Devin Johnston

Robson Hall Proposes Tuition Fee Hike

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:15:09 +0000

In June, I will be graduating from the Robson Hall Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba. Luckily for me, this means that I will avoid paying the increased tuition fees currently being proposed by the faculty and the university administration. Below, I have reproduced a memorandum I sent to the Dean of the Faculty of Law and the President of the University outlining my concerns about the proposed tuition hike and the inadequate student consultation process.

In summary, I am recommending that the faculty and administration:

provide students with a budget regarding how they propose to spend the revenues from increased tuition fees;
convene an inclusive consultation process with all stakeholders including a free and fair student referendum;
clearly outline how the proposed tuition fee increases will affect part-time and international law students;
implement a per credit hour fee structure consistent with other faculties; and,
place a moratorium on tuition fee increases for the 2010-2011 academic year until proper student consultations can be held.

Memorandum Regarding Tuition Fee Proposal

Fraser Institute Releases Misleading Report on Taxes

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:17:20 +0000

Yesterday, the ideologically far right Fraser Institute released a deeply misleading report on Canadian taxes. According to the conservative think thank, the tax bill for the average Canadian family has increased by 1624% since 1961. There's only one problem with that claim: it isn't true.

First of all, the Fraser Institute's numbers do not account for inflation. According to the Bank of Canada inflation calculator, the price of a basket of goods increased by 624.84% between 1961 and 2009. Using the Fraser Institute's own numbers, this means that we should expect, all else being equal, that the tax bill of the average Canadian family would increase from $1,675 in 1961 to $12,141.08 in 2009. In fact, according to the Fraser Institute, the average Canadian family paid $28,878 in total taxes in 2009. In inflation-adjusted terms, this represents an increase of 237.85% (or, about 5% per year). When accounting for inflation, the Fraser Institute's figure of 1624% is off by about a factor of seven.

Nevertheless, a 237.85% increase in Canadians' real, inflation-adjusted tax bills is still a shocking increase, right? Well, not really. Once again, according to the Fraser Institute's own numbers, the average Canadian family's income roe by 1383.5% between 1961 and 2009. If Canadian families paid the same proportion of their income as taxes in 2009 as they did in 1961, we should expect the average tax bill to be $23,173.63 in 2009. In fact, according to the Fraser Institute, it was $28,878. This means that the actual average tax bill in 2009 was about 24.6% higher than expected. This is still an increase, but not nearly as shocking as the 1624% figure bandied about by the Fraser Institute. This figure is also consistent with the Fraser Institute's finding that tax liabilities rose as a proportion of total income from 33.5% in 1961 to 41.7% in 2009.

It gets even better, though. The Fraser Institute's calculation of the average family's total tax liability includes a significant number of taxes that Canadian families don't actually pay. For example, it includes corporate taxes on the assumption that the costs of corporate income taxes get passed along to consumers. Thus, the authors purportedly include these "indirect" taxes by examining the spending patterns of the average Canadian family and then figuring out what proportion of those expenses are essentially just covering the vendor's, manufacturer's, and other corporations' income taxes. This is wrong for two reasons. First, it is unrealistic to assert that corporate taxes get passed directly on to consumers at a rate of 100%. If this were true, the massive cuts in corporate taxes over the past decade or so should have resulted in a precisely measurable decrease in consumer prices. They didn't. Second, the report makes sweeping conclusions about the average Canadian family's "tax bill" while explicitly including in that figure an enormous amount of money that is not literally part of the "tax bill". A taxpayer's "tax bill", as most people would interpret that expression, means the total amount of taxes paid directly by a taxpayer to the government. If the Fraser Institute wants to make observations about the overall impact of tax policy on consumers, that's fine. But you can't measure one thing and then call it something else. That's just dishonest.

