The Torquemada problem

Not specifically on the subject, but just to mention that Torquemada was Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. While Pope Sixtus IV granted the right, it was entirely run at the pleasure of the various Crowns. This is important if you want to understand why it was possible for Montesquieu, a proud Catholic, to call Torquemada a bloodthirsty savage and republish the very texts for which the Grand Inquisitor had burnt people to the stake for, and not have to worry the slightest.

Thanks, Reply to Akanthinos, point taken.
(And, as usual with these elaborate religions, there are disagreements.)

Quoting ?????????????

Is referral to Reason, the Just, The Good or whatever still referral?

As in, a) “Reason / the Just / the Good made me do it—so it’s not my fault,” or b) “I did it—and it is therefore my blame/praise—due to my convictions/beliefs regarding Reason / the Just / the Good”?

Phrased this way, it seems self-explanatory to me. (A) pertains to the category of not holding moral agency; (B) pertains to the category of moral agency.

Interesting question, though.

Quoting ?????????????

Is referral to Reason, the Just, The Good or whatever still referral?

Superior orders, a book, things snatched out of thin air, ...

• Refusal to take responsibility for one's own actions is a kind of moral cowardice (shirking).
• Someone not owning their morals shouldn't expect to be regarded an autonomous, morally authentic human being, which could justify distrust in their actions (or even constraining their actions somewhat).

Presumably adults (including moral actors) can reason or we're faced with troubles. :) (But this may be a side-avenue.) "The just" and "the good" are typically abstractions that are parts of moral agency and decency for people to be so, surely not discoveries made with telescopes or microscopes. Referral is giving up moral evaluation.

This is really cool, I didn't know this had a name! This accords to one of the most central insights - as I take it - of deconstructive thought (Derrida, etc). That ethics can only begin - can only be ethical[/i] - if one doesn’t just palm off responsibility to a high power or even justificatory framework which can wholly authorise one’s actions as ‘ethical’. This latter would just be bureaucracy, and has nothing to do with ethics. It’s in this sense that I’ve always thought that so-called 'is-ought’ gap, which is sometimes taken to be a problem for ethics, is in fact it’s very foundation: that if there wasn’t a gap between is and ought, then no ethics would be possible.

Reply to ?????????????, I just meant that reason, "the just and good" still refer back to moral agency/actors, so I find it hard to separate them. But, yep, Reply to javra gave a good analytic response.

Quoting ?????????????

we rarely hear God people say "God made me do it"

Indeed, although the most common argument from morality more or less does.
Furthermore, most such religious folk are already moral agents, regardless of their religious faith, which renders references to extra-self objective (or mind-independent) morals incoherent (inconsistent).

Quoting StreetlightX

I didn't know this had a name

Sorry, I concocted that. Seemed an appropriate name for the topic.

The is/ought gap of old also came to mind while I typed this stuff up (plus the illustration) a month or so back. Maybe I should just have posted the whole thing, though it's still being reworded.

Quoting jorndoe

Sorry, I concocted that.

Hah, I like it nonetheless.

Could you give an example of point 2? How would referring to oneself relinquish one's personal moral agency? "I did it because I decided to do it" sounds like taking moral responsibility to me. If you mean something like "I did it because I was angry" then I could see how THAT is relinquishing moral responsibility but then a certain ambiguity appears. That is what is the "me" that is doing the referring separate from the "me" that is getting referred to? In the last example, the speaker denounced anger as "not being a part of himself" and so by doing so he would be relinquishing his personal moral agency BUT how much of ourselves can we denounce for there to still be a "self" left to do the denouncing. This touches upon problems with consciousness. Consciousness is inconceivable without senses but senses are not what constitute consciousness. Similarly, emotions and attitudes constitute a massive part of the self but they are not individually the self. How much of the self is denouncable then becomes the question.

Quoting jorndoe

Referral to something (or someone) else, is to forfeit being considered a moral agent, and merely makes the referrer less human.

Does this apply to judges who refer to statute, convention, constitution, case law, etc?

Quoting unenlightened

Does this apply to judges who refer to statute, convention, constitution, case law, etc?

When judges defer to law, they are not exercising their human ethical judgment (at least in theory, which I take to be the context of your hypothetical question).

Reply to SophistiCat Yes indeed. They are abrogating their moral duty to the letter of the law. Which makes them less human, allegedly. "The law says I must order this execution..." - the Nuremberg defence. In common parlance the eternal cry of the jobsworth, "I was only doing my job." You want to take the high moral ground over the religionist, at least in this particular, you got to be an anarchist.

Quoting unenlightened

Yes indeed. They are abrogating their moral duty to the letter of the law. Which makes them less human, allegedly.

Not exercising a quintessentially human faculty in the context of performing a specific task does not make you "less than human," in and of itself - it all depends on context. Following printed instructions while assembling an IKEA table won't land you in Nuremberg. What is morally suspect is abrogating moral duty when exercising moral duty is called for (and yes, that can happen in a legal context as well).

