Should vaccinations be compulsory?

Health Secretary Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP recently articulated his support for compulsory vaccinations. He commented that there is a 'very strong argument' for making vaccinations compulsory, and I am wholly with him on this.

Anti-vaxxers

There is a small but significant group of people - anti-vaxxers - who don't believe in vaccinations. This scepticism might take a number of forms. Anti-vaxxers might believe that: 

1. vaccinations don't really work; 
2. other methods are better at protecting from illness; 
3. it's dangerous to inject diseases into people; 
4. vaccinations carry a significant risk of disease or other condition (such as autism); 
5. we shouldn't interfere with nature; 
6. vaccinating a particular child isn't necessary, because the disease in question is uncommon - perhaps because so many other people are already vaccinated.

Some of these standpoints are based in sheer ignorance, while others are based more on hope/faith. Below I examine these claims and argue that vaccination should be compulsory for all who can be vaccinated.

Vaccines don't work

There is a massive body of evidence which shows that vaccines work, and protect against illnesses far better than other methods. Nonetheless, just as abstinence will protect one against sexually transmitted infections better than a condom can, avoiding all human contact is likely to be very effective in the fight against communicable diseases. But in most cases, it's wholly unrealistic, and not a method used by anti-vaxxers anyway.

People might suggest that other methods - such as prayer, homeopathy, voodoo magic and so on - will protect against illnesses as well as or better than vaccines can. I would love to see a clinical peer-reviewed study into this. Group A is vaccinated against measles; Group B prays; Group C uses homeopathy or something similar. Then all participants in each group are exposed to measles in the same way - say, a person with measles coughs in their face. Then, we monitor the results, and see which of the people contract measles. 

Obviously, this sort of study would never pass ethical review - and why not? Because it'd be considered too dangerous for groups B and C! This is of course because we know that the non-vaccinated people would be in critical danger of developing measles, a disease which can kill.

Vaccines cause sepsis, autism etc

Although it's possible to cherry-pick anecdotal stories which show a person who was vaccinated later getting the disease, or to give credence to discredited 'scientific' studies such as the one which linked the MMR vaccine to autism, the overwhelming body of evidence shows that vaccines work, and are not dangerous.

There are some tragic cases where children die suddenly, and it is totally understandable that parents and other relatives or friends would try to find meaning in the death, and to know why it happened. Take sepsis as an example: it arrives with commonplace symptoms such as rapid shallow breathing, low temperature, and nausea, and by the time symptoms seem serious enough to seek medical help, the patient might be beyond the stage where they can be saved. It's only natural to think back to what could have caused it, and what has happened in the few days prior to the illness or death.

If a child has a vaccination, and then a few days later develops sepsis or some other horrible illness, it is understandable that a parent would make a causal link between the two, even if that link is unjustified. But any good statistician knows that correlation doesn't prove causation. Just because a child begins exhibiting symptom Y a few days after event X does not prove that X caused Y. Science doesn't work like that; superstitions do. If a child get sepsis a few days after walking under a ladder this is not compelling evidence of a link either.

So although it's understandable why people would make the link, it's unjustified.

We shouldn't interfere with nature

I have a great sympathy for this sort of attitude, and when it comes to something really invasive like a blood transfusion or an organ transplant, I am even more sympathetic to the standpoint. I can totally understand why some people might prefer to live a more simplistic and natural life, free from medical intervention and 21st century attempts to play god with medical science. It's not a belief I share, but I can understand the motivation to pursue such a life.

Often, but not always, such a standpoint might be grounded in religious beliefs such that one decides that if it is God's will that he dies from measles or heart failure, then so be it, God has decided. To try to circumvent God's plan by using medical interventions is contrary to God's plan and it therefore wrong. I respect that thinking, and when it involves things that only affect oneself, I would never argue that we should force people to have medical procedures they don't want.

HOWEVER

Whilst lifestyle and religious beliefs should be tolerated and respected, when S's religiosity starts to have a potentially fatal effect on everyone else's lives, tolerance and respect needs to come to an end.

If it were someone's religious or personal belief that one should carry razor-sharp weapons in each hand, and swing his hands vigorously as he walked, this is fine on a deserted island, but totally unacceptable in a public place - particularly around children who would be in greater danger from such activities. It would be legitimate to say he cannot enter a public place whilst swinging his knives around.

Analogously, if someone chooses to remain unvaccinated for religious or personal beliefs in the sanctity of nature, this is fine if they are alone or around others who share that belief. But when they bring their potentially disease-ridden bodies into a public place, they are playing Russian roulette with other people's lives - particularly children who are in greater danger from many communicable illnesses. It then becomes legitimate to say he cannot enter a public place whilst he is unvaccinated.

As John Stuart Mill wrote: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." (On Liberty 1859/1974:68). I may have mentioned elsewhere that Mill is a legal genius, well ahead of his time, and although there are some problems with his theories which future scholars have had to iron out, the principle stands as a really useful one to live by. Do as you please, but when it starts to endanger others, your right to individuality ends. Mill would have supported compulsory vaccination.

Herd immunity

When a high enough proportion of people (typically 95-100% is quoted) are immune to an illness, the remaining 0-5% are safe too - after all, the disease is really uncommon and unlikely to be spread around. If I'm unvaccinated, but all the people I come into contact with are immune to an illness, then I'll never get the illness, because they'll never get the illness.

That's the theory, at least. For some illnesses, this is absolutely true, but I think there might be some illnesses which an immune person can still carry and pass on to others (I'm not totally sure about this though - maybe I'm just remembering that scene in 28 Days Later where the immune children passed on the zombie sickness to their mother?!)

Anyway, even if no one can carry an illness they're immune to, the herd immunity argument only works when the number of people immune to the illness is very high. If only 1% of people are susceptible to measles because everyone else is vaccinated, then there's only a very slim chance of coming into contact with another unvaccinated person - and a slimmer chance still that the unvaccinated person just so happens to be contagious at that moment.

But as the number of unvaccinated people rises, the chance of catching the illness increases. Vaccination against measles among UK children now stands at around 90% - one of the worst uptake rates of any developed country. Herd immunity to measles has been lost.

