quoted in "The Economist", says: "(Cloning) means the routinisation, the commercialisation, the commodification of the human embryo." Exploiting anyone unwillingly is a crime, whether it involves cloning or white slavery. But why would egg donations and surrogate motherhood be considered problems? If we accept that life begins at the moment of fertilization and that a woman owns her body and everything within it - why should she not be allowed to sell her eggs or to host another's baby and how would these voluntary acts be morally repugnant? In any case, human eggs are already being bought and sold and the supply far exceeds the demand. Moreover, full-fledged humans are routinely "routinised, commercialized, and commodified" by governments, corporations, religions, and other social institutions. Consider war, for instance - or commercial advertising.
Slide 123: How is the "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of embryos more reprehensible that the "routinisation, commercialization, and commodification" of fully formed human beings? Curing and Saving Life Cell therapy based on stem cells often leads to tissue rejection and necessitates costly and potentially dangerous immunosuppressive therapy. But when the stem cells are harvested from the patient himself and cloned, these problems are averted. Therapeutic cloning has vast untapped - though at this stage still remote - potential to improve the lives of hundreds of millions. As far as "designer babies" go, pre-natal cloning and genetic engineering can be used to prevent disease or cure it, to suppress unwanted traits, and to enhance desired ones. It is the moral right of a parent to make sure that his progeny suffers less, enjoys life more, and attains the maximal level of welfare throughout his or her life. That such technologies can be abused by over-zealous, or mentally unhealthy parents in collaboration with avaricious or unscrupulous doctors - should not prevent the vast majority of stable, caring, and sane parents from gaining access to them. Appendix - Arguments from the Right to Life I. Right to Life Arguments According to cloning's detractors, the nucleus removed from the egg could otherwise have developed into a human being. Thus, removing the nucleus amounts to murder.
Slide 124: It is a fundamental principle of most moral theories that all human beings have a right to life. The existence of a right implies obligations or duties of third parties towards the right-holder. One has a right AGAINST other people. The fact that one possesses a certain right - prescribes to others certain obligatory behaviours and proscribes certain acts or omissions. This Janus-like nature of rights and duties as two sides of the same ethical coin - creates great confusion. People often and easily confuse rights and their attendant duties or obligations with the morally decent, or even with the morally permissible. What one MUST do as a result of another's right - should never be confused with one SHOULD or OUGHT to do morally (in the absence of a right). The right to life has eight distinct strains: IA. The right to be brought to life IB. The right to be born IC. The right to have one's life maintained ID. The right not to be killed IE. The right to have one's life saved IF. The right to save one's life (erroneously limited to the right to self-defence) IG. The right to terminate one's life IH. The right to have one's life terminated IA. The Right to be Brought to Life Only living people have rights. There is a debate whether an egg is a living person - but there can be no doubt that it
Slide 125: exists. Its rights - whatever they are - derive from the fact that it exists and that it has the potential to develop life. The right to be brought to life (the right to become or to be) pertains to a yet non-alive entity and, therefore, is null and void. Had this right existed, it would have implied an obligation or duty to give life to the unborn and the not yet conceived. No such duty or obligation exist. IB. The Right to be Born The right to be born crystallizes at the moment of voluntary and intentional fertilization. If a scientist knowingly and intentionally causes in vitro fertilization for the explicit and express purpose of creating an embryo - then the resulting fertilized egg has a right to mature and be born. Furthermore, the born child has all the rights a child has against his parents: food, shelter, emotional nourishment, education, and so on. It is debatable whether such rights of the fetus and, later, of the child, exist if there was no positive act of fertilization - but, on the contrary, an act which prevents possible fertilization, such as the removal of the nucleus (see IC below). IC. The Right to Have One's Life Maintained Does one have the right to maintain one's life and prolong them at other people's expense? Does one have the right to use other people's bodies, their property, their time, their resources and to deprive them of pleasure, comfort, material possessions, income, or any other thing? The answer is yes and no. No one has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at another INDIVIDUAL's expense (no