Even if we overlook all of the issues already identified, the significance of the Fraser Institute's findings is mitigated when you examine the composition of the average Canadian family's "tax bill" in 2009. According to the Fraser Institute's own numbers, at least 33% of the average Canadian family's "tax bill" was in the form of sales taxes, excise taxes, the "indirect" corporate taxes referred to above, and other taxes on consumption choices. This is significant because the Fraser Institute seems to be suggesting that the increase in the average Canadian family's "tax bill" represents an increase in taxation levels. However, the net tax liability on consumption choices will increase as consumption increases, even if the rate of taxes remains constant. In this sense, a significant part of the increase in the average Canadian family's increased "tax bill" is attributable to the fact that we consumed more in 2009 than we did in 1961. The fact that people have larger incomes now than in the 1960's can hardly be held out as a strike against government tax policy.

With all of the above in mind, I must point out the most glaringly obvious flaw in the Fraser Institute's analysis. The report refers constantly to the "tax bill" of the average Canadian family. This is odd because every Canadian family paid exactly $0 in taxes in 2009. In Canada, we don't impose taxes on families, we impose them on people and corporate entities. This turns out to be a significant oversight on the part of the Fraser Institute which drastically affects its analysis. It turns out that in 1961, most women were not part of the paid workforce. Although women have still not achieved substantive equality with men, both the employment rate and relative wages of women have drastically increased since 1961. As a result, more women are paying income taxes, which constitute a large proportion of the average Canadian family's "tax bill". Moreover, the increasing prevalence of dual-income families has resulted in higher total family income with correspondingly high consumption patterns. This means that most families are consuming more and, hence, paying more sales taxes, excise taxes, import duties, and other tax liabilities that correlate with consumption.

Given the Fraser Institute's failure to address any of these issues or to couch the significance of their findings accordingly, I have to conclude that the report's authors are being intellectual dishonest when they claim that "the average Canadian family’s total tax bill, including all types of taxes, has increased by 1,624 percent since 1961". Not only is this figure grossly inflated (as in, literally, accounted for by inflation), it is misleading insofar as it includes a) taxes that people don't actually pay; b) taxes that people paid more of in 2009 because they had more money to spend; and c) taxes that women paid more of in 2009 because they were more likely to have paid jobs. Far from representing a fair measure of the "tax bill" of the average Canadian family, the Fraser Institute's "Consumer Tax Index" is effectively a chronicle of Canada's economic growth between 1961 and 2009.

Sex, drugs, and HIV: Let's Get Rational

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:00:20 +0000

In this fantastic talk, HIV expert Elizabeth Pisani makes the case for sensible public policy to combat the epidemic of HIV/AIDS.

Exams

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:40:17 +0000

Due to cramming for my final law school exams, I probably won't post much over the next week or so. I will, however, be posting a few things thereafter, including the promised follow-up to my post on ethics and evolutionary psychology and a fairly lengthy diatribe on public subsidies to the pork and beef industries. 'Til then...

Department of National Defence Spending

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:31:21 +0000

Many Canadians believe that our military is starved for federal funding. However, a quick glance at the raw data suggests otherwise. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Canada's military spending ranks 13th in the world, slightly ahead of both Australia and Spain (the latter of which has a population 50% greater than Canada's). The only nation ranked ahead of us with a smaller population is Saudi Arabia; all other countries which outspend us have a much larger population base. As the data below demonstrate, the expenditures of the Department of National Defence have increased in real, inflation-adjusted terms every year since the 2002-2003 fiscal year. Despite funding cuts in the mid-1990's, Canada defence budget has increased in real terms compared to the 1993-1994 fiscal year.

Department of National Defence Canada expenditures
Fiscal Year	Actual Spending (in billions of $, non-adjusted)	Actual Spending (in billions of $, indexed to CPI)
1993-1994	12.000	16.267
1994-1995	11.774	15.937
1995-1996	11.374	15.112
1996-1997	10.573	13.873
1997-1998	10.187	13.070
1998-1999	10.257	13.029
1999-2000	11.522	14.540
2000-2001	11.470	14.091
2001-2002	12.244	14.621
2002-2003	12.415	14.615
2003-2004	13.711	15.418
2004-2005	13.900	15.525
2005-2006	14.682	16.058
2006-2007	15.911	17.031
2007-2008	18.619	19.531
2008-2009	19.816	20.416
2009-2010	21.701	22.044

The chart below shows actual Department of National Defence spending since the fiscal year ending 1999 to present, compared to 1999 spending-levels indexed to inflation.

A Scientific Basis for Morality? Part 1 of 2

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:57:54 +0000

Following up on my post earlier this week in which I argued that it is possible to be moral without being a theist, I want to go a step further today and engage the question of what might constitute an objective non-theistic basis for human morality. As a reminder, I am writing these posts in support of the "A" Week on Facebook campaign which seeks to demonstrate that there are an large and growing number of people who don't happen to belive in god, but are nevertheless decent, moral, and trustworthy.

This particular post is the first in a two-post series which I am writing, in part, as a response to Sam Harris' recent talk at TED in which he posited that science can provide an objective foundation for moral judgments. Before we can evaluate this claim, we need to be clear about what he is claiming. In ethical philosophy, we often make a distinction between descriptive ethics and normative ethics. Descriptive ethicists attempt to explain or account for what actually goes on in the mind of a person when making a moral decision (Jonathan Haidt has done some extremely interesting empirical research in this discipline). By contrast, normative ethicists attempt to develop and explain moral frameworks and to provide reasons why people ought to follow those frameworks.

The proposition that science (particularly psychology) can or could explain how human beings as a matter of fact make moral decisions is trivial and uninteresting: obviously there is some sort of psychological phenomenon going on which accounts for why we make the decisions that we do. Further, it is reasonable to suggest that the psychological phenomenon of moral decision-making is a result of or related to our evolutionary heritage.

The argument that Harris is trying to make goes much further, as he explained in a recent blog post. Harris' thesis is that science can (or at least could in principle) provide us with an objective basis for normative ethics. As Harris clarified on his blog "I was suggesting that science can, in principle, help us understand what we should do and should want - and, perforce, what other people should do and want in order to live the best lives possible."

This claim is non-trivial and immensely interesting, although I won't get around to addressing it directly until the second post in this series. Today, I want to explore a particular set of ideas in what can broadly be described as descriptive ethics. Tomorrow, I will explore the normative question. Specifically, I will argue today that a sophisticated evolutionay psychology could, in principle, explain significant portions of the questions of how and why human beings as a matter of fact make moral decisions.

Evolutionary Psychology and Moral Instinct

Before proceeding to my arguement, I must acknowledge some of the trenchant criticisms which have been leveled against evolutionary psychology as a field of study. While it is clear that evolution informs the behavioural characteristics of all species, many academic and non-academic attempts to apply evolutionary analyses to complex human behiours have attracted a great deal of controversy. Noam Chomsky has observed, for example, that plausible post-hoc evolutionary explanations can be thought of to explain seemingly contradictory aspects of complex human psychology (for example, cooperation and aggression). Moreover, particular theories in evolutionary psychology have been rightly criticized as being ethnocentric and/or giving an evolutionary gloss to certain stereotypes about gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or other traits.

These criticisms all target the tendancy of some evolutionary psychologists to posit too close of a relationship between genes and very specific and complex human behaviours. Any proposition that there is a particular gene or set of genes that can account for highly specific behavioural characteristics (such as religious faith) is almost certainly false and to the extent that evolutionary psychologists posit such theories, they ought to be criticized for overstating the significance of their findings.

There are at least three places where evolutionary psychologists are at significant risk of making false assumptions. First, most evolutionary analyses of human behaviour begin with assumptions (often false, stereotypical assumptions) about how humans behave and then work backward toward an evolutionary account of that behaviour. These assumptions are sometimes made with little or no empirical support. Second, even if there is empirical evidence for the behaviour which the evolutionary psychologist seeks to explain, it is often difficult to disaggregate the causes of that behaviour. Thus, the evolutionary psychologist risks overstating the explanatory force of genetics in relation to the particular behaviour and understating the roles played by individual experiences, social context, and other non-genetic factors. Finally, evolutionary psychological theories (like all evolutionary thoeries) run the risk of basing their analysis on assumptions about the conditions in which the proposed evolutionary change ocurred. In some cases, assumptions about the conditions in which Homo sapiens evolved will be overly simplistic due to a lack of direct evidence about the environmental and social conditions in which our closest evolutionary ancestors lived. However, while evolutionary psychologists should be on guard against these pitfalls, the failure of some to do so does not disconfirm the hypothesis that a portion of our psychology is built on top of an evolutionary foundation.

A more nuanced view of evolutionary psychology is that we do, as a matter of fact, have certain kinds of instinctive reactions to environmental stimuli, even if these reactions are not perspicuously articulated in the mind. For example, we have strong instincts to care for and protect small infants, especially our own. Similarly, when confronted with a new and novel object about which we have no knowledge, we have an remarkable and instinctive ability to determine whether that object is edible and, if so, a desire to eat it. Without doubt, these features of our psychology and behaviour are strongly related to our evolutionary heritage and with their close relationship to basic survival and gene propagation strategies (though, of course, they are also informed by cultural phenomena and experiential learning).

While there is no question that these instinctive reactions inform our psychology, it is equally clear that they can only account for a portion of what goes on in the mind. This is because there is also an elaborate framework of beliefs, values, and emotions built on top of the instinctive core. Our faculty of reason and our capacity for experiential learning allow us to develop elaborate and sophisticated mental constructs which are responsive to the particular circumstances and contexts of each individual. In addition, we have constructed complex social institutions (which were not present in the environment in which our minds evolved) which act as hyperstimuli that affect how we think and how we make decisions. Religions, codes of law, education, and innumerable other social factors get added into the psychological mix and affect us in ways that are complex, non-linear, and sometimes extremely difficult to identify and make perspicuous.

If indeed genetically-determined instinctive responses to stimuli are what underpin our moral decision-making, it is interesting to wonder whether or not all of our instincts end up informing our moral judgments (or just some of them). For example, our instinctive desire to seek out water seems like it might be less relevant to sophisticated moral decision-making than, say, our instinctive desire to protect children. On this point, Sam Harris at least intimates that there is a distinction between moral and amoral psychological content and that this distinction is importantly to do with our thoughts, feelings, and intutions in relation to other conscious beings. While this seems like a reasonable proposal, I don't think that we are yet in a position to determine whether it is true. While certainly not all of our psychology is moral psychology, it is unclear whether the moral/amoral distinction arises at the level of instinct or whether that distinction is only relevant within the superstructure which is built on top of the instinctive foundation. There will need to be empirical research on this point, though my inclination is to think that there is no specialized set of "moral" instincts as distinct from other instincts. Rather, I am inclined to believe that the moral/amoral distinction arises later in the game and that moral decision-making is at least in part informed by all of our evolutionary instincts. As I've said though, this is an empirical question best explored by experimentalists with greater expertise in psychology than me. Throughout the rest of this series of posts, I will use the expression "moral instincts" to refer to the set of instincts which inform moral decision-making. Whether or not this subset is coexensive will all human instincts will not affect the issues at hand.

To postulate that all humans share at least some moral instincts determined by our common evolutionary heritage is not to claim that all people share the same moral values or precets. On the contrary, evolution requires variability within species. In any event, the specifics of individual moral decision-making are also strongly informed by hyperstimuli, experiential learning, and socially-constructed human institutions. So, there will be both variability in terms of the moral instincts each individual has essentially from birth and also variability in terms of the effects that personal experiences and social context will have on those underlying instincts.

Regarding the first sort of variability (that is, variability in terms of "inherent" moral instincts), it is important to note that variability within a species is not fully random. Consider trout as an example. Some trout can survive in warmer water than others. Some can survive in colder water than others. Some can survive in a wide range of temperatures, while others can only survive in a narow band of temperatures. But there is a band of water temperatures in which all (or nearly all) trout can survive; the fact that all members of a species share certain characteristics in common, notwithstanding the weighted vairability between individuals, is what makes it a species as distinct from other groupings of individuals. Any individual which departed radically from this norm would be considered a statistical aberration and would, in any event, be unlikely to survive long enough to reproduce. By analogy, it is meaningful to speak of a core of moral instincts shared by all (or nearly all) human beings while also recognizing that there is an enormous range of variability in the particulars of individual moral decision-making.

It may be useful to think of human height as an analogy to human evolutionary moral psychology. Clearly, there is a huge range of variability in height between individuals. But despite this variability, no one would seriously suggest that genetics do not substantially determine a person's height. Moreover, we can state that there is a certain range of heights within which all or nearly all human beings fall as a result of our shared evolutionary heritage. We also would not suggest that height is determined exclusively by genetics. Indeed, height can be influenced by a myriad of environmental factors (most notably, nutritional intake during youth).

Evolutionary moral psychology posits that a similar mechanism is at work when it comes to human psychology, in general, and moral decision-making, in particular. The idea is that our moral decision-making is, at some level, rooted in certain kinds of instinctive reactions to environmental stimuli. However, genes do not fully account for the specifics of individual decision-making. Rather, environmental factors (including social contexts and individual experiences) shape and mould our moral instincts into an individualized moral psychology. That there is massive variability in actual moral decision-making between individuals does not in any way negate the fundamental premise. On the contrary, it is an essential prediction of evolutionary moral psychology.

Having said all of this, we must remain vigilant against the temptation to over-state the sophistication of contemporary evolutionary psychology. As I pointed out earlier, numerous theories in evolutionary psychology have failed by positing too close of a link between genes and highly specific human behaviours. We must recognize the limitations of our current understanding. Evolutionary psychology is a discipline still very much in its infancy and most current theories within this domain should be treated as provisional and tentative. However, I believe we know enough to state with confidence that a sophisticated form of evolutionary psychology could, in principle, give us a fairly thorough account of the etiology of human ethics.

In the second post in this series, I will engage the normative question. In other words, I will explore the issue of whether or not evolutionary moral psychology can be used not only to explain how we in fact make moral decisions, but also how we ought to make moral decisions.

Canada Should Have a Separation of Church and State

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:55:34 +0000

This week, I am writing a series of posts on the general themes of religion, morality, and politics. In today's post, I will argue that Canada should adopt a constitutional separation of church and state. First, I will elaborate a bit on what the separation of church and state means. Second, I will explain why the Constitution of Canada does not include the separation of church and state. Finally, I will briefly outline my reasons for supporting a constitutional amendment which would establish it. As a reminder, I am writing religion-themed posts this week in support of the "A" Week on Facebook campaign.

Dual Nature of the Separation of Church and State

The separation of church and state is the doctrine that the governmental and political institutions of a state should be kept separate and independent from religious institutions. It can be seen as consisting of two central components: freedom of religion and secular government (or, the lack of an intertwining of state and religious institutions). This dual aspect of the separation doctrine is well-expressed in the first amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The disjunctive sentence structure implies two distinct principles: first, that there shall be no state-established religion; second, there shall be freedom of religion.

Freedom of religion alone is an insufficient condition for the separation of church and state. There must also be what Thomas Jefferson described as "a wall of separation between church and state" meaning that the structure, finances, and legal status of religious institutions must be wholly seperate from those of government institutions.

The separation of church and state must also be distinguished from the principle of religious equality. James Madison, who wrote the first amendment, argued that all forms of state support for religious institutions are wrong, regardless of whether that support was selective ("discriminatory") or general ("nondiscriminatory"). He believed that even if the state were even-handed in dispensing governmental benefits to the various religions, it would still be wrong of the government to compel citizens, as taxpayers, to finance religious institutions. Conversely, he felt there would always be a latent possibility that state-established religions could exert a pernicious and anti-democratic effect on the public policy-making of the state.

As we examine the constitution of Canada, we should bear in mind the dual nature of the separation of church and state.

Canada's Official State Religion and Support for Religious Institutions

According to section 2(a) the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canadians enjoy the fundamental freedom of conscience and religion. Moreover, section 15 of the Charter ostensibly guaratees that laws should be applied equally to all, regardless of religion. However, as I stated above, freedom of religion is only one side of the coin when it comes to the separation of church and state - there must also be structural and financial independence between politcal/governmental institutions and religious institutions. It is also worth noting that the Charter does trump other parts of the constitution. As we will see, this means that the Charter does not and cannot nullify constitutional provisions which explicitly disregard religious freedom and equality of the law.

The preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly known as the British North America Act) expresses the idea that the Dominion of Canada shall have "a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom". Constitutional jurisprudence confirms that the effect of this section is to import the principles of the United Kingdom's constitution (as it was in 1867) into Canada's constitutional framework. This includes both written constitional instruments and unwