uch of the energy for abortion comes from the simple truth that whatever else is true, the fetus cannot really be a person just like you and I are.*  For no one thinks that that if we are forced to choose between saving the life of the mother (who has no children or other obligations) and saving the life of the fetus, then morality requires us to flip a coin.  No one thinks that, including those insist that the fetus is just as much of a person as you and I are.  So if an abortion may be induced in order to save the life of a mother, when the fetus is already a few months old, then it seems patently absurd to hold that what we have at the very moment of conception is a full-fledge person.  This points to why the issue of abortion confounds us so.  On the hand, it seems next to impossible to draw any well-defined boundaries with respect to whether we have a person or not.  On the other, the very idea that there are no boundaries proves deeply unsettling. 

What exactly is the status of the fetus?  Suppose that a pregnant woman has an old and feeble dog that she dearly loves.  She carries her beloved pet up and down the stairs, so that the animal and her are always on the same floor of the house.  Alas, the doctor informs her that she can no longer do this without seriously endangering the health of the fetus she is carrying.  The woman opts for an abortion.  I shall assume without argument that surely there is something repugnant about such a choice; and in order to reach this conclusion we need not surreptitiously rely upon the idea that the fetus is a full-fledge person.  Even Thomson, whose essay is taken by many to have firmly established a woman’s right to have an abortion, thinks that there can be indecent reasons for having an abortion, as when a woman does so purely because coming to terms with the fetus would be interfere with having traveling plans.

There can be reasons for and reasons against doing what one has a perfect right to do.  Indeed, one can be morally repugnant while acting perfectly within one’s rights.  For example, I act within my rights in insisting upon the money that Opidopo owes me, although I do not need the money at all and Opidopo has just lost his job owing to drastic cutbacks and could certainly use the money to buy food for his children.  Clearly, I am not showing him either compassion or mercy.  That, however, is perfectly compatible with acting within my rights.  Allowing that the fetus is definitely not a person, the woman who has an abortion so that she can continue carrying her dog up and down the stairs seems to be giving things the wrong weighting.  If calling the fetus a full-fledge person accords it too much moral weight, it would appear that she has accorded it too little moral weight.  Therein lies the repugnancy of her decision. 

It would seem that both sides of the abortion debate have lost sight of the truth that a decision can be morally repugnant without violating any rights at all.  I have already illustrated from the pro-choice side that we can have moral repugnancy without the violation of any rights, let me do so from the pro-life side.  Consider those who insist that a woman is morally obligated to bring into the world a child who is severely deformed both mentally and physically.  This is morally repugnant because doing so attaches more weight to the ideal of valuing life than to the reality of living it.  This point seems to hold even for the woman who chooses of her own free will to bring such a child into the world.  Notice that attributing a right to life to the child as of the very moment of conception does not change anything at all.  This is because we all know that life can be so horrific as to be unbearable.  After all, we think that there can be absolutely compelling reasons in terms of health for letting human life expire.  So the thought cannot be that for any human life it is worth living merely in virtue of being human.  And if there can be compelling reasons in terms of health for letting life expire, it would be stunning if there could never be any compelling reasons in terms of health for terminating the development of a fetus.  Nor, finally, can the objection in this instance be that aborting such a fetus sets us upon a slippery slope.  For the issue of when we should let life expire is hardly a well-defined matter. 

Together, these considerations suggest that it is mistake to think of abortion as being either all about the women or all about the fetus.  It is certainly a mistake to think it is about rights and nothing more. 

In what follows, I am going to try to support the general intuition of this essay with an example that owes its inspiration to Brave New World. 

I ask you to imagine a world in which the fetus can be safely and easily removed from one woman’s womb and placed in another womb, be it artificial or the body of another woman.  If necessary, then, the fetus can be placed in an artificial womb initially and later transferred to a woman’s womb.  Let us call this a womb transfer procedure (WTP).  Surely, it is just a matter of time before medical technology will permit us to perform a WTP without any complications whatsoever.  A woman will be able to go in for a WTP and leave within hours.  In fact, a woman who goes in for an abortion may just as easily go in for a womb transfer procedure.  She turns left for one procedure and right for the other.  Further, we can imagine that phenomenologically there will be no difference between the two procedures, nor any difference in terms of risks.  What is more, the fetus in the new womb grows unproblematically or at least no more problematically than a fetus growing in the womb in which it was conceived.  Finally, the costs for the woman having the procedure are identical to the costs of an abortion.  The additional costs of placing the fetus into the new womb, including an intermediary artificial womb (should that be necessary), are borne by the woman receiving the fetus.

In effect a WTP would enable adoption at the level of the fetus.  Needless to say, this would be extraordinary.  The question that immediately arises, then, is this: Given that a woman has a right to do both, what reason would a woman have for choosing to have an abortion when by way of a parallel procedure, that is no more arduous, she could opt to have the fetus transferred to another woman’s womb?  It will be noted that I did not ask whether having the right to abort is compatible with the availability of a WTP.  I merely asked what reason would a woman have to choose having an abortion over having a WTP, given that she has the right to do either. 

Offhand, a WTP speaks to two quite different desires at once.  On the one hand, the procedure speaks to desire of the woman to be entirely rid of the fetus that she is carrying is met, as she would never have to concern herself with it again.  In effect, a WTP allows a woman to put a child up for adoption without having to endure any of the travails of childbirth and all the emotions that this entails.  On the other hand, the procedure speaks to the desire of infertile couples to adopt a child and does so in a most dramatic way, in that the fetus would be transferred to the other woman’s womb which would allow the other woman to experience birthing.

Now, we talk about abortion as if it were something other than a form of killing.  The right to abort a fetus is none other than the right to kill it; and it is certainly a human, whether it is a full-fledge person or not.  Now, to be sure, we all understand that it can be morally permissible to do what results in the death of even a full-fledge person.  Judith Jarvis Thomson gives us a justly famous example of just this sort.  If a person has been kidnapped and connected to a violinist in order to save the violinist’s life, surely the kidnapped person may unplug herself even if her doing so results in the violinist’s death and this is readily apparent.  But the moral permissibility here is not a cause for celebration.  Indeed, if someone unplugged herself and then with utter glee watched the violinist die that would be morally repugnant behavior on the part of the person who had done what is morally permissible in freeing herself.  Her behavior would be morally repugnant, though ne’er a right was violated.  There are obviously many ways in which the kidnapping example is disanalogous to becoming pregnant as a result of voluntary sex where normally quite adequate birth control measures just so happen to fail.  But we can think of sufficiently analogous cases easily enough.  No one who volunteers for sex also volunteers for terminal cancer.  So if the developing fetus would cause a woman to have terminal cancer, surely she may abort it.  This she may do even if the fetus itself would remain cancer free and notwithstanding the fact that the fetus resulted from perfectly voluntary sex that took place with the hope of becoming pregnant.

I am not about to suggest that fetus is a person or should be considered as such.  Still, we can ask what should our moral attitude towards the fetus be.  One possibility is that the fetus has no moral standing at all, and so its moral standing is equivalent to the moral standing of a fly (say).  In this case, there can hardly be any moral grounds for objecting to abortion and to the death of the fetus that ensues on account of it.  A person could even celebrate the outcome just as we sometimes celebrate the killing of an annoying fly.  Another possibility is that even if the fetus has considerably more moral standing than a fly (though not the moral standing of a full-fledge person), both abortion and the ensuing death are nonetheless permissible as something on the order of the lesser of two unfortunate situations.  This is no doubt the reason why some opponents of abortion make an exception in the case of rape.  Thomson rightly notes that a fetus conceived owing to rape hardly has less of a right to life.  But how we should behave as morally decent individuals is not settled entirely by rights, as Thomson knows all too well—as she herself offers examples where we do not honor a person’s right to life.

At any rate, if the fetus has some non-neglible moral standing (but not the moral standing of a full-fledge person), than abortion and the ensuing death of the fetus would rarely be something to celebrate.  People sometimes have their pets put to death.  This is never celebrated.  If the fetus has some non-neglible moral standing, then abortion would be much more like that than not.

This brings us back to the womb transfer procedure.  On the hand, suppose the fetus has no moral status at all.  Opting for the procedure would stand as a kind thing to do, given that doing so would make it possible for another person to fulfill the dream of raising a child.  Moreover, opting for the procedure would come at no cost to the individual herself save that of the cost of an abortion.  But we do not have to be kind.  Certainly, we do not have to be kind in every way possible.  No one is or can be.  So even if the fetus has no moral status at all, a morally upstanding woman could certainly choose not to opt for having a WTP.  On the other hand, suppose that the fetus has some non-neglible moral standing (but not the moral standing of a full-fledge person), what follows at the very least is simply that there would at least be a consideration in favor of opting for a WTP, even if that consideration could be overridden.  If a person owes me money, that is a consideration in favor me asking for it.  Yet, there can be good reasons for not doing so. 

Significantly, all that has just been said follows without establishing whether the fetus has a right to life.  Certainly, the moral status of the fetus is somewhere on the continuum that includes no moral standing at all and some non-neglible moral standing (but not that of a full-fledge person). 

I have been careful not to claim that opting for a WTP would be morally obligatory.  Having the option of a WTP brings into sharp relief the reality that abortion constitutes the killing of a fetus—a killing that can be avoided at no more cost to the woman that having an abortion.  In opting for this procedure, there is, to be sure, the issue of the woman knowing that she has a child somewhere “out there”.  The argument, though, cannot be that this consideration is so weighty as to make opting for a WTP so saintly as to put it on the order of laying down one’s life for another.  In fact, it surely has to be less difficult to opt for the WTP than it is to opt for putting a child up for abortion after one has given birth to it.  For it can only be said of the latter woman that she has bought a child into the world; whereas with the former, that task is accomplished by another person.  This is not to trivialize the significance (emotional or otherwise) that opting for a WTP has for a woman—any more than it is to trivialize the significance that having an abortion has for a woman.  Rather, it is to point to real differences where they exist.  A woman who opts for a WTP does not bring a child into the world.  Rather, she makes it possible for another woman to do so.  That is a non-trivial difference. 

I am mindful of the fact that we live in a pluralistic society.  Sometimes, the idea of pluralism is invoked as if any consideration that might be put forth merits consideration.  But pluralism without moral boundaries is not a virtue.  I want to concede for the sake of argument that in a pluralistic society, there will always be opposing sides with regard to the issue of whether or not the fetus is a full-fledge person and there are no decisive set of considerations that settle the matter one way or the other.

But we can be morally repugnant in our treatment of the fetus even if it is not a full-fledge person.  As medical technology continues to lower the threshold of viability, it is just a matter of time before advances in medical technology bring out this reality by affording us the opportunity of a womb transfer procedure.  Pluralism must not masquerade as a crass form of moral indifference.  For with the womb transfer procedure available, it will be possible to cruel and inconsiderate in opting for abortion even if the fetus itself has no moral standing at all.  This is not because the procedure would bring to the fore rights possessed by the fetus that we had missed, but because the procedure will give us an option that previously was simply unavailable, namely the ability to remove the fetus from the womb during the first tri-semester without killing it.  And that reality forces us to ask what is that we really want: To be rid of the fetus or to have it dead?  Today, it can be argued that the death of the fetus is, alas, just an unintended consequence of removing it from the womb that we have to accept.  Do we mean that?  Or will the availability of a womb transfer procedure reveal that we prefer a fetus’s death even though we would have no responsibility whatsoever for its development and living, as of the minute it is removed from the womb?  As a general moral posture, the latter preference strikes me as rather morally repugnant.  Significantly, though, advances in medical technology will make it clear which preference we really embrace; and this will be done without ever settling the question of whether the fetus has a right to life or not.

It may be true that to some extent the status of the fetus must be negotiated.  This truth, though, should not blind us to the reality that the outcome of our negotiations may reveal us to be morally repugnant citizens or morally considerate citizens, whatever rights we or the fetus may have.  Not only that, in choosing for ourselves, it is also the case, as I have argued in the epilogue of The Family and the Political Self, that we are choosing for posterity.  Only human beings can make moral choices; and perhaps more than we realize the issue is whether, in the conclusions we reach regarding the fetus and abortion, we shall bestow the gift of moral excellence upon both ourselves and posterity.  

n the matter of personal ties, there is nothing on the face of this earth that takes the place of experiences forged in the crucible of time.  A defining feature of modernity has come to be that we want what we want now, if not yesterday.  That sort of attitude may very well be applicable with technology; however, it fails mightily when it comes to interpersonal relationships.  I can only earn your trust over time.  I cannot do 50,000 things all at once and thereby have your trust.  For that only tells you how I have behaved at that moment.  It does not tell you how I shall behave over time. 

I have said it before, but it is worth saying again.  On any given occasion, a mother’s single kiss has no significance whatsoever over.  But the accumulative effect of an insignificant kiss on a daily basis is none other than a tidal wave of affirmation against which the very gates of hell cannot easily prevail. 

Human beings need time.  As a species, we take longer to mature than any other species.  The gestational period of some animals, such as whales and elephants, is longer.  But they leave the womb very nearly fit to take their place in the world.  They can certainly travel with the pack within weeks if not days.  We human beings leave the womb utterly helpless.  And it takes a good 12 or so years before we come even close too approximating the wherewithal of adults.  And technology has not changed that at all, even if youth reaching puberty at an earlier age. 

This tells is something extraordinarily deep and profound about human beings.  There has been no transmogrification on the part of human nature owing to technology.  Accordingly, it is still the case that personal relationships take time and seasoning.  That may seem to be a downside.  But the downside has an upside.  When personal ties have been forged with honesty and goodwill over time, then they have fortitude—a durability, if you will—that very little can destroy.

It is easy to miss this if one focuses upon a single instance of not behaving in this or that way.  For in social interaction, it is exceedingly rare that a single instance is determinant of anything significant. 

Part of what worries me enormously with modernity and recent assessments made by political theory is precisely the fact that people fail to appreciate the simple truth that the single instance in personal interactions is of little import.  Another way of putting the point is that modernity and political theory is failing to be mindful of human nature. 

It is simply not possible for any human being (infants aside) to mistake a 5-year old human for a 25-year old.  I take the fact of the slowness with which human beings develop both physically and psychologically to be quite indicative of a deep, deep fact about human nature, namely that personal ties need to withstand the test of time.  There is no other way to measure stability of character, whatever the content of that character may be like.

Now, here is what strikes me as quite sublime.  Words are no substitute for time.  At any given moment, I may aver with great conviction that I believe in punctuality or that I love France or that I am committed to taking my students seriously.  In saying these things, I may be absolutely sincere.  But here is what is true about me.  I have only been late for class once in 18 year of being a professor at Syracuse University.  And in the last 14 years, I have traveled to France more than I have traveled to any other place in the world—indeed, to any other place in the United States including New York City (a mere 250 miles from Syracuse as opposed to France, which is 3,600 miles from Syracuse).  Finally, I have managed to acknowledge dozens of students in my published writings. 