Quoting SophistiCat

Following printed instructions while assembling an IKEA table won't land you in Nuremberg.

Well, until Ikea start selling lampshades made from human skin...

Quoting unenlightened

You want to take the high moral ground over the religionist, at least in this particular, you got to be an anarchist.

That's the point at issue; to be part of an organisation of any sort is to partially abrogate responsibility. TO maintain one's integrity one must continue to be willing to act against the instructions of the organisation at the point where they stretch one's own moral view too far.

@khaled, the three bullets were actually intended to be different expressions of the same thing.
An example for one is likely to cover the others, at least somewhat, though my wording could suggest otherwise.
I can try to come up with some more examples; apologies for the silence on my part until then.

@unenlightened, well, not exactly. :)

So, the judge comes home after a tedious day of case laws, paperwork, etc, only to find disarray.
Their law-studying daughter and her girlfriend had bullied their uncle due to his baldness, whom, in turn, had called two ruffians to threaten his nieces.

The judge easily judges both the bullying and threats bad, who wouldn't?
And, by the way, nothing wrong with homosexuality regardless of statutes, constitutions, appeal to models of biological evolution, etc, yes?

The judge has made moral evaluations, like moral agents/actors do, not by referral, not by reciting a book, not by giving up moral agency.
If the judge had done no such thing due to a decision that statutes, conventions, laws, etc were the definition of morals, or some similar referral, then they'd apparently become less human, or, more likely, inconsistent.

Anyway, busy day at the judge's house.

Here's an excerpt of an actual conversation I had a little while back elsewhere (names replaced):

• Opening: How can you be against homosexuality and say Jesus loves you?... Sub-dialogue:
• Someone: Because homosexuality is a sin.
• jorndoe: Someone, if you've surrendered morals to scriptures (and an invisible arbiter you can't ask), then you've surrendered moral agency, which does not bestow a whole lot of confidence in you. Should we be concerned...? Scared...? :o
• Someone: jorndoe we don't follow morals
• Someone: jorndoe morals are weak. As demonstrated above
• jorndoe: What church are you in, Someone?
• Someone: jorndoe that doesn't matter, my beliefs are my own
• jorndoe: Okie, Someone. It's just that you wrote "we", so I thought knowing what church might be interesting/informative.
• Someone: jorndoe we as Christians. Sounds like a demonizing tactic to me

To me, this is a kind of moral bankruptcy.

But the opening post wasn't really intended to be about religions only.

Quoting jorndoe

So, the judge comes home...

This story doesn't answer. It is like The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
Father comes home after a tiresome day as Concentration Camp Commandant and is the decent family man.

Judges have to follow the law, and not their conscience, but their function as judges is the epitome of morality in action.

Quoting Banno

TO maintain one's integrity one must continue to be willing to act against the instructions of the organisation at the point where they stretch one's own moral view too far.

So how far is too far? There seems to be a weighing required of the value of an orderly society as against the cost imposed on others in terms of justice. Sometimes the law is an ass, but perhaps one can follow it and live with one's conscience, and sometimes the law is a monster and one cannot, or rather one all too often can, but ought not. Because when was the last time a judge said 'this law is so wrong, I refuse to administer it'?

Yet it is the judge that has to decide for others where the line should have been. 'The Commandant has no defence', he declares, citing another rule-book, written after the event.

I agree that the Torquemada problem is a problem for our moral responsibility. Completely agree. Except insofar as to agree with an article positing a particular viewpoint means forfeiting my moral agency in a particularly torquemada-esq way.

Quoting unenlightened

but their function as judges is the epitome of morality in action.

Obedience as a virtue.

@unenlightened, in our two stories, the judge and the father act inconsistently if their actions at work go against morals and they're aware of that, cf this snippet above:

Quoting jorndoe

are likely inconsistent (or, less likely, pathological)

Justice system are supposed to be moral. Morals aren't derived from justice systems.
(Which can sometimes lead to a conflict between the letter and spirit of the law.)

Admittedly, in general, morals aren't all trivial, or even necessarily decidable.


Related:

[quote=often attributed to Edmund Burke (1729-1797)]All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.[/quote]

[quote=John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)]Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.[/quote]

[quote=Elie Wiesel (1928-2016)]Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.[/quote]

Adolf Eichmann's Final Plea: "In His Own Words" (Remember.org article)

Quoting jorndoe

Related:

I'm afraid I've lost track of what you want to say at this point. You seem to be referring me to the aphorisms of the great and the good at this point, and yet you started out claiming that referring to the sayings of Jesus or Moses was illegitimate.

I think the following story that I heard personally from a Finnish WW2 veteran fits this topic very well:

The veteran, who served as a reserve officer (meaning he had been a civilian before the war) was in charge of an anti-aircraft artillery battalion in the summer of 1944 on the Karelian front (next to Leningrad). One of his batteries got a soldier to the unit who was literally very stupid. As the soldier's intellectual disability made him incapable of serving in an AA-gun team, they put the soldier into kitchen duty. He was told to stay put if the Russians attacked. Yet when the first time a Russian artillery barrage hit the unit's positions, the soldier simply ran away into the forest in panic. He came back to the unit some time later apologizing for his behaviour.

The officer (and the storyteller of this story) understood what would happen: as the soldier had left his post basically under combat, the protocol or procedure would be that he, as the commanding officer, would send him to be court martialed. During those fragile times in 1944, the soldier would be extremely likely executed. He also understood that the man was indeed a moron. So when the soldier was brought up to him, he tried to be as angry and menacing as he could be as a battalion commander and asked him with all the gravity he could muster: "Will you promise, on your honour, never to do that again?" The soldier promised not to do that again and he never did. The battalion commander left the whole issue to be and never reported the incident up the chain. I didn't ask him if the soldier survived the war or not, perhaps he did.

The veteran wanted to emphasize the importance of humaneness especially in war, never to forget basic humanity even in such terrible institutionalized carnage. The graveness and how the issue touched himself when telling this story (and about the treatment of Russian POWs) made a quite an impact on me, then a young reserve officer someone who had and has lived only in tranquil peacetime. WW2 veterans typically didn't tell much of their painfull stories. I understood that he as an old man wanted to share this before his death as he felt the urge to tell to another generation something that he had learned and held important, even if my generation is extremely unlikely to be in any kind of similar situation (and anyway, this happened in the 90's so I'm not so young anymore). And by no means was he some kind of closet pacifist as he had risen through the Winter War and the Continuation War to a position that only a few reservists held during wartime.

Now the OP focus on religion, but can we generalize the problem even to basic laws, things that are indeed accepted generally by the vast majority? That are to us ordinary, normal and totally acceptable even in our so permissive and understanding society? Earlier people were simply more religious and believed far more in the Bible. Did that make the people surrender their moral responsibility? And are we better than them if we aren't religious? We can easily jugde the nazis at Nuremberg or the Spanish Inquisition as their World, their World view and their moral views differ so much from ours. It's an easy thing for us to do. Far more difficult is to judge things from our time and challenge the views the majority or the intellectual elite view as our moral responsibility today.

Quoting unenlightened

So how far is too far? There seems to be a weighing required of the value of an orderly society as against the cost imposed on others in terms of justice. Sometimes the law is an ass, but perhaps one can follow it and live with one's conscience, and sometimes the law is a monster and one cannot, or rather one all too often can, but ought not. Because when was the last time a judge said 'this law is so wrong, I refuse to administer it'?

Perhaps a good guideline is what the now deceased veteran told: just never forget basic humanity...in any situation. Hence the judge doesn't have to declare the law wrong in public, he gives just a light sentence or no punishment at all. And likely that's the way many 'wrong' laws wither away.

Quoting unenlightened

started out claiming that referring to the sayings of Jesus or Moses was illegitimate

Nah.
Rather that such textual passages do not define (or install) moral agency, but of course may (or may not) exemplify morals like other stories.
Nothing specific to the Bible or Jesus or Moses, though.

Quoting ssu

the OP focus on religion

That wasn't quite the intention, not exclusively anyway, though admittedly the example conversation I had elsewhere was about religion.

Quoting ssu

We can easily jugde the nazis at Nuremberg or the Spanish Inquisition as their World, their World view and their moral views differ so much from ours. It's an easy thing for us to do. Far more difficult is to judge things from our time and challenge the views the majority or the intellectual elite view as our moral responsibility today.

Right.
And history is a great teacher, has real life examples and everything. :)
Some things we'd like to repeat should the occasion arise, others not so much.

Quoting ssu

Perhaps a good guideline is what the now deceased veteran told: just never forget basic humanity...in any situation. Hence the judge doesn't have to declare the law wrong in public, he gives just a light sentence or no punishment at all.

Quoting jorndoe

such textual passages do not define (or install) moral agency, but of course may (or may not) exemplify morals like other stories.

So what it seems to come to is that one cannot evade personal responsibility for one's acts. One can use law, scripture, or the analects of Jerry the Jerk to support or defend the righteousness of one's acts, but one remains entirely responsible for them. If you go around stoning adulterers, or gassing Jews, or imprisoning homosexuals, or enslaving refugees, it's still your responsibility even if The Pope or Lord Ganesh told you to explicitly.

But then, we do not have an argument when someone says:Quoting jorndoe

Someone: Because homosexuality is a sin.

And when they are arrested for - whatever - they likely will not say it is not their fault, because the Bible said, they will claim the responsibility as a virtue, because the Bible said.

Here's one angle in brief:

"Torquemada" — moral agency and in/consistency
"Nuremberg" — responsibility and in/action

Referral to "Sin" (as per some Biblical reading) does not make homosexuality moral immoral amoral.
Persecuting and stoning a homosexual, referring to "Sin" (as per some Biblical reading), remain their acts.

Obeisance to Biblical readings alone does not exemplify moral agency.
Acting on them does not circumvent liability.