moral algorithm
In an attempt to expand my horizons last year I attended a short math refresher course. I very vividly remember my delight at solving very simple math problems. It was the absolute and definitive nature of it that had me almost laugh out loud. There may be numerous methods, but unequivocally there is always only one correct answer and it is always persistently true. Having heard about Grigori Perelman’s refusal to accept the Field’s Medal for a body of work helping to solve the Poincare Conjecture I found his response pleasantly in sync with my impression of mathematics. Perelmans refusal to accept the honors and attend the prize ceremony was unilateral, unquestionable and left unapologetically unexplained. And so, I spent the last few weeks contemplating *absolutes*. Operating outside of the scientific realm, absolute imperatives of conduct are willingly adopted and broadly accepted. Political opinions, family values, belief in God in all their permutations are all convictions assigned highest importance often promoted by the beholder as “true”. These personal biases surface anytime a person is asked to state an opinion. At best they are choices based on a mix of personal experience along with a certain amount of introspection and logical thought, and at worst they are indoctrinations by nurture, never shed in adulthood. In either case the absolutes we live by, are arrived at not by mathematical deductions but by more or less haphazard choice or worse, by blind faith. How can we then trust our convictions? American Civil Liberties Union for example, has adopted individual rights as its highest principle:
The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees:
* Your First Amendment rights-freedom of speech, association and assembly. Freedom of the press, and freedom of religion supported by the strict separation of church and state.
* Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.
* Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.
* Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.
Seemingly, no one who’s thought has been shaped by western civilization would disagree with the above statements. Certainly all Americans to whom the Bill of Rights carries special significance would subscribe to ACLUs mission statement. Why is it then that its actions are considered controversial? Howstuffworks poses that question and attempts to answer it:
Simply put, the organization holds an absolutist view of liberties — they defend all people whose liberties have been violated, even if their views, ideas or actions are unpopular. Therefore, the ACLU ends up defending Nazis, pornographers, religious zealots and extremists of all types.The point of such unpopular cases is to protect the rights of all minorities. Many minorities do have unpopular points of view. In the ACLU’s eyes, the right of a Nazi group to freedom assembly is just as important as, for example, Native Americans’ freedom of assembly. Allowing the government to restrict any group’s freedoms would invite restrictions on other groups.
That is a simplistic explanation and a very dangerous one at that, if true. It suggests that the Civil Liberties Union automatically dishevels its objection to any violation of free speech, only because the first amendment says so, and since ACLU’s raison d’etre is to uphold it, Native American freedom of assembly is qualified on par with that of the Nazis whose hostile motives are regrettably well made known through history. A little research however seems to indicate that the organization supports free speech only to the degree where it assesses that there are no superseding concerns of detriment to others or where the expression of free speech isn’t at odds with other clauses of the amendment. The depth of consideration is well illustrated in The Rutherford Institute ’s interview with Nadine Strossen the president of ACLU.
She explains her position:
Ironically, I have been attacked by some of the Christian organizations lately for defending the free exercise of religion, specially defending the rights of fundamentalist Mormons to engage in polygamy. I have to say here that no rights are absolute. That is true for freedom of speech, and it is also true for the free exercise of religion. If, for example, your religion believed in human sacrifice, you would not be allowed to exercise that because there is a countervailing interest of great importance in protecting human life. The same point can be made about polygamy. It could be limited to protect the safety and rights of all the participants, and to ensure that all participants were consenting adults.
The ACLU as a point in case of cogency of our moral beliefs, is an example of critical thought at its finest. In its non partisanship, lack of attachment to any particular outcome and its attention to due process, the union’s practices mimic the objectivity of the scientific method. The yard stick is the same in all cases (the individual rights guaranteed under the first amendment), but it is the unique scenarios and specific combinations of circumstance which prompt the ACLU to take a stand one way or the other. I wish there was a paradigm shift in common thought and our moral values, instead of being considered the final and absolute judgment, were instead the guiding principles of a moral algorithm .