When it comes to self-knowledge, there is not, and cannot be, a substitute for consistency of behavior over time.  I have shown up to class on time when I have been tired and weary, and when I have been intoxicated with emotional pain, and when I have despaired of the thought that I could make a difference. 

Technology is wonderful.  But it has given us the illusion that even depth of character is something that can be had or ascertained at a moment’s notice.  The most that a moment will give, unless it is an extremely paradigmatic moment, is an insight that must be subject to further affirmation or disconfirmation (as the case may be). 

Unfortunately, we are not grasping that.  Accordingly, we are running on empty and are wondering why. 

Let me give a concrete illustration.  Being transient has come to be an acceptable part of modernity.  And in once sense that is an extremely good thing.  Certainly, I cannot criticize anyone for being transient.  But transience comes with an enormous price tag, namely the loss of stable ties and personal history.

Sometimes, of course, precisely what we want is to put that moment in time behind us.  We want to burn old bridge and build new ones to replace them.  Sometimes, though, what we so desperately need is the old well-trodden paths of nourishment. 

On my view, it is no accident that personal relationships, especially romantic ones, are increasingly failing to fare well.  This is because these ties are being asked to bear a load that they cannot bear. 

The communitarian point is that human beings are quintessentially social creatures.  This is not the same as saying that the right personal tie is all that a person needs in life.  We miss this point because we miss the simple truth that once upon time families were themselves a fundamental part of communities.  It was not just that Mary and Bob defined themselves in terms of one another, but Mary and Bob lived in a community and that community was also a constitutive part of their identity, though obviously not the most fundamental part.  This also meant that Mary and Bob found strength not just through interacting with one another, but through interacting with other members of the community. 

It is a revealing feature of humanity that it is the extremely rare to find people whose only aim in life has been to be a recluse; and such people often strike us as problematic on a number of fronts.  What most human beings have often done, even in the context of being unjust, is to define themselves vis à vis others by, for example, having control over them.  And most evil people rarely commit evil alone.  Even the suicide-bomber is part of a network that affirms and re-affirms the so-called good that she or he does.  This tells us just how important human beings are to one another. 

We begin life in desperate need of other human beings for many years after entering this word; and we typically end life in desperate need of other human beings for several years prior to expiring.  At the beginning and at the end, the character of the other matters more than words can tell. 

We have no choice at the beginning.  The interesting issue, though, is this: Will we choose so badly along the way that at the end it is as if we had no choice, either?  Insofar as we make choices along the way that ignore the relevance of time to ascertaining the quality of a person’s character, then the answer to the question just raised will, most unfortunately, be an affirmative one. 

e have all heard the saying that the road to hell is paved with good intention.  I received an email asking for my thoughts regarding how not to commit adultery.  So I offer them.  Insofar as I have any advice on not committing adultery, it starts with the simple adage above.  First of all, human feelings are dynamic.  That is, they can change over time.  We can come to like people whom we did not like at all.  Likewise, we can come to detest people whom we could not live without.  Or, in any case, things cool off because people change.  So just how one feels about a person in the present is not necessarily a clue about how one will feel about that person in the future.   Lots of romantic ties have started between people who thought that there was not a chance in hell that anything romantic could or would happen between them. 

With married couples my view is a very simple one: It should turn out that there are very, very few occasions when I am expressing gratitude and appreciation only to the wife.  And if there are lots occasions when I am doing that, then it seems to me that my interaction with her is not as it should be. 

Expressions of gratitude and appreciation kindle warm and good feelings.  And it seems to me that part of what is involved in respecting a marriage is not kindling those feelings.  Momentarily, I shall say more about why I hold this view.

Significantly, it does not matter whether we talking about a heterosexual marriage or a homosexual marriage.  If a close male friend of mine marries another man, then it seems to me that some forms of interaction between us are no longer in order.  Out of respect for their marriage, there will be gestures of good will that I would cease doing for him alone.  If I could include both in the gestures, then I would have no qualms in continuing with those gestures. 

I understand all too well that two married people remain separate individuals.  I also understand, though, that in marrying one another, they have sworn off ties of romantic endearment with others. 

There is, of course, a difference between romantic endearment and friendship.  But the two are on a continuum and there are aspects of overlap between them. 

With my male heterosexual friends, the continuum involving friendship and romantic love has a very significant built-in-barrier, namely that neither of us has any interest in the other sexually.  This, in turn, makes it well-nigh impossible for expressions of gratitude and appreciation to transform into sentiments of romance. 

It is one thing to express gratitude and appreciation to someone for saving one’s life.  It is quite another for one’s interactions with another to be such that expressions of gratitude and appreciation constantly range over small and personal things.  This allows too easily for gratitude and appreciation to transform into romantic sentiments, precisely because things have become intertwined with one’s personal life on a more or less daily basis.  There is fluidity in place. 