Slide 126: matter how minimal and insignificant the sacrifice required is). Still, if a contract has been signed - implicitly or explicitly - between the parties, then such a right may crystallize in the contract and create corresponding duties and obligations, moral, as well as legal. Example: No fetus has a right to sustain its life, maintain, or prolong them at his mother's expense (no matter how minimal and insignificant the sacrifice required of her is). Still, if she signed a contract with the fetus - by knowingly and willingly and intentionally conceiving it - such a right has crystallized and has created corresponding duties and obligations of the mother towards her fetus. On the other hand, everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at SOCIETY's expense (no matter how major and significant the resources required are). Still, if a contract has been signed implicitly or explicitly - between the parties, then the abrogation of such a right may crystallize in the contract and create corresponding duties and obligations, moral, as well as legal. Example: Everyone has a right to sustain his or her life, maintain, or prolong them at society's expense. Public hospitals, state pension schemes, and police forces may be required to fulfill society's obligations - but fulfill them it must, no matter how major and significant the resources are. Still, if a person volunteered to join the army and a contract has been signed between the parties, then this right has been thus abrogated and the individual assumed certain duties and obligations, including the duty or obligation to give
Slide 127: up his or her life to society. ID. The Right not to be Killed Every person has the right not to be killed unjustly. What constitutes "just killing" is a matter for an ethical calculus in the framework of a social contract. But does A's right not to be killed include the right against third parties that they refrain from enforcing the rights of other people against A? Does A's right not to be killed preclude the righting of wrongs committed by A against others - even if the righting of such wrongs means the killing of A? Not so. There is a moral obligation to right wrongs (to restore the rights of other people). If A maintains or prolongs his life ONLY by violating the rights of others and these other people object to it - then A must be killed if that is the only way to right the wrong and re-assert their rights. This is doubly true if A's existence is, at best, debatable. An egg does not a human being make. Removal of the nucleus is an important step in life-saving research. An unfertilized egg has no rights at all. IE. The Right to Have One's Life Saved There is no such right as there is no corresponding moral obligation or duty to save a life. This "right" is a demonstration of the aforementioned muddle between the morally commendable, desirable and decent ("ought", "should") and the morally obligatory, the result of other people's rights ("must"). In some countries, the obligation to save life is legally
Slide 128: codified. But while the law of the land may create a LEGAL right and corresponding LEGAL obligations - it does not always or necessarily create a moral or an ethical right and corresponding moral duties and obligations. IF. The Right to Save One's Own Life The right to self-defence is a subset of the more general and all-pervasive right to save one's own life. One has the right to take certain actions or avoid taking certain actions in order to save his or her own life. It is generally accepted that one has the right to kill a pursuer who knowingly and intentionally intends to take one's life. It is debatable, though, whether one has the right to kill an innocent person who unknowingly and unintentionally threatens to take one's life. IG. The Right to Terminate One's Life See "The Murder of Oneself". IH. The Right to Have One's Life Terminated The right to euthanasia, to have one's life terminated at will, is restricted by numerous social, ethical, and legal rules, principles, and considerations. In a nutshell - in many countries in the West one is thought to has a right to have one's life terminated with the help of third parties if one is going to die shortly anyway and if one is going to be tormented and humiliated by great and debilitating agony for the rest of one's remaining life if not helped to die. Of course, for one's wish to be helped to die to be accommodated, one has to be in sound mind and to will one's death knowingly, intentionally, and forcefully. II. Issues in the Calculus of Rights
Slide 129: IIA. The Hierarchy of Rights All human cultures have hierarchies of rights. These hierarchies reflect cultural mores and lores and there cannot, therefore, be a universal, or eternal hierarchy. In Western moral systems, the Right to Life supersedes all other rights (including the right to one's body, to comfort, to the avoidance of pain, to property, etc.). Yet, this hierarchical arrangement does not help us to resolve cases in which there is a clash of EQUAL rights (for instance, the conflicting rights to life of two people). One way to decide among equally potent claims is randomly (by flipping a coin, or casting dice). Alternatively, we could add and subtract rights in a somewhat macabre arithmetic. If a mother's life is endangered by the continued existence of a fetus and assuming both of them have a right to life we can decide to kill the fetus by adding to the mother's right to life her right to her own body and thus outweighing the fetus' right to life. IIB. The Difference between Killing and Letting Die There is an assumed difference between killing (taking life) and letting die (not saving a life). This is supported by IE above. While there is a right not to be killed - there is no right to have one's own life saved. Thus, while there is an obligation not to kill - there is no obligation to save a life. IIC. Killing the Innocent Often the continued existence of an innocent person (IP) threatens to take the life of a victim (V). By "innocent" we mean "not guilty" - not responsible for killing V, not
Slide 130: intending to kill V, and not knowing that V will be killed due to IP's actions or continued existence. It is simple to decide to kill IP to save V if IP is going to die anyway shortly, and the remaining life of V, if saved, will be much longer than the remaining life of IP, if not killed. All other variants require a calculus of hierarchically weighted rights. (See "Abortion and the Sanctity of Human Life" by Baruch A. Brody). One form of calculus is the utilitarian theory. It calls for the maximization of utility (life, happiness, pleasure). In other words, the life, happiness, or pleasure of the many outweigh the life, happiness, or pleasure of the few. It is morally permissible to kill IP if the lives of two or more people will be saved as a result and there is no other way to save their lives. Despite strong philosophical objections to some of the premises of utilitarian theory - I agree with its practical prescriptions. In this context - the dilemma of killing the innocent - one can also call upon the right to self defence. Does V have a right to kill IP regardless of any moral calculus of rights? Probably not. One is rarely justified in taking another's life to save one's own. But such behaviour cannot be condemned. Here we have the flip side of the confusion understandable and perhaps inevitable behaviour (self defence) is mistaken for a MORAL RIGHT. That most V's would kill IP and that we would all sympathize with V and understand its behaviour does not mean that V had a RIGHT to kill IP. V may have had a right to kill IP - but this right is not automatic, nor is it all-encompassing. Communism The core countries of Central Europe (the Czech
Slide 131: Republic, Hungary and, to a lesser extent, Poland) experienced industrial capitalism in the inter-war period. But the countries comprising the vast expanses of the New Independent States, Russia and the Balkan had no real acquaintance with it. To them its zealous introduction is nothing but another ideological experiment and not a very rewarding one at that. It is often said that there is no precedent to the extant fortean transition from totalitarian communism to liberal capitalism. This might well be true. Yet, nascent capitalism is not without historical example. The study of the birth of capitalism in feudal Europe may yet lead to some surprising and potentially useful insights. The Barbarian conquest of the teetering Roman Empire (410-476 AD) heralded five centuries of existential insecurity and mayhem. Feudalism was the countryside's reaction to this damnation. It was a Hobson's choice and an explicit trade-off. Local lords defended their vassals against nomad intrusions in return for perpetual service bordering on slavery. A small percentage of the population lived on trade behind the massive walls of Medieval cities. In most parts of central, eastern and southeastern Europe, feudalism endured well into the twentieth century. It was entrenched in the legal systems of the Ottoman Empire and of Czarist Russia. Elements of feudalism survived in the mellifluous and prolix prose of the Habsburg codices and patents. Most of the denizens of these moribund swathes of Europe were farmers - only the profligate and parasitic members of a distinct minority inhabited the cities. The present brobdignagian agricultural sectors in countries as diverse as Poland and Macedonia attest to this continuity of feudal practices.
Slide 132: Both manual labour and trade were derided in the Ancient World. This derision was partially eroded during the Dark Ages. It survived only in relation to trade and other "nonproductive" financial activities and even that not past the thirteenth century. Max Weber, in his opus, "The City" (New York, MacMillan, 1958) described this mental shift of paradigm thus: "The medieval citizen was on the way towards becoming an economic man ... the ancient citizen was a political man." What communism did to the lands it permeated was to freeze this early feudal frame of mind of disdain towards "non-productive", "city-based" vocations. Agricultural and industrial occupations were romantically extolled. The cities were berated as hubs of moral turpitude, decadence and greed. Political awareness was made a precondition for personal survival and advancement. The clock was turned back. Weber's "Homo Economicus" yielded to communism's supercilious version of the ancient Greeks' "Zoon Politikon". John of Salisbury might as well have been writing for a communist agitprop department when he penned this in "Policraticus" (1159 AD): "...if (rich people, people with private property) have been stuffed through excessive greed and if they hold in their contents too obstinately, (they) give rise to countless and incurable illnesses and, through their vices, can bring about the ruin of the body as a whole". The body in the text being the body politic. This inimical attitude should have come as no surprise to students of either urban realities or of communism, their parricidal off-spring. The city liberated its citizens from the bondage of the feudal labour contract. And it acted as the supreme guarantor of the rights of private property. It relied on its trading and economic prowess to obtain and
Slide 133: secure political autonomy. John of Paris, arguably one of the first capitalist cities (at least according to Braudel), wrote: "(The individual) had a right to property which was not with impunity to be interfered with by superior authority - because it was acquired by (his) own efforts" (in Georges Duby, "The age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society, 980-1420, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1981). Despite the fact that communism was an urban phenomenon (albeit with rustic roots) - it abnegated these "bourgeoisie" values. Communal ownership replaced individual property and servitude to the state replaced individualism. In communism, feudalism was restored. Even geographical mobility was severely curtailed, as was the case in feudalism. The doctrine of the Communist party monopolized all modes of thought and perception very much as the church-condoned religious strain did 700 years before. Communism was characterized by tensions between party, state and the economy - exactly as the medieval polity was plagued by conflicts between church, king and merchants-bankers. Paradoxically, communism was a faithful re-enactment of pre-capitalist history. Communism should be well distinguished from Marxism. Still, it is ironic that even Marx's "scientific materialism" has an equivalent in the twilight times of feudalism. The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed a concerted effort by medieval scholars to apply "scientific" principles and human knowledge to the solution of social problems. The historian R. W. Southern called this period "scientific humanism" (in "Flesh and Stone" by Richard Sennett, London, Faber and Faber, 1994). We mentioned John of Salisbury's "Policraticus". It was an effort to map political functions and interactions into their human physiological equivalents. The king, for instance, was the brain of the
Slide 134: body politic. Merchants and bankers were the insatiable stomach. But this apparently simplistic analogy masked a schismatic debate. Should a person's position in life be determined by his political affiliation and "natural" place in the order of things - or should it be the result of his capacities and their exercise (merit)? Do the ever changing contents of the economic "stomach", its kaleidoscopic innovativeness, its "permanent revolution" and its propensity to assume "irrational" risks - adversely affect this natural order which, after all, is based on tradition and routine? In short: is there an inherent incompatibility between the order of the world (read: the church doctrine) and meritocratic (democratic) capitalism? Could Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica" (the world as the body of Christ) be reconciled with "Stadt Luft Macht Frei" ("city air liberates" - the sign above the gates of the cities of the Hanseatic League)? This is the eternal tension between the individual and the group. Individualism and communism are not new to history and they have always been in conflict. To compare the communist party to the church is a well-worn cliché. Both religions - the secular and the divine - were threatened by the spirit of freedom and initiative embodied in urban culture, commerce and finance. The order they sought to establish, propagate and perpetuate conflicted with basic human drives and desires. Communism was a throwback to the days before the ascent of the urbane, capitalistic, sophisticated, incredulous, individualistic and risqué West. it sought to substitute one kind of "scientific" determinism (the body politic of Christ) by another (the body politic of "the Proletariat"). It failed and when it unravelled, it revealed a landscape of toxic devastation, frozen in time, an ossified natural order bereft of content and adherents. The post-
Slide 135: communist countries have to pick up where it left them, centuries ago. It is not so much a problem of lacking infrastructure as it is an issue of pathologized minds, not so much a matter of the body as a dysfunction of the psyche. The historian Walter Ullman says that John of Salisbury thought (850 years ago) that "the individual's standing within society... (should be) based upon his office or his official function ... (the greater this function was) the more scope it had, the weightier it was, the more rights the individual had." (Walter Ullman, "The Individual and Society in the Middle Ages", Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966). I cannot conceive of a member of the communist nomenklatura who would not have adopted this formula wholeheartedly. If modern capitalism can be described as "back to the future", communism was surely "forward to the past". Competition A. THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPETITION The aims of competition (anti-trust) laws are to ensure that consumers pay the lowest possible price (=the most efficient price) coupled with the highest quality of the goods and services which they consume. This, according to current economic theories, can be achieved only through effective competition. Competition not only reduces particular prices of specific goods and services - it also tends to have a deflationary effect by reducing the general price level. It pits consumers against producers, producers against other producers (in the battle to win the heart of consumers) and even consumers against consumers (for example in the healthcare sector in the USA). This everlasting conflict does the miracle of
Slide 136: increasing quality with lower prices. Think about the vast improvement on both scores in electrical appliances. The VCR and PC of yesteryear cost thrice as much and provided one third the functions at one tenth the speed. Competition has innumerable advantages: 0.It encourages manufacturers and service providers to be more efficient, to better respond to the needs of their customers, to innovate, to initiate, to venture. In professional words: it optimizes the allocation of resources at the firm level and, as a result, throughout the national economy. More simply: producers do not waste resources (capital), consumers and businesses pay less for the same goods and services and, as a result, consumption grows to the benefit of all involved. b. The other beneficial effect seems, at first sight, to be an adverse one: competition weeds out the failures, the incompetents, the inefficient, the fat and slow to respond. Competitors pressure one another to be more efficient, leaner and meaner. This is the very essence of capitalism. It is wrong to say that only the consumer benefits. If a firm improves itself, re-engineers its production processes, introduces new management techniques, modernizes - in order to fight the competition, it stands to reason that it will reap the rewards. Competition benefits the economy, as a whole, the consumers and other producers by a process of natural economic selection where only the fittest survive. Those who are not fit to survive die out and cease to waste the rare resources of humanity.
Slide 137: Thus, paradoxically, the poorer the country, the less resources it has - the more it is in need of competition. Only competition can secure the proper and most efficient use of its scarce resources, a maximization of its output and the maximal welfare of its citizens (consumers). Moreover, we tend to forget that the biggest consumers are businesses (firms). If the local phone company is inefficient (because no one competes with it, being a monopoly) - firms will suffer the most: higher charges, bad connections, lost time, effort, money and business. If the banks are dysfunctional (because there is no foreign competition), they will not properly service their clients and firms will collapse because of lack of liquidity. It is the business sector in poor countries which should head the crusade to open the country to competition. Unfortunately, the first discernible results of the introduction of free marketry are unemployment and business closures. People and firms lack the vision, the knowledge and the wherewithal needed to support competition. They fiercely oppose it and governments throughout the world bow to protectionist measures. To no avail. Closing a country to competition will only exacerbate the very conditions which necessitate its opening up. At the end of such a wrong path awaits economic disaster and the forced entry of competitors. A country which closes itself to the world - will be forced to sell itself cheaply as its economy will become more and more inefficient, less and less competitive. The Competition Laws aim to establish fairness of commercial conduct among entrepreneurs and competitors which are the sources of said competition and innovation. Experience - later buttressed by research - helped to establish the following four principles:
Slide 138: 1. There should be no barriers to the entry of new market players (barring criminal and moral barriers to certain types of activities and to certain goods and services offered). 1. A larger scale of operation does introduce economies of scale (and thus lowers prices). This, however, is not infinitely true. There is a Minimum Efficient Scale - MES - beyond which prices will begin to rise due to monopolization of the markets. This MES was empirically fixed at 10% of the market in any one good or service. In other words: companies should be encouraged to capture up to 10% of their market (=to lower prices) and discouraged to cross this barrier, lest prices tend to rise again. 1. Efficient competition does not exist when a market is controlled by less than 10 firms with big size differences. An oligopoly should be declared whenever 4 firms control more than 40% of the market and the biggest of them controls more than 12% of it. 1. A competitive price will be comprised of a minimal cost plus an equilibrium profit which does not encourage either an exit of firms (because it is too low), nor their entry (because it is too high). Left to their own devices, firms tend to liquidate competitors (predation), buy them out or collude with them to raise prices. The 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act in the USA forbade the latter (section 1) and prohibited monopolization or dumping as a method to eliminate competitors. Later acts (Clayton, 1914 and the Federal Trade Commission Act of the same year) added forbidden
Slide 139: activities: tying arrangements, boycotts, territorial divisions, non-competitive mergers, price discrimination, exclusive dealing, unfair acts, practices and methods. Both consumers and producers who felt offended were given access to the Justice Department and to the FTC or the right to sue in a federal court and be eligible to receive treble damages. It is only fair to mention the "intellectual competition", which opposes the above premises. Many important economists thought (and still do) that competition laws represent an unwarranted and harmful intervention of the State in the markets. Some believed that the State should own important industries (J.K. Galbraith), others - that industries should be encouraged to grow because only size guarantees survival, lower prices and innovation (Ellis Hawley). Yet others supported the cause of laissez faire (Marc Eisner). These three antithetical approaches are, by no means, new. One led to socialism and communism, the other to corporatism and monopolies and the third to jungleization of the market (what the Europeans derisively call: the Anglo-Saxon model). B. HISTORICAL AND LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS Why does the State involve itself in the machinations of the free market? Because often markets fail or are unable or unwilling to provide goods, services, or competition. The purpose of competition laws is to secure a competitive marketplace and thus protect the consumer from unfair, anti-competitive practices. The latter tend to increase prices and reduce the availability and quality of goods and services offered to the consumer.
Slide 140: Such state intervention is usually done by establishing a governmental Authority with full powers to regulate the markets and ensure their fairness and accessibility to new entrants. Lately, international collaboration between such authorities yielded a measure of harmonization and coordinated action (especially in cases of trusts which are the results of mergers and acquisitions). Yet, competition law embodies an inherent conflict: while protecting local consumers from monopolies, cartels and oligopolies - it ignores the very same practices when directed at foreign consumers. Cartels related to the country's foreign trade are allowed even under GATT/WTO rules (in cases of dumping or excessive export subsidies). Put simply: governments regard acts which are criminal as legal if they are directed at foreign consumers or are part of the process of foreign trade. A country such as Macedonia - poor and in need of establishing its export sector - should include in its competition law at least two protective measures against these discriminatory practices: 1. Blocking Statutes - which prohibit its legal entities from collaborating with legal procedures in other countries to the extent that this collaboration adversely affects the local export industry. 1. Clawback Provisions - which will enable the local courts to order the refund of any penalty payment decreed or imposed by a foreign court on a local legal entity and which exceeds actual damage inflicted by unfair trade practices of said local legal entity. US courts, for instance, are allowed to impose treble damages on infringing foreign entities. The clawback provisions are used to battle
Slide 141: this judicial aggression. Competition policy is the antithesis of industrial policy. The former wishes to ensure the conditions and the rules of the game - the latter to recruit the players, train them and win the game. The origin of the former is in the 19th century USA and from there it spread to (really was imposed on) Germany and Japan, the defeated countries in the 2nd World War. The European Community (EC) incorporated a competition policy in articles 85 and 86 of the Rome Convention and in Regulation 17 of the Council of Ministers, 1962. Still, the two most important economic blocks of our time have different goals in mind when implementing competition policies. The USA is more interested in economic (and econometric) results while the EU emphasizes social, regional development and political consequences. The EU also protects the rights of small businesses more vigorously and, to some extent, sacrifices intellectual property rights on the altar of fairness and the free movement of goods and services. Put differently: the USA protects the producers and the EU shields the consumer. The USA is interested in the maximization of output at whatever social cost - the EU is interested in the creation of a just society, a liveable community, even if the economic results will be less than optimal. There is little doubt that Macedonia should follow the EU example. Geographically, it is a part of Europe and, one day, will be integrated in the EU. It is socially sensitive, export oriented, its economy is negligible and its consumers are poor, it is besieged by monopolies and oligopolies.
Slide 142: In my view, its competition laws should already incorporate the important elements of the EU (Community) legislation and even explicitly state so in the preamble to the law. Other, mightier, countries have done so. Italy, for instance, modelled its Law number 287 dated 10/10/90 "Competition and Fair Trading Act" after the EC legislation. The law explicitly says so. The first serious attempt at international harmonization of national antitrust laws was the Havana Charter of 1947. It called for the creation of an umbrella operating organization (the International Trade Organization or "ITO") and incorporated an extensive body of universal antitrust rules in nine of its articles. Members were required to "prevent business practices affecting international trade which restrained competition, limited access to markets, or fostered monopolistic control whenever such practices had harmful effects on the expansion of production or trade". the latter included: 0.Fixing prices, terms, or conditions to be observed in dealing with others in the purchase, sale, or lease of any product; b. Excluding enterprises from, or allocating or dividing, any territorial market or field of business activity, or allocating customers, or fixing sales quotas or purchase quotas; c. Discriminating against particular enterprises; d. Limiting production or fixing production quotas; e. Preventing by agreement the development or application of technology or invention, whether patented or non-patented; and
Slide 143: f. Extending the use of rights under intellectual property protections to matters which, according to a member's laws and regulations, are not within the scope of such grants, or to products or conditions of production, use, or sale which are not likewise the subject of such grants. GATT 1947 was a mere bridging agreement but the Havana Charter languished and died due to the objections of a protectionist US Senate. There are no antitrust/competition rules either in GATT 1947 or in GATT/WTO 1994, but their provisions on antidumping and countervailing duty actions and government subsidies constitute some elements of a more general antitrust/competition law. GATT, though, has an International Antitrust Code Writing Group which produced a "Draft International Antitrust Code" (10/7/93). It is reprinted in §II, 64 Antitrust & Trade Regulation Reporter (BNA), Special Supplement at S-3 (19/8/93). Four principles guided the (mostly German) authors: 1. National laws should be applied to solve international competition problems; 1. Parties, regardless of origin, should be treated as locals; 1. A minimum standard for national antitrust rules should be set (stricter measures would be welcome); and 1. The establishment of an international authority to settle disputes between parties over antitrust
Slide 144: issues. The 29 (well-off) members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) formed rules governing the harmonization and coordination of international antitrust/competition regulation among its member nations ("The Revised Recommendation of the OECD Council Concerning Cooperation between Member Countries on Restrictive Business Practices Affecting International Trade," OECD Doc. No. C(86)44 (Final) (June 5, 1986), also in 25 International Legal Materials 1629 (1986). A revised version was reissued. According to it, " …Enterprises should refrain from abuses of a dominant market position; permit purchasers, distributors, and suppliers to freely conduct their businesses; refrain from cartels or restrictive agreements; and consult and cooperate with competent authorities of interested countries". An agency in one of the member countries tackling an antitrust case, usually notifies another member country whenever an antitrust enforcement action may affect important interests of that country or its nationals (see: OECD Recommendations on Predatory Pricing, 1989). The United States has bilateral antitrust agreements with Australia, Canada, and Germany, which was followed by a bilateral agreement with the EU in 1991. These provide for coordinated antitrust investigations and prosecutions. The United States thus reduced the legal and political obstacles which faced its extraterritorial prosecutions and enforcement. The agreements require one party to notify the other of imminent antitrust actions, to share relevant information, and to consult on potential policy changes. The EU-U.S. Agreement contains a "comity" principle under which each side promises to take into consideration
Slide 145: the other's interests when considering antitrust prosecutions. A similar principle is at the basis of Chapter 15 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - cooperation on antitrust matters. The United Nations Conference on Restrictive Business Practices adopted a code of conduct in 1979/1980 that was later integrated as a U.N. General Assembly Resolution [U.N. Doc. TD/RBP/10 (1980)]: "The Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules". According to its provisions, "independent enterprises should refrain from certain practices when they would limit access to markets or otherwise unduly restrain competition". The following business practices are prohibited: 1. Agreements to fix prices (including export and import prices); 1. Collusive tendering; 1. Market or customer allocation (division) arrangements; 1. Allocation of sales or production by quota; 1. Collective action to enforce arrangements, e.g., by concerted refusals to deal; 1. Concerted refusal to sell to potential importers; and 1. Collective denial of access to an arrangement, or association, where such access is crucial to competition and such denial might hamper it. In addition, businesses are forbidden to engage in the
Slide 146: abuse of a dominant position in the market by limiting access to it or by otherwise restraining competition by: a. Predatory behaviour towards competitors; b. Discriminatory pricing or terms or conditions in the supply or purchase of goods or services; c. Mergers, takeovers, joint ventures, or other acquisitions of control; d. Fixing prices for exported goods or resold imported goods; e. Import restrictions on legitimatelymarked trademarked goods; f. Unjustifiably - whether partially or completely - refusing to deal on an enterprise's customary commercial terms, making the supply of goods or services dependent on restrictions on the distribution or manufacturer of other goods, imposing restrictions on the resale or exportation of the same or other goods, and purchase "tie-ins". C. ANTI - COMPETITIVE STRATEGIES Any Competition Law in Macedonia should, in my view, excplicitly include strict prohibitions of the following practices (further details can be found in Porter's book "Competitive Strategy").
Slide 147: These practices characterize the Macedonian market. They influence the Macedonian economy by discouraging foreign investors, encouraging inefficiencies and mismanagement, sustaining artificially high prices, misallocating very scarce resources, increasing unemployment, fostering corrupt and criminal practices and, in general, preventing the growth that Macedonia could have attained. Strategies for Monopolization Exclude competitors from distribution channels. - This is common practice in many countries. Open threats are made by the manufacturers of popular products: "If you distribute my competitor's products - you cannot distribute mine. So, choose." Naturally, retail outlets, dealers and distributors will always prefer the popular product to the new. This practice not only blocks competition - but also innovation, trade and choice or variety. Buy up competitors and potential competitors. - There is nothing wrong with that. Under certain circumstances, this is even desirable. Think about the Banking System: it is always better to have fewer banks with bigger capital than many small banks with capital inadequacy (remember the TAT affair). So, consolidation is sometimes welcome, especially where scale represents viability and a higher degree of consumer protection. The line is thin and is composed of both quantitative and qualitative criteria. One way to measure the desirability of such mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is the level of market concentration following the M&A. Is a new monopoly created? Will the new entity be able to set prices unperturbed? stamp out its other competitors? If so, it is not desirable and should be prevented.
Slide 148: Every merger in the USA must be approved by the antitrust authorities. When multinationals merge, they must get the approval of all the competition authorities in all the territories in which they operate. The purchase of "Intuit" by "Microsoft" was prevented by the antitrust department (the "Trust-busters"). A host of airlines was conducting a drawn out battle with competition authorities in the EU, UK and the USA lately. Use predatory [below-cost] pricing (also known as dumping) to eliminate competitors. - This tactic is mostly used by manufacturers in developing or emerging economies and in Japan. It consists of "pricing the competition out of the markets". The predator sells his products at a price which is lower even than the costs of production. The result is that he swamps the market, driving out all other competitors. Once he is left alone - he raises his prices back to normal and, often, above normal. The dumper loses money in the dumping operation and compensates for these losses by charging inflated prices after having the competition eliminated. Raise scale-economy barriers. - Take unfair advantage of size and the resulting scale economies to force conditions upon the competition or upon the distribution channels. In many countries Big Industry lobbies for a legislation which will fit its purposes and exclude its (smaller) competitors. Increase "market power (share) and hence profit potential". Study the industry's "potential" structure and ways it can be made less competitive. - Even thinking about sin or planning it should be prohibited. Many industries have "think tanks" and experts whose sole function is to show
Slide 149: the firm the way to minimize competition and to increase its market shares. Admittedly, the line is very thin: when does a Marketing Plan become criminal? Arrange for a "rise in entry barriers to block later entrants" and "inflict losses on the entrant". - This could be done by imposing bureaucratic obstacles (of licencing, permits and taxation), scale hindrances (no possibility to distribute small quantities), "old boy networks" which share political clout and research and development, using intellectual property right to block new entrants and other methods too numerous to recount. An effective law should block any action which prevents new entry to a market. Buy up firms in other industries "as a base from which to change industry structures" there. - This is a way of securing exclusive sources of supply of raw materials, services and complementing products. If a company owns its suppliers and they are single or almost single sources of supply - in effect it has monopolized the market. If a software company owns another software company with a product which can be incorporated in its own products and the two have substantial market shares in their markets - then their dominant positions will reinforce each other's. "Find ways to encourage particular competitors out of the industry". - If you can't intimidate your competitors you might wish to "make them an offer that they cannot refuse". One way is to buy them, to bribe the key personnel, to offer tempting opportunities in other markets, to swap markets (I will give you my market share in a market which I do not really care about and you will give me your market share in a market in which we are competitors). Other ways are to give the competitors
Slide 150: assets, distribution channels and so on providing that they collude in a cartel. "Send signals to encourage competition to exit" the industry. - Such signals could be threats, promises, policy measures, attacks on the integrity and quality of the competitor, announcement that the company has set a certain market share as its goal (and will, therefore, not tolerate anyone trying to prevent it from attaining this market share) and any action which directly or indirectly intimidates or convinces competitors to leave the industry. Such an action need not be positive - it can be negative, need not be done by the company - can be done by its political proxies, need not be planned - could be accidental. The results are what matters. Macedonia's Competition Law should outlaw the following, as well: 'Intimidate' Competitors Raise "mobility" barriers to keep competitors in the least-profitable segments of the industry. - This is a tactic which preserves the appearance of competition while subverting it. Certain segments, usually less profitable or too small to be of interest, or with dim growth prospects, or which are likely to be opened to fierce domestic and foreign competition are left to the competition. The more lucrative parts of the markets are zealously guarded by the company. Through legislation, policy measures, withholding of technology and know-how - the firm prevents its competitors from crossing the river into its protected turf. Let little firms "develop" an industry and then come in and take it over. - This is precisely what Netscape is