Some people can't be vaccinated, because they have an autoimmune disease or something similar. And babies aren't vaccinated against every illness the moment they leave the birth canal, but rather, they receive vaccinations in their first few months of life. This means that young babies and some older children and adults are susceptible to preventable illnesses. Why should their health be risked because S decides not to vaccinate their child and instead rely on herd immunity? The herd immunity approach should be reserved for those and only those who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons. Everyone who is able to be vaccinated should be vaccinated.

Smallpox and Measles

Child with smallpox

Does anyone remember smallpox? I don't. No one I know - indeed no one in the entire world - has had smallpox during my lifetime.

In the 20th century, smallpox was responsible for 300-500 million deaths worldwide; in 1950, there were an estimated 50 million cases of smallpox each year. I'm not a mathematician, but that seems like quite a lot. Yet in the last 40 years, there have been 0 cases of smallpox in the world, and it's all thanks to a worldwide vaccination programme. Without the vaccination programme, it would be highly likely that some members of my family and yours would have died from smallpox.

Measles hasn't been eradicated, and is still out there in the world doing its thing. It isn't just getting a bit spotty and feeling under the weather for a few days: it's horrendous, and can be fatal. In 2016, an estimated 90,000 people died of measles worldwide, and plenty of others suffered terribly with the disease, and were left deaf, blind, and with profound physical disabilities or even brain damage.

Wouldn't it be nice if measles went the way of smallpox, and we could eradicate it forever? It could be done through vaccination, if enough people were on board. It certainly seems as though a small but significant group of anti-vaxxers are trying to save measles from extinction, in much the same way that we might save whales and tigers from the brink. They are going out of their way to allow the disease to spread and remain alive, and they take to the streets to campaign, to get others to join their crew.

I would never wish illness or death on anyone, and I hope that anti-vaxxers never have to suffer the heartbreaking situation where their children die from a preventable disease simply because they refused to vaccinate them.... but some of them will die. Moreover, some newborn babies and people with autoimmune disorders who cannot be vaccinated will also die, simply because the anti-vaxxers wouldn't believe the science. It's a tragedy. A preventable tragedy.

Is it wrong to pierce a baby's ears?

In many cultures, it is common for parents to pierce the ears of newborn baby girls. This practice is very ethnocentric, meaning that it is commonplace in some cultures, and unheard of nd frowned upon in others. Some people  claim it is harmless, beautiful, and kinder than piercing the ears of an older child- and others claim it is cruel, sexist, and a violation of consent.

If you'd like to read a range of anecdotes and  viewpoints, see this Quora discussion. Below I examine a range of viewpoints and ultinately conclude that although it is a bodily violation and not medically necessary, it may be culturally necessary in some cultures to avoid bullying.

Wrongness

Many things are wrong. It's wrong to accept d a gift without saying thank you without taking a gift, and it's wrong to put millions of people to death because you don't like their skin colour. Both of these are wrong, but they are not equally wrong. Wrongness is a spectrum, and the above two acts are at opposite ends of the spectrum. If baby ear piercing turns out to be wrong, I'll need to say where on the spectrum it lies - just how wrong it is.

Wrongness comes in (at least) two forms: intrinsic wrongness and instrumental wrongness. If something is instrumentally wrong, it is wrong because of its negative consequences. If something is intrinsically wrong, it is wrong in itself, because of the type of act which it is - even if no negative consequences ensue. For example, we might think that dropping litter is instrumentally wrong because it harms the environment and disgusts people. On the other hand, we might think that lying in court is wrong in principle, regardless of the consequences. Of course, some acts may be both intrinsically and instrumentally wrong. Murder is probably wrong in both ways: it is instrumentally qrong because it upsets people, and intrinsically wrong because it's simply wrong to take a life. I'll show below that altbough baby ear piercing is intrinsically wrong (by a very small degree) it may be instrumentally right in some cultures.

Arguments in favour

First, I'll consider arguments in favour of piercing babies' ears. These are:

1. Babies feel less pain
2. Babies don't mess with their earrings
3. It looks cute
4. Most girls love their earrings
5. The holes stay open for life
6. It helps tell girls apart from boys

Babies feel less pain

The first argument in favour of piercing babies' ears is that babies feel less pain, or that they quickly forget about the pain. As for the first claim, here's a little experiment you can do: lay down a newborn baby next to a child, and an adult. Now, get an object such as a pencil case or water bottle, drop it onto each of them, and see who cries. My guess is that the baby would cry, while the others would not. Indeed, if one were to try a more unpleasant (and possibly illegal) experiment of hitting the people, I think the baby would certainly cry, the child may cry, and the adult would not. So the claim that babies don't feel the pain is totally unfounded.

As for the claim that babies don't remember the pain, this is more plausible. If we had hit the newborn, the child, and the adult, it is likely that 5 minutes after the hitting, the child and the adult would both remember that they'd been hit. Would a newborn baby remember it? There's no way to know. She might not behave like she recalls the pain, but that doesn't mean that the pain has indeed been forgotten. 

If it is true that babies forget the pain whereas children and adults do not, then it would seem to be more permissible to hit a baby for fun, than to hit a child or adult for fun. This seems intuitively distasteful. But this doesn't mean it is wrong, of course. There is not a clear way to ascertain whether babies remember the pain.

Babies don't mess with their earrings

It is important to keep newly-pierced ears clean; that much is certain. Adults with newly-pierced ears are good at keeping them clean, but children (aged 2-10) are likely to mess with their earrings with germy hands, possibly causing infections. Very young babies are not able to control their limbs properly, and couldn't fiddle with their earrings even if they wanted to, so their new piercings are likely to stay cleaner than those done on an older child.

But that alone isn't reason enough to pierce their ears. Amputation of the legs is likely to heal better (and be coped with more easily) when performed on a newborn rather than an older child or adult -- but that alone is not reason enough to amputate a baby's legs! We'd need to have some other (positive) reason to pierce a baby's ears or amputate their legs in addition to babies' advanced healing abilities.

It looks cute

I can understand why people think it looks cute, but I myself do not find it cute. It's not commonplace in the UK to pierce babies' ears, and yet we still have babies and children which are very cute. 

Besides, many things might be cute - surgically grafting cat ears onto a baby's head, or tattooing little hearts onto their bodies, but this does not give us adequate reason to do it. Later on, when I discuss consent, we will see that cuteness is insignificant when weighed against body modification.

Most girls love their earrings

This is probably true. Most girls like to look girly, and the chance to wear sparkly earrings like a princess is undoubtedly attractive to many girls.

But not all girls. Some girls don't want to wear earrings, but by the time they are old enough to object to their earrings, they have already had their ears pierced.

But for girls who don't want to wear earrings, they can just take them out, and the scarring is minimal. So ear piercing on a baby isn't like tattooing a baby, where it is significantly more difficult to reverse the procedure if they don't like it.

The holes stay open for life

Oddly, this is often given as a reason in favour of baby ear piercing. People say things such as "I haven't worn earrings in 10 years, but the holes are still there so I can put earrings in if I want to". This contradicts the above argument - that one can just take out the earrings if one doesn't want them. But the fact that the holes stay there for life is surely a reason to say that baby ear piercing is a lifelong infliction - a reason against it. And yet, proponents of babies with earrings use "the holes never heal up" as an argument in favour of ear piercing in newborns. Counterintuitive, huh?

It helps tell girls apart from boys

Among cultures where baby ear piercing is commonplace (such as Spain and other Latino cultures), this argument is frequently put forward, but it is utterly flawed.

First of all, why is it essential for people to know the sex of a baby? They should act the same way towards the baby regardless of its genital configuration or whether it has small pieces of metal in its ears. Perhaps they just want to know which pronouns to use, so they can say "She's gorgeous" or "He's gorgeous" rather than "It's gorgeous". Fair enough, but there are many cultures where baby girls' ears are not routinely pierced - how do they cope with telling baby boys apart from baby girls?

The answer is this: they dress their babies in gendered clothes such as pink flowery dresses or blue dungarees. Or, if one encounters a baby dressed in unisex clothing, one asks "is it a boy or a girl?", and no one takes offence. 

So this argument - the aid to telling boys from girls - is absurd. One doesn't need to tell a baby boy from a baby girl, but even if they do, they can look at the clothes or just ask - piercings are unnecessary for this purpose.

It's tradition 

This is probably one of the weakest arguments in favour of baby ear piercing. There are many abhorrent traditions involving the ritual alteration or mutilation of people's bodies. Some examples include Chinese foot binding, head binding, female genital mutilation, circumcision, tribal tattoos, and the stretching of the neck.

A tradition is only a tradition as long as people keep practicing it. If a tradition is cruel, outdated, unwarranted, or just plain stupid, then there is no need to keep following it. There is a saying: Who is the greater fool: the fool, or the fool who follows him? It suggests that copying stupid actions is even more stupid than the person who did it in the first place. The practice of foot binding (for girls) in China had been a tradition for a long time, but thankfully, people stopped practicing it, and it is now seen as the vile and unnecessary practice it truly is.

So piercing babies' ears solely because it is a tradition is absurd. We would need a better reason than mere tradition for piercing babies' ears.

Arguments against 

Now let's consider some of the arguments against baby ear piercing. These are:

1. It's dangerous
2. It's sexist
3. It's body mutilation
4. It requires consent

It's dangerous

Earrings can be grabbed and yanked out by the baby themselves, or by other children. They can get caught when removing clothing, or when playing, hugging etc. and when this happens, it hurts. But in the UK, quite a few kids (again, mainly girls) have their ears pierced, and almost all women do. How many people have had an earring ripped out such that their earlobe was actually torn? I would say the number is minuscule. Ear piercing is not dangerous.

It's sexist

Recall the argument above in favour of piercing girls' ears because "it's cute". Why is it only cute for girls and not for boys? The answer, of course, is because we have gendered ideas about what is attractive for boys and girls.

When people pierce a baby's ears, it is always baby girls whose ears are pierced. Very occasionally, one might pierce a single ear of a baby boy, but this is much less common than piercing both ears of a baby girl.

And the reason why it's girls rather than boys who have their ears pierced is undoubtedly because women wear earrings to look beautiful, like princesses and so on. So piercing the ears of a baby girl is a symbolic act which says "I want my daughter to look beautiful". This is highly distasteful, the reinforcement of the idea that girls should look beautiful, with sparkly jewellery, whereas boys should not.

This ethos is unpleasant enough when it circulates among adults, but it becomes more and more grotesque when inflicted on young children and babies. Does a 5 year old need to look beautiful? Of course not, so a new born baby girl certainly does not.

On the other hand, gendered clothes exist for children of all ages, including newborns. If we object to ear piercing among baby girls solely on sexist grounds, we should also object to gendered clothing. It should either be abolished, or it should be acceptable to dress a baby boy in a flowery dress. But many people against ear piercing still think that gendered clothing is acceptable, so sexism alone can't explain the wrongness of ear piercing.

It's body mutilation

Forcing pieces of metal through a child's skin is a form of body mutilation, as is tattooing, circumcision, female genital mutilation, foot binding, and several other (once) common practices. If we object to ear piercing, but not another form of body mutilation, we would have to show that ear piercing is more harmful or less necessary than the one which we accept.

Let's take circumcision, since it is shockingly common. Figures show that over 80% of US males are circumcised, and over 90% of males in Muslim-majority countries. I find this abhorrent and shocking; in the UK, only 4% of males are circumcised, and I can't fathom why anyone would do it to a baby. Given that there is no good medical reason for routine circumcision on babies, I find it sickening and intrinsically wrong that someone would remove part of the genitals of a newborn baby. Of course, people often claim that it's more hygienic (which it isn't), but mostly that it's a tradition - often underpinned by religion. As shown above, tradition alone is no good reason to alter the bodies of babies.

Anyway, since the removal of part of the genitals is far more intimate, invasive, and irreversible than the piercing of the earlobes, it is impossible for anyone to seriously claim that routine circumcision is acceptable but ear piercing is wrong.

Of course, someone might claim that both are wrong, because both are mutilation. This seems true, as they both irreversibly alter the baby's body. However, it is possible to remove earrings, and the remaining ear is very similar to an unpierced ear (there may be a small pinprick still visible). Compare this to circumcision, which irreversibly alters a boy's penis - if a circumcised boy decides he doesn't want to be circumcised, tough, he cannot reverse it, whereas removing earrings will give the person an almost identical ear to an unpierced one. Moreover, when one considers that a man will use his penis for urinating, making love, and masturbating, but a girl will use her earlobes for absolutely nothing, this further shows why ear piercing is far, far less harmful and less invasive than circumcision is.

It requires consent

This is related to the above argument. The suggestion is that body modification is something which morally requires consent, and a child - much less a newborn baby - is unable to consent. Some people even suggest that any touching of the body requires consent. 

This latter claim is reasonable for adults and older children, but is absurd with regards to nonverbal babies and perhaps even all children under 10. Babies and young children need to bathed, dressed, and to have their toileting needs met, but I cannot obtain consent to change my new born baby's nappy - I just change it. The fact that she cannot talk does not seem to be an issue - few if any people claim that I am violating the bodily integrity of my new born by changing her nappy without first obtaining her consent.

Sometimes young children who can speak say they don't want to have a bath or to have their nappy changed, but their wishes should not universally be respected, or they'd be living in filth, which is not in their best interests. Sometimes children's lack of consent should be ignored for their greater good.

This argument works for nappy-changing, but not quite so much for ear piercing, unless we could show that a child's wellbeing would be severely limited as a result of failing to pierce her ears. In somewhere such as the UK, it seems evident that young girls with pierced ears have a childhood indistinct from young girls with unpierced ears. But elsewhere, things may be different.

Recall above that ear piercing is, in Spanish and Latino cultures, used as a shorthand for telling the sexes apart: girls have pierced ears, boys do not. This means that a girl with unpierced ears may be met with confusion or unkind comments, in the same way that a boy who wears dresses may be treated in the UK. This could mean that a girl with unpierced ears could be an easy target for bullies, and this would limit her wellbeing. This alone might be incentive enough to pierce a baby girl's ears.

I said above that traditions are only traditions as long as they keep being practiced, and that is true, but the first few people who break with a tradition may have to be remarkably thick-skinned. Children can be remarkably cruel, and the sphere of gender roles is somewhere that children can bully one another mercilessly. A child who doesn't conform to gender expectations can be an easy target.

A parent might think that baby ear piercing is a silly tradition and that it's unnecessary, but go through with it nonetheless to spare their daughter the burden of being different. If one lives in a Spanish or Latino culture, then failing to pierce a baby girl's ears may be setting her up for a difficult childhood.

Conclusion 

Piercing the ears of a baby girl is invasive and unnecessary. It will be painful to the baby, but she will probably forget about the pain soon after, and the piercings will heal cleanly if the ears are pierced when she is young. It is reasonably non-permanent, and girls who later decide not to wear earrings can remove them and almost no scar is left.

Generally, people should have autonomy over their own bodies, and consent should be obtained prior to invasive procedures or body modification. Ear piercing is a slightly intrusive and momentarily painful procedure, so requires consent (circumcision definitely requires consent). However, we often think it acceptable to give a baby a painful inoculation in spite of the pain or her lack of consent, because we believe it is medically necessary. 

Pierced ears are obviously not medically necessary, and since it is painful and a form of body modification, we can say that it is wrong. It is intrinsically wrong to unnecessarily modify someone's body without their consent, even if no harm ensues. But how wrong is it on the spectrum if wrongness? I believe it is at the end of the spectrum, right next to going to a birthday party without a present. Although I maintain that it is intrinsically wrong to pierce a baby girl's ears, it is only a tiny crumb of wrongness.

It is intrinsically wrong, but, I maintain, it may be instrumentally right, because although it isn't medically necessary, it may be culturally necessary. In the UK it is seen as trashy and oversexualised for a little girl to have pierced ears, so it is certainly not a cultural requirement here. But some places have girls' earrings so ingrained in their culture that having a little girl with unpierced ears is like putting a boy in a pink dress with a bow in his hair. It could be seen as cruel to treat a child in such a way, because it invites confusion and unkind comments from others. So in cultures where it is commonplace for all young girls have pierced ears, it might be best to safeguard girls from bullies by piercing their ears - and probably the best time to pierce them is in the first few months of life, when they heal cleanly.

Why sacredness is not a thing, and its OK to climb Ayers Rock

Plenty of things are described as sacred: buildings, natural sites, books, objects, maybe even people. I don't profess to be an expert on sacredness. In fact, I don't think anyone can be an expert on sacredness, because sacredness is not a thing. Nothing is sacred as a matter of fact. You might think that this book or that building is sacred, and that opinion will be shared by some but not others, but nothing is, as a matter of fact, sacred. This is because sacredness, like being valuable, beautiful, or delicious, is just an opinion, not a genuine property of something. This puts me squarely in the antirealist camp when it comes to sacredness, which fits with my atheism. We are clever apes who have progressed to the point where we make books, buildings, and artefacts, we hold ceremonies and make laws and pray to (non-existent) gods.

Of course, if you are religious then you will probably want to jump ship here, because you may not like what you're about to read.

Still with me? Ok then. So, take some inanimate objects like bricks, paper, fabric and wood. Bricks can be thrown in a pile, left in a builders merchants, built into a garden wall, or built into the shape of a church. If the bricks happen to be built into the shape of a church, the bricks do not suddenly become sacred in virtue of having been arranged into the shape of a church, do they? After all, I could (were my bricklaying skills good enough) arrange bricks into the shape of a church in my garden, and then use the structure for picnics, a place to keep my bins, or whatever; arranging bricks into the shape of a church wouldn't make them sacred. We'd agree that it wasn't a sacred place wouldn't we? I don't know, maybe some people would say the bricks had become sacred in virtue of being arranged into that shape?!

The same can be said about the other substances - paper can have all kinds of words and pictures printed on it - the terms and conditions from a contract, a story about Spiderman, or religious passages. To me, no piece of paper is any more sacred than any other simply because of the words that a printer printed on it. Burning 'sacred' or 'holy' texts in private, where no one will know (omniscient gods notwithstanding) seems morally unproblematic to me. In the same vein, wood can become a chair leg, or a cross; fabric can become a mini skirt or a headscarf.

Clearly, some people do believe that some items are sacred, so my simply denying that sacredness is a thing might seem odd.