By contrast, saving a person’s life is a very well-define act that does not have a re-occurring aspect to it.  So although the gratitude that one has is obviously enormous, it is so well-defined as not to be intertwined with a person’s life on a daily basis.  Thus, even if the person who did the saving is someone’s wife, that act and the corresponding gratitude does not cast any concern over the marriage itself.  If it did, then there was already something else going on in the first place.  But knowing me, I would probably send a letter to both the wife and the husband with the letter of gratitude to the wife included.  This move has the symbolic significance of acknowledging the marriage, even as the gratitude for saving my life is rightly expressed only to the wife.

There can be other well-defined acts owing to social conventions.  Secretary’s Day is an example of this.  Birthdays can be, too, provided that there is an opportunity to celebrate a spouse’s birthday in a public manner.  This allows for everything to run its course in a public way.  This allows for expressions of personal appreciation and goodwill to take place in a public forum.  Barring special circumstances, sending the very same gift to the person’s home changes its import. 

What bothers many people about my approach is that it has the air of not trusting oneself.  This is not quite right, as I shall explain below.

Intentions are very ephemeral things.  Accordingly, having clarity about what we intend strikes me as of the utmost importance, especially as it pertains to romance and friendship.  And it seems to me best never to allow the opportunity for any misunderstanding than to do anything that would allow for there to be a single misunderstanding.  This, in turn, speaks very nicely to the issue of having trust in oneself.  It is easy to miss this if one focuses upon the wrong aspect of things.  We can affirm our intentions that nothing is to go wrong, and doing that requires engaging in the right sort of behavior, even symbolic behavior in some instances.

Thus, if I am at a married couple's home having dinner with the wife and husband, he gets up to go to work, I invariably get up to leave as well.  This has enormous symbolic significance.  And it really is foolish to pretend that such things do not matter.  They matter all the time in all sorts of context. 

As I said at the outset: To know something about romance is to grasp the reality that all sorts of feelings can get off the ground in ways that no one ever anticipated in the least.  And to know that one is the kind of person who can be counted on to never let any misunderstanding get off the ground is to know something very profound and wonderful about oneself.  And for others to have that confidence in one is for them to have a trust in one that is ever so precious. 

It is one thing to have trust in ourselves.  There is much to be said for that.  But the issue of kindling feelings of romance in another person’s spouse is not just about us.  Inescapably, the issue here is also about whether another can trust us.  And it is striking to me how few ask that question. 

When it comes to not undermining the marriage of others, I would say that one can trust oneself precisely when one has in point of fact earned the trust of others.  This requires more than never making a wrong move, but affirming in a myriad of ways our intentions that a wrong move is never to be made.  If we are not prepared to do that, then we are not us trustworthy as we suppose.  Indeed, it is far from clear that we can even trust ourselves. 

The Fulsome Website Award

“AshleyMadison.Com”

o what is this website about?  The name no doubt suggests some fancy product for women.  Perhaps even sexy lingerie.  If that were the case, I might very well applaud the website, since I think keeping the sexual flames kindled in a marriage is a good thing.  And if attire promotes that end, then let the dressing begin.  And I really don’t care whether it is the woman or the man who is using attire to keep the romantic flame glowing.

But, alas, AshleyMadison.Com is not about lingerie except by accident.  Here is your hint.  The site's slogan reads

When Monogamy Becomes Monotony

You got it.  The raison d’etre of this site is to promote adultery.

Now, there is the simple truth that this is a free country and the site is certainly not forcing anyone to commit adultery.  In most cases, it is not even putting the idea in anyone’s head.  Quite the contrary, the website is merely facilitating the satisfaction of a desire that is already in place.  There is, I believe, no gainsaying this truth.

But this truth does not suffice to get AshleyMadison.Com off the hook of moral criticism.  Adultery is not like gambling or drinking.  When these things are done in moderation, they can actually raise the quality of a person’s life.  Moreover, they are not inherently harmful.  I may spend an evening gambling and having a few drinks without harming anyone at all, neither my family nor myself.  Indeed, doing so may enrich friendship.

With the exception of couples who swing, however, a person may not commit adultery without violating a profound trust, and thus not without setting things up for considerable damage to be done.  

There is a difference between facilitating a wrong and facilitating a wrong the nature of which egregiously harms another.  There are numerous websites for peddling essays of which students can avail themselves.  A professor who gets such an essay may very well be disappointed, but the professor most certainly has not been harmed.  The professor’s standing along any number of dimensions is not affected one iota. 

AshleyMadison.Com facilitates a wrong that egregiously and often irreparably harms another—indeed, several people, namely the spouse and the children of the married couple. 

I understand that affairs can more or less happen, without anyone starting out with this intention,  As an aside, think that fewer affairs would happen if people took the draconian approach that Michael McKeon and I have about these matters: better an entire pound of prevention than that a single wrong move should occur.  So we go out of our way to make sure that things cannot go astray.   

In any case, what so very much bothers me about the website is that promoting and facilitating adultery takes moral inconsiderateness to one of the most fulsome levels imaginable short of significant bodily harm.  I shall draw upon this point at the end of the essay.

It is irrelevant that the act is going to be committed anyway.  I mean if Mary is going to murder Smith, you are hardly justified in giving Mary your gun on the grounds that Mary is going to commit the deed, anyhow; and that if don’t give her your gun someone else will give his gun to her.  The same holds for child sexual abuse.  The knowledge that someone is going to commit such an abominable act no matter what is hardly a reason or an excuse for someone else to do so instead. 

I have noticed that it has almost become commonplace for people to justify wrongdoing on their part in this way.  But it is too painfully obvious that the argument simply does not work.  It does not work even when applied to this very website.  The folks in Toronto, where the website is based, cannot excuse their promoting and facilitating divorce via a website on the grounds that someone else would surely do so. 

Now, there are lots of wrongdoings that I can at least get a handle on, though I hope that I would never commit the wrong in question.  For example, I can easily understand some instances of killing.  If someone killed my child, and I needed only to put my hand on a gun in order to kill that person, it is not at all obvious to me that I wouldn't do so.  And greed is more comprehensible than not.  So it is hardly a mystery that people are constantly scheming in this regard.

But some things: they seem so repugnant through and through.  Promoting adultery is surely a case in point.  I mean it is not as if something else quite salutary or even remotely salutary is being promoted and that thing often leads to adultery.  No, adultery is what the bill of sale is about.  And one has to wonder what kind of person says to himself: “I got it.  I will make a killing promoting adultery, and so setting the other spouse up to be egregiously harmed”.  Does such a desire require some measure of psychological damage on a person’s part?

For what it is worth, it is not my view that such sites should be legally banned.  There is a website entitled “JesusLovesGayPorn.Com”.  I do not for a moment think that it should be banned.  In fact, while I think that the name is terribly offensive, I don’t that think anyone is in fact harmed by it.  As another aside: I am sure that there will never be a website with the name "AllahLovesGayPorn.Com"

I am very much committed to free speech.  But a commitment to free speech is not a commitment to be silent no matter what is said.  And it seems to me that this is the mistake that many free speech advocates make.  There is no incompatibility at all between defending a person’s right to say something and vociferously arguing that what she or he has said is morally bankrupt.  Free speech and approval of what is said are two very different things, and are rightly defended on fundamentally different grounds. 

This last point can be cast in terms of the language of moral climate.  Precisely what we want is a moral climate in which speech prevails, on the one hand, and in which rigorous debate and critical scrutiny prevails, on the other.  Free speech without rigorous debate and critical scrutiny is tantamount to a moral climate according to which “Anything goes”.  Many people think that this is just fine so long as no physical violence is involved.  No doubt the creators of the AshleyMadison.Com site had just this thought in mind.  But just as it is possible to be a person’s body without ever touching his soul, the reverse is also true.  One can destroy a person’s soul without ever touching his body. 

Facilitating adultery is one way to do precisely that.  Without breaking ne’er a bone in anyone’s body, the nature of divorce, especially divorce occasioned by adultery, is such that it typically ravages the soul of the spouse and the souls of the children involved. 

Sites like AshleyMadison.Com reveals that society is quickly loosing sight of a truth that the great thinkers like Rousseau readily grasped, namely that insofar as society can be justified, it is not enough that society maximizes the liberty of its citizens.  It must also be the case that society is an unerring conduit for elevating the souls of its citizens, and so for bringing about a more perfect excellence in the members of society.

This is not the place to defend the importance of theological convictions.  Just so this much can be said.  For many the retreat from theology is thought to be synonymous with the view that man is without a spiritual nature.  That is manifestly false.  The problem is not that man lacks a spiritual nature, but that, given the present course, society is surely destroying rather than uplifting it.  The site AshleyMadison.Com has been chosen for the Fulsome Website Award because it is a very profound and poignant reminder of this reality.  It stands as an example of the truth that we can destroy, and are choosing to destroy, what is unique about human beings without ever inflicting any form of physical injury whatsoever.  Thus, the site is a reminder of the horror that awaits us in a society that systematically chooses freedom over excellence.  Indeed, AshleyMadison.Com already has a competitor ! ! !

well-known childhood saying is the following: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names (or words) will never hurt me.  An admittedly brief internet search on my part did not turn up the origins of this phrase.  It is agreed by a great many people, though, that this phrase is unequivocally false.  Everyone acknowledges that teasing and taunting children can be absolutely vicious and horrific.  And every adult knows the damage that a false and nasty rumor can do. 

So one has to wonder: How did a clearly false statement ever seem to have so much credibility?  But I am not going to speculate about that, since I do not have anything to say in this regard that would be particularly illuminating.  However, the fact that the saying is so unquestionably false points to something that I would very much like to address. 

Words matter.  They matter not just because they may hurt us.  They also matter because the widespread usage of any given set of words constitutes a significant aspect of what is the moral climate of a society or a community.  Thus, a shift in word usage very often marks a shift in the moral climate: sometimes for the better: sometimes for the worse.

In the respect, the politically correct police got something right.  Their problem was twofold.  On the one hand, institutional coercion was taken to be the correct solution to the problem of inappropriate word choice; on the other, things were pushed to an absurd level and appearances became more important than substance.  An example of the latter would be someone saying “I didn’t notice whether the person in question is black or white”.  I can easily think of cases where it is not clear whether a person is one or the other.  But where that is clear, and surely it is most of the time, how on earth does one not notice that? 