But consider the following. Suppose we take an item which everyone agrees is not sacred. For example, a child's sock. Now let's suppose that one child believes the sock is sacred. Does that make it sacred? It seems not. But what if ten or twenty people believe it's a sacred sock? Once a group of people say an item is sacred, its sacredness seems to gather some weight. We might shake our heads and think that they are silly people, but still they'd believe the sock was sacred.

And if a whole ethnic group or religious group say the sock is sacred and they reinforce that through their actions - for example, they worship the sock or make offerings to it - then we would presumably have to shrug and say ok it's sacred to them. And maybe being sacred to someone is just the same as being sacred full stop?

How many of us have heard stories or experienced this ourselves - instances of people who've gone on holiday to strange and wonderful countries, and been doing something which they thought was totally reasonable, only to discover that the locals think the object or place is sacred and the tourist's actions are offensive or blasphemous. For example, taking a photo of a painting, or sitting on a rock, or talking in a building, or taking a selfie next to a statue, or touching a book, or standing under a tree. This list really could be extensive, because people the world over believe the most unexpected items are sacred. And that's ok, this is a free world where people can hold whatever beliefs they want.

But any such beliefs about sacredness need to be held by a threshold number of people in order to count as something that people should respect. If I believe that red chairs are sacred and I tell others not to sit on red chairs, but instead to take a quiet moment of contemplation when in the presence of a red chair, I am likely to be laughed out of town. But if I start a chair religion and gather a few hundred thousand people, my beliefs about the sacredness of red chairs might be a little more respected or tolerated.

But let's face it, red chairs are not sacred, and nor are socks. The sacredness is not an inherent feature of red chairs or socks, but simply something that onlookers may believe. "But it's just a chair" or "it's just a sock", people would insist, and they'd be right. Chairs and socks are not sacred, and nor are crosses and 'holy' texts. My believing a sock is sacred does not, as a matter of fact, make it sacred. It would make it precious to me, but not sacred, because the term sacred implies some godlike presence endorsing my belief in the sacredness of socks.

Should we respect sacredness?

Disclaimer: I like the ethical freedom to flit between deontological and consequential ethics. I do this as and when I please to suit my argument at the time. It's a free world.

In the case of supposed sacredness, I think consequentialism gives us the most sensible result. Suppose that a group of people think a particular piece of wood is sacred and should not be photographed, then it seems right that when in the presence of such people, I should not photograph the piece of wood. But when no one is around (and no CCTV or the like) then it doesn't matter one way or the other whether I take a photo of the piece of wood, just as it wouldn't matter if I photographed the red chair or the sock.

As I said above, people the world over hold the most ludicrous beliefs - that this rock should not be sat on, this building should not have menstruating women in it, this painting should not be photographed, or this mountain should not be climbed. Their belief that X does not make it the case that X.

Ayers Rock

Now, there are some objects or landmarks whose supposed sacredness is what makes them famous. For example, a statue of Christ, or Mecca, or the area where Moses parted the Red Sea. Without any beliefs in religion or sacredness, these places would be unremarkable and pretty unknown. Given that it is the area's supposed sacredness which makes it famous, it wouldn't seem right to travel to a place because it is said to be sacred, and then to disrespect its alleged sacredness in view of others.

But some landmarks would be remarkable even if no one knew that some people felt it was sacred - Ayers Rock is a prime example of this. The rock is remarkable because it's in an area of total flatness, and this natural monolith sprouts from the ground. (By the by, there are a couple of other similar monoliths in the area which are almost as impressive - Mount Conner and The Olgas). The rocks are remarkable and impressive in spite of any beliefs which locals may have about sacredness; visitors to the area would want to see these rocks whether or not they were said to be sacred. This seems to mark out Ayers Rock and its sisters as being interesting independently of supposed sacredness, and I suggest that this difference is crucial. I climbed Ayers Rock back in 2002. At the time, it was known that the locals did not want people to climb up it, because they felt it was a sacred rock. But I - and a couple of hundred other people - did climb it that day, and I imagine that similar numbers have continued to do so every day over the past 20 years. But it seems that tourism has finally bowed down and will soon stop people from ascending the rock, solely because some people have said it's sacred. It continues to draw attention due to this soon-to-be-enacted ban.

Even people who believe in God and believe that a church or a Qur'an or a turban is sacred might struggle to believe that a lump of rock can be sacred, so you can imagine how difficult it is for an atheist to accept that Ayers Rock is sacred. If some people said that Mount Everest or Lake Michigan or the English Channel were sacred, would that stop people from visiting them, walking on them or sailing on them? Of course it wouldn't. And not should it.

When I walked up Ayers Rock, I noticed that some areas had worn smooth with being walked on so much, and I suppose that smoothing has continued over the past 20 years. That is a contender for a sensible reason to prevent people from walking up it, in the same way that we don't traipse all over the Sphynx. It has nothing to do with sacredness, and everything to do with preserving incredible sites of interest. But how much damage has in fact been done to Ayers Rock? A millimetre here or there is nothing to write home about, and therefore we can easily see that the seemingly sensible reason is not really that sensible at all. Every day, people traipse up and down Ayers Rock, and even if it's a centimetre rather than a millimetre which has been lost, this is still not reason enough to stop people walking on it.

Ayers Rock is geologically incredible, Christ the Redeemer in Rio is impressive, and a religious text may tell a good story; they may be culturally important, financially valuable, and historically significant, but they are not sacred, because sacredness is merely an opinion which exists in the eye of the beholder. Ayers Rock is interesting and peculiar, but it is ultimately a lump of stone with no sacredness at all within its molecules.

Should we ban some Christmas songs?

Baby it's cold outside has met with some controversy recently, with some radio stations refusing to play it because it endorses pressuring women into sex, or even date rape. A couple of weeks ago, before I'd heard this news, I was musing to myself that perhaps the lyrics should be: "I really can't stay / OK fair enough, take care." And then the rest of the song could be an instrumental! I find Tom Jones a bit creepy, and the thought of him trying to convince a less than willing young lady to spend the night turns my stomach.

A man who just won't take no for an answer in real life might be a problem... But this is a song, not real life. Tom Jones' creepiness notwithstanding, it seems to me that really, the song needn't be interpreted as date rape, as some people have suggested. I would think that many of us in relationships have had conversations where one partner says they need to go somewhere, and the other tries to convince them to stay. So I'm not convinced that the song is endorsing anything untoward, and I don't think it needs to be banned.