A moral climate defines the expectations that people generally have of one another, and themselves, with respect to behavior.  In particular, moral climate speaks to the sentiments that are occasioned when various words are used.  The two primary categories are entirely acceptable or entirely inappropriate. 

Once upon a time, it was simply expected that a person would not use profanity generally, especially in the public domain.  It was deemed entirely inappropriate.  Then the words “damn” and “hell” became acceptable.  And now the word “bitch” is acceptable.  All on prime time television.  What was once entirely inappropriate has become entirely acceptable.  And misplaced compassion is part of the explanation for how we got here.  For people started talking about white values being imposed, and guess what: Rap music was given free reign.  And black people who thought things had gone too far were all too worried about being called “whitey” to object.  Rap music was not the only factor in the shift here, but it was a major one.  Calling women, be they black or otherwise, bitches and hoes may constitute greater freedom.  But I cannot for the life of me see the moral progress here.  The moral climate has changed for the worse.  And the words that we now use are proof of that.

I turn now to antisemitism.  Perhaps the most striking and indefensible asymmetry that I have seen on the part of the Left lies in its rigid opposition to any form of racism—even the appearance of racism, but in its seemingly endless tolerance of antisemitism. 

For reasons that escape me, the Left has been able to dismiss antisemitic rhetoric as empty rhetoric.  As one colleague remarked to me: Well, the president of Iran knows full well that he is not going to be able to get away with blowing Israel off the map. 

My colleague may very well be right with respect to eliminating the state of Israel.  But that does not change the fact that while the Left has made racism against blacks entirely inappropriate, no matter who expresses it, the very same Left has allowed for antisemitism to at least be not entirely inappropriate, though falling short of allowing it to be entirely acceptable.  And that, in effect, is to create a moral climate of tolerance with respect to antisemitism. 

I can bring out my point in a rather unusual way.  In general, the Left has not been friendly towards Holocaust deniers.  But these have usually been Caucasians, who themselves have been a part of fringe groups—and so groups which the vast majority of Caucasians in society do not take seriously.  There has never been a climate of tolerance towards these fringe groups.

But there is all the difference in the world between antisemitism among fringe Caucasian groups and antisemitism in the Muslim Arabic world.  For what we have with the latter is not fringe groups talking antisemitism seriously, but a large proportion of an entire religious/ethnic group taking antisemitism seriously.  That ought to give the Left pause precisely because the Left generally regards antisemitism as a species of racism. 

As we all know, the failure to express disapproval of behavior that we are known to have witnessed is invariably taken as a form of tacit approval or at least the absence of disapproval.  If I did not speak to students text messaging in my classroom, that would be seen by them as at least a sign of indifference; and indifference constitutes the absence of disapproval.  Accordingly, my silence would create a moral climate that permitted text messaging in the classroom. 

There would be no mystery as to how that moral climate came about.  My silence with regard to text messaging has occasioned it—so much so that if towards the end of the semester I were to criticize a student for text messaging, she or he would understandably deem the criticism unfair, given that I had not said a word to anyone else all semester long.

We have exactly the same parallel when it comes to the Left’s excusing of antisemitism on the part of blacks and Muslim Arabs.  It is completely irrelevant that the person uttering the remarks is not at all able to carry through with what he said. 

The resurgence of antisemitism in the world did not just happen.  Notice that no one seems to think that there has been a general resurgence in the world in racism against blacks.  And there is good reason for this, namely that all sorts of people seem intent on not letting such a thing happen.  That is, the moral climate of Western nations is steadfastly opposed to expressions of racism against blacks. 

You can see where this is heading.  One just has to conclude that if the moral climate of Western nations were just as steadfast in its opposition to expressions of antisemitism, then even the Arabic Muslim world would manage to contain itself in this regard. 

Evil is typically depicted as a form of viciousness that expresses itself regardless of what is going on.  The truth in fact seems to be just the opposite.  In far too many cases, Evil is constantly looking over its shoulder to determine whether or not it has been given tacit consent. 

The real surprise is that more often than not tacit consent is precisely what has been given by people who otherwise see themselves, and with some justification, to be decent and upstanding individuals.

t its best, compassion is a most majestic gesture from one soul to another.  Misplaced compassion, by contrast, is the handmaiden of evil.  At its best, compassion looks beyond one’s own needs to the needs of another.  Misplaced compassion, on the other hand, is none other than a display of self-serving gestures masquerading as concern for the other.  For with misplaced compassion, the real concern is not so much that the other is made better off but that one feels good about oneself and that one looks good in the eyes of others. 

Contrary to what one might suppose, these remarks have everything to do with state of affairs in the United States with regard to the issue of diversity; and these remarks have everything to do with the state of affairs in the Middle East. 

Everyone agrees that the racism of the past was wrong.  But from this erstwhile truth, there arose the absurd view that blacks can do no wrong.  Any shortcoming on the part of blacks can be explained by reference to the past of racism.  With the Muslim Arabic world, there can be no doubt that, in various ways, Muslim Arabs have been mischaracterized and mistreated.  But once again, this erstwhile truth has given rise to the utterly absurd view that any criticism of Muslim Arabs is racist.  Utter the word "God" in school and one is imposing one's religious values upon other.  But say "Allah", and guess what: one is merely be true to one's traditions. 

The attitude that I have just described in the preceding paragraph is the embodiment of Leftist ideology.  And it is precisely the ideology of the Left that is handing the victory to Evil on a silver platter. 

Evil exploits opportunity.  And at present, the most remarkable opportunity to exploit is the charge of racism.  And the Left has absolutely mastered the art of showing misplaced compassion to those who readily make that charge. 

Here is a picture of dead American soldiers who strung up on a bridge in Iraq.  This is incredibly obnoxious and barbaric behavior.  And so it is whether one is for or against the war in Iraq.  But try to find someone from the Left to condemn it.  It would be easier to find a needle in a haystack.  But if you want to see a display of self-righteous indignation on the part of the Left: well, let an American soldier do anything wrong and that is deemed to be proof par excellence that America is an evil nation. 

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I hold the quite simple view that when American soldiers make mistakes they should be reprimanded accordingly.  It would never occur to me to think otherwise.  But my problem, apparently, is that when I see despicable behavior on the part of members of the Muslim Arabic world, I think that moral outrage with regard to the behavior in question is just as appropriate. 

But Arabic Muslim militants can do any despicable thing that they damn well please to an American soldier and the Left will find a way to excuse it or, even worse, to avoid even acknowledging it.  Perhaps it is cultural pluralism that explains why Muslim Arabs film time and time again the beheading of a captured American soldier.  Surely, it could not be about exploiting the media.  They chop off the head of their captives and we don’t.  That is all there is to it.  This differences makes it pluralism.

Best of all, though, as an excuse, if not justification, for their behavior is that the fact that we have wronged them in the past.  Unless you are white, then being a victim of a past systematic wrong gives one moral indemnity.  I should point out that non-whites, too, can fail to be the beneficiary of moral indemnity if, as in my own case, these non-whites fail to see racism as the explanation for everything that goes wrong in a minority person’s life.  I believe that racism no more explains violence in the black community than it explains why it snows in the winter rather than in the summer.  There was far less violence in black communities when racism was far more prevalent and vicious.

But never mind that.  Just turn to talk about the vestiges of racism, and one's butt is covered.  It has been said that anything that explains everything explains nothing. 

But let me say more about the situation in the Middle East.  As best I can tell, the Left thinks that Hamas and Hezbollah are peace friendly groups that Israel is radically mischaracterizing as folks who would kill innocent Israeli citizens.  Again, when the president of Iran says that he wants Israel blown off the map, the Left has to think that this is but a sarcastic way of speaking and that there is not an ounce of sincerity too his words. 

The president of Iran does not seem to think that.  But why on earth should the Left let what he actually think get in the way of its ideology? 

One consequence of Leftist ideology with regard to groups like Hamas and Hezbollah is that it can make no sense for Israel to defend itself against them.  This is because allowing for self-defense on the part of Israel implies that these groups are doing something that is wrong or, at the very least, unintentionally harmful to Israel.  And the Left ruled out the possibility that these groups can do such a thing.  This, in turn, makes self-defense on Israel’s part incoherent. 

But if this stance does not count as giving Evil the victory, then I do not know what does.  Oh yes I do: Israel could aim all of its missiles at itself ! ! !

Now, I do not suppose that Israel is perfect. And I have been there enough times to know, first hand, that it is not.  But I have noticed that no place is perfect.  In fact, I more than a little perturbed over how much imperfection I seem to be finding all over the place. 

Israel is certainly not perfect.  But I don’t think that either Iran or Egypt or Lebanon just barely miss the mark of perfection.  And I certainly do not think that groups like Hamaz and Hezbollah are anywhere close to being perfect. 

So the problem is not perfection versus imperfection, but self-defense in an environment where imperfections can be found across the board.  For instance, the sexism in the Middle East ought to have the Left sitting sackcloth and ashes, in a state of utter despair.  Oh right, there is that pluralism thing again.  Sexism is only wrong in America.  I keep thinking that wrong is wrong, no matter who commits the act in question.  I have got to get over that. 

In any case, the point is surely clear.  If not even self-defense is permissible, on Israel’s part, because groups like Hamas and Hezbollah or the Muslim Arabic world in general can do no wrong, then precisely what follows, surely, is that Evil has been handed the victory on a silver platter.  If this is right, then we have the following very surprising conclusion.  The biggest obstacle to peace may not be groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, after all.  Rather, it is the Left.  For the Left has done more to excuse the utterly vicious and despicable behavior of these groups than anything that these groups could have ever done for themselves. 

So to begin just about where I started: Misplaced compassion is the handmaiden of Evil.

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I was inspired to write this entry by Stu Bykofsky, who wrote one of the most remarkable essays I have ever read on the Middle East.  The essay is entitled "Would World be Better Off Without Israel?