But what of the other contenders for most offensive Christmas song? People have objected to Do they know it's Christmas and Fairytale of New York too.

Do they know its Christmas has been torn to shreds. It's been accused of treating Africa as one homogenous culture, and making factually inaccurate claims (no rivers flow - what about the Nile? There won't be snow in Africa - what about atop Kilimanjaro?) And it's been charged with being patronising (do they know its Christmas? Well yes they probably do, given how many Africans are Christians) and it is said to propagate the "white saviour" mentality. I discussed this issue in another post, in relation to the issue that misinformation and white saviour mentalities help to secure more donations for Comic Relief, and I argued that documentary footage for the programme ought to be honest even if fewer donations are received as a result. But a charity song seems a different kettle of fish, where factual accuracy seems less important. Or as Geldof so eloquently put it "It's a pop song, not a doctoral thesis. They [critics] can fuck off." So Do they know it's Christmas can stay off the naughty list, methinks.

Fairytale of New York is about two people who fall in love, then it all turns sour. With gambling, alcoholism, and epithets such as 'slut' and 'faggot', it doesn't seem the most likely contender for a favourite Christmas song - yet it is. Those words are offensive, but why should that make us ban a song? Bleep it if necessary. I must admit that when I heard my little boy singing "you scumbag, you maggot..." I did think oh no please don't say it. But he followed it up with "you piece of old junk" (which he obviously borrowed from the previous verse - and cleaned up the language too!)

But songs with dodgy lyrics aren't a specifically Christmassy problem. I had the same feeling when I heard him singing "for 24 years I've been living next door to Alice. Alice? Who..." But again, mercifully, his innocent little ears told him the lyrics which followed were "Alice? Who's the talking Alice?" So yes, Fairytale of New York does have some words in it we don't want our kids to learn, but it's still a great Christmas song (and one of my son's favourites), and deserves to be played. I heard a version by Ronan Keating which used the lyrics "you're cheap and you're haggard" instead of "you cheap lousy faggot", so that should hopefully satisfy critics.

"But Christmas is wholesome"

There are thousands of songs out there with offensive themes and explicit lyrics. It seems to me that rap songs are frequently about knife crime, drive-by shootings, nonconsensual sex, and that the "songs" are littered with words like bitch, ho, ni**er and of course the F word. But these songs are widely available and widely enjoyed. Compared to rap music, Fairytale of New York is like a nursery rhyme (not Baa baa black sheep though, that song is as offensive as black coffee and a blackboard.)

But maybe the objection to Fairytale but not to rap songs is grounded in the idea that Christmas songs ought to be more wholesome than non-Christmas songs?

Well...

I was born and raised in Macclesfield; a nondescript northern town whose only real claim to fame is the Macc Lads - a rock band whose songs have some... um... controversial lyrics. Most of their songs are about getting drunk, sex, chips and gravy, fighting, and bodily functions. To give you a flavour, here's an excerpt from the Macc Lads' song Fluffy Pup "I spent last night tryna chuck me bird / But she were clinging to me leg like a lovesick turd / I said "Your tits are too small and your legs are too short / I want a fit bird from Sunday Sport / I can't hear me records when you sit on me face" […] "You can cook / you can fuck / you can do the washing up / but I've had enough / go on, fuck off..."

You probably wouldn't expect a band like the Macc Lads to produce a Christmas song, but they did. When Feed the World was in the charts back in 1985, lead singer and lyricist Muttley Macc Lad didn't pass up the opportunity to offend, and wrote a little Christmas ditty called Feed your face. Here's an excerpt: "Watching Live Aid 'Sit up straight you scruffy ni**er' [...] Feeling peckish so I went down the chippy, bought some pies and pasties / didn't give any to the starving ni**ers so I'm a fucking Nazi / Feed your face, don't give them a second thought". Now that is an example of an offensive Christmas song which doesn't get much air time. Geldof quite rightly slammed it. But should the Macc Lads' song be banned? No, I think not. (If you find the N word as objectionable as I do, then it's worth reminding ourselves that rap uses this word with far greater frequency than the Macc Lads do - in fact, I think this may be their only use of the term.) It's just music, and - like rap - people should, generally speaking, be allowed to listen to what they please.

John Stuart Mill (I love Mill!) in On Liberty wrote that offence is not harm. There should be freedom of speech, and that involves the freedom to offend. As ever, Mill hits the nail on the head. You might be offended by Feed your face, Feed the world, or indeed Baa baa black sheep, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be allowed to exist.

Am I a hypocrite?

My last blog post was calling for books about child abuse to be banned, and now here I am supporting artistic freedom - am I being hypocritical? Well, I think not, and actually, last week's argument and this week's argument are very similar.

Last week:
X is similar to Y
X is banned (illegal)
Therefore Y should be banned (illegal)
(Where X was child porn, and Y was child abuse books)

This week:
X is similar to Y
X is not banned
Therefore Y should not be banned
(Where X is rap music, the Macc Lads etc, and Y is the Fairytale of New York etc)

All I'm calling for is consistency in what we ban or don't ban. If music is an area where we support artistic freedom to the extent that we allow music about drive-by shootings and fights, then a song about a man trying to get a woman to spend the night, or a song which uses the word "faggot" is small fry.

If someone were to turn my argument against me and call for consistency in my beliefs, they'd need to show that a book about child abuse has enough in common with a Christmas pop song that they ought to be treated the same. I think Socrates himself would struggle to show that.

Conclusion

Some well-loved Christmas songs have the odd word or sentiment which some might find at odds with 2018 political correctness, but if people enjoy listening to such songs, let them. It's Christmas after all, live and let live.

If you aren't in the PC brigade, then you might like this tongue in cheek list of offensive Christmas songs. Some amusing examples are "folks dressed up like Eskimos" = cultural appropriation;  "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake" = Santa is a peeping Tom. And how about "Children gays open-mouthed, taken by surprise" = supporting homosexual abuse of children.

Happy Christmas.

Driverless cars, the trolley problem, and tyranny of the majority

Today BBC News ran an article entitled Driverless cars: who should die in a crash? The news story has come about because researchers at MIT have conducted a study analysing more than 40 million responses to an online 'trolley problem'-style ethical survey.

The trolley problem is a classic philosophy problem (which, by chance, I taught today to a class of Year 5 pupils). The problem is this:

A train is hurtling along a track; and on the track ahead are five innocent people who will die if you do nothing. You can't stop the train (its brakes have failed) but you can pull a lever to switch it onto another track - where it will kill just one innocent person. Should you pull the lever or not?

My 'Trolley Problem' powerpoint for the Year 5 pupils.
Several of them said it would matter if some of the people were
criminals; no one said the people's skin colour or gender mattered.

Most people (and indeed the pupils I taught today) say that one should pull the lever based on purely utilitarian grounds - this can be phrased in the words of Spock from Star Trek: "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". In other words, although it's bad for one person to die, it's even worse for five people to die, so pull the lever and kill one.

It's OK for us to hypothesise about what we'd do in this very unlikely scenario, because it's just a thought experiment: it's not real. But driverless cars are forcing us to reconsider this problem not as a hypothetical possibility, but as a very real possibility. If a driverless car is in a no-win situation where its brakes have failed and someone will die, who should it be? The passengers, the toddler on the zebra crossing, or the old ladies on the pavement?

Well, the people at MIT designed a survey / experiment ("The Moral Machine") to find out people's responses to these very sorts of questions. So far so good you might think, but here comes the troubling part: BBC News quotes the MIT people as saying:

"Before we allow our cars to make ethical decisions, we need to have a global conversation to express our preferences to the companies that will design moral algorithms, and to the policymakers that will regulate them."

Now although this falls short of their suggesting that we use the results of the survey to inform the moral programming of driverless cars, it certainly seems to be in that ballpark. But this, I maintain, is a dangerous and morally troubling step towards eugenics-by-driverless-car. Why? Because in the Moral Machine survey, people's choices about who should die and who should be saved are based on judgments about factors such as age, gender, class, weight, and how law-abiding the person is.

Screenshot from the Moral Machine survey

An optional section of the survey involves moving sliders according to how important you think that particular factor is. For example, you can say that saving higher class over lower class is really important, and saving the young over the old is fairly important. One factor which didn't feature in the survey was race/ethnicity/religion. The people at MIT probably thought it was just too controversial to see whether people would save a black man rather than a white man, or a Muslim woman rather than a Christian woman - but these are probably factors which would yield interesting and distasteful results --but no less interesting and no more distasteful than the actual results of the survey, which show that people choose to save:

• Women more than men
• The young more than the old
• Fit people more than fat people
• Middle class more than lower class

So why am I troubled by this? Well, driverless cars are on their way, whether we like it or not. And they will be faced with genuine moral decisions, whether we like it or not. And they will need some moral guidance or 'rules' to follow in order to make those split-second decisions about whether the fat young person or the thin old person should die. Yes, a moral system programmed into the cars will be absolutely essential - however....

Basing the moral system of a driverless car on the results of a survey - however large - is a huge issue. Even if we ignore the fact that there is no barrier to the same person taking the survey more than once (I took it twice) and even if we ignore the fact that details of the pictures in the survey aren't immediately clear (in my first time around, I didn't notice that some people were crossing the road on the red man, nor that some of the stick men were supposed to represent homeless people) there is still a massive problem in the form of the tyranny of the majority. 

John Stuart Mill (I love that guy!) in On Liberty wrote that we must take steps to guard against the tyranny of the majority - this is when a large group of people get their way simply because they are greater in number than a small group of people. Now if you ask me, the majority getting their way is unproblematic if we've taken a vote about whether we should have chocolate ice cream or strawberry ice cream - or about whether we should visit a castle or the beach tomorrow... but the majority verdict really does become tyrannical when the issues at stake are the welfare, lives and rights of people. And these are the very things that are at stake with these driverless cars trolley-problem-style dilemmas. The results of the Moral Machine survey show that the majority prioritise the young over the old, and the rich over the poor - and suppose a similar survey also shows the majority prioritise able-bodied people over disabled people, and white people over brown people. This alone is disturbing enough, but if we then proceed to program the moral system of the majority into driverless cars, and set them free on our public highways - well, it's the tyranny of the majority at its most foul, and a recipe for eugenics by carcrash.

We simply cannot allow the vulgar prejudices of the majority to inform the moral systems of driverless cars. Driverless cars need a way to determine which action to take, of course, but this should be based on non-prejudicial factors such as the likelihood of surviving the crash, the number of people, and the location of the impact: the age, gender, class (etc.) of people should not - ever - be a factor in decision-making about who lives and who dies.

The value in atheists learning about the Bible

This morning, my son refused to go to school. Why? Because yesterday, his teacher had told the class the story about Jesus feeding the 5000 with only two fish and five loaves of bread, and it angered my son.

I am an atheist, and like most parents, I have shared my belief system with my offspring, and now he believes what I believe (ie there is no God). So this morning when he was flat out refusing to go to school (which is very unlike him) I tried to offer an explanation of (a) why I think the story was written in the Bible, and (b) why it might be useful sometimes to learn about things we don't believe in.

Man trying to catch lunch for him and his 4,999 friends

My son is only in Key Stage 1 of primary school, so my discussion with him was fairly basic. First I got him to consider how big a fish is. "Any size" was his very reasonable answer - for example, feeding 5000 people with two whale-sharks (the world's largest fish) is quite plausible, and to the best of my knowledge, the Bible does not describe what type of fish was shared out. Then I suggested to my son that a story can alter a little bit with each person who tells it: A describes Jesus as feeding a small group with two large fish; B describes Jesus feeding a group with two fish; C describes Jesus feeding a large group with two small fish; D describes Jesus feeding an enormous crowd with two tiny fish - etc.

So I'd explained why the story was in the Bible when it wasn't (as far as I'm concerned) true, but still my son said he didn't think there was any point in learning something that isn't real or true. I gave him simplified versions of the arguments I offer below. I'm not sure he was entirely convinced, and I'm not sure I'm really convinced there is value in knowing lots of stories from a religion one doesn't believe in. I know that as a parent I have the choice of whether to withdraw him from religious education, but I am reluctant to do so, and I said that it is sometimes worthwhile learning things even if we don't believe them.

The arguments I make below are:
(a) It's interesting to learn stories even if we don't believe them
(b) It's useful to know the sorts of things other people believe

It's interesting

Part of our job as parents is to point out
what's real and what's not real.

I don't believe in fairies, pixies, unicorns, gods, or dragons, but sometimes it is interesting to know stories about these things. Stories about magic and impossible events can be exciting and marvellous. Reading about fictional beings, people and events can make for a great story. In fact, just about all of the best stories known to man are fictional, so fiction is obviously great.

God can seemingly do the impossible in the Bible, so that makes for a fun story. The Red Sea parting, turning water into wine, immaculate conceptions, man coming back from the dead, and indeed feeding 5000 people with two fish - these are fantastical stories which it can be fun to learn about.

That's what I told my son anyway.

But for my own part, I hated learning about religion in school: by age 7 or 8, I began to feel irritated and cheated when a story was presented to us as if it were fact, when I was pretty sure that it wasn't. For example, I recall being told several of Aesop's fables in this way, and I was particularly annoyed when we were told the story about How the Tiger got his Stripes. The teacher read it to us in assembly and prefixed it by saying it was a true story: upon hearing the title and that it was a true story, I remember being eager to find out why tigers have stripes, because I didn't know. And then when he told us the story - that the big cat had been tied to a tree and the ropes set on fire, and the black lines are where the ropes burnt into its fur - I felt cheated. He'd said it was true, but I knew it couldn't have been, because I realised that one tiger being burnt wouldn't make all tigers have stripes. And whenever we were told a religious story, I felt exactly the same: the teachers said it was fact, but I felt sure that it wasn't. (I went to a Church of England primary school, so there was plenty of religiosity each week - and my parents sent me to Sunday School for a couple of years, which was torturously dull.)

So I had sympathy for my son being annoyed at being told that Jesus had fed 5000 people with two fish and five loaves of bread, and he was insisting to me: "It's not possible to do that, so why did they say it was?" I felt for him, but I said that sometimes it's fun to learn a new story even when we know it's not real. I'm not sure whether I convinced him, but I didn't convince myself.

The difference between learning a Bible story and a story about dragons is that teachers don't suggest that the dragon stories are real. As a parent, I think that kids learning Bible stories is OK when it's prefixed by "There's a story which says that..." or even "Some people believe that..."  I think I would have been OK with that as a child, and I think my son would have been OK with hearing the Bible story had it been prefixed in such a way. My son - like me as a kid - is quite happy to hear stories about talking animals, goblins, wizards etc. so fiction isn't the problem; the problem comes when a story is presented as fact when it is entirely at odds with what seems plausible. So by all means tell kids the Bible stories, but suggesting that they are factual isn't reasonable.

It's useful

Now I argue that it's useful to know about religions that we don't believe in for three reasons:

1. To be sensitive to others' beliefs and live in harmony with those around us
2. For the sake of general knowledge
3. To help reinforce our own beliefs and know what we're arguing against

Firstly, we live in a diverse society in terms of religious beliefs: the 2011 census found that 59% of people in the UK identify as Christian, and 25% identify as no religion. We also have plenty of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and other religions, and in the spirit of living in harmony with others around us, it's useful to know some things about different religions. For example, it's useful to know that Muslims may fast during Ramadan (and when Ramadan falls in a given year), in order to be sensitive towards anyone who is fasting. Similarly, it's useful to know that Christians might give up something for Lent, or they might want a day of peace or prayer on Easter Sunday. Although I must note that it seems to me that far more than a quarter of UK residents (the atheist population) 'celebrate' Easter by purchasing chocolate eggs, and so perhaps some people who identify as Christian are less concerned about Jesus rising from the grave than they are about chocolate eggs rising in price. Nonetheless, it seems useful to know a thing or two about the religions of those around us, particularly in the case of people who actually practise their religion. Knowing about others' religions enables us to be respectful even if we disagree with their beliefs.

Secondly, in terms of general knowledge, it is useful to know different facts about religion in the same way that it's useful to know geography, history, literature, languages, artworks and so on. If one goes around thinking that Muslims routinely wear turbans or that Hindu women wear the hijab, one is ill-informed. Aside from being little use in a pub quiz, this kind of ignorance can fuel hatred and bigotry. I seem to recall that after the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001 by Muslim terrorists, there was a spate of violence against Sikhs! So we owe it to ourselves, if not others, to have some knowledge of different religious views.

Thirdly, as John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, "He who knows only his side of the argument knows little of that" (ref: Chapter II, paragraph beginning 'If the intellect and judgment of mankind...') Mill is one of my all-time favourite philosophical authors, and I think he's spot on with many of the things he writes, and his stance on knowing both sides of argument is no exception. If we atheists wish to enter into a debate with theists, it helps to know what their beliefs actually are. In knowing them, we can strengthen our own arguments and reaffirm our own (lack of) faith. To be misinformed about a theory is not a reason to disbelieve it: we should find out about the theories that exist (whatever they are) and then we can make an informed choice about what we believe, and construct arguments to show why our beliefs are more plausible than others'.

Source: The Atheist Dose

A fourth possible usefulness of hearing Bible stories is one which Christians might suggest, but that I do not subscribe to: "it's useful for non-Christian children to hear Bible stories so that they can hear 'the truth' and then change their views accordingly and convert to Christianity". I think it's definitely useful for children (and adults) to hear a range of viewpoints, but whenever one shuns fact in favour of fantasy, nothing worthwhile has been achieved. But then, I suppose a Christian might make the same argument about someone abandoning Christianity in favour of atheism!

Conclusion 

So should my son have to sit through Bible stories? Well, I think that when told sparingly and prefixed by "Some people believe that..." then there is a definite benefit for him to hear such stories. When the Bible stories are presented as if they were facts, I can understand why he finds it irritating, as I myself did at the same age. No child should be told that unverified (and unverifiable) theories are facts.

In case you're wondering, I spoke to my son's teacher this morning and asked whether they'd be learning more about Jesus today and she said no, yesterday's story was just a one-off - so my son was happy to attend school today! I'm just glad I didn't send him to the Catholic school not far from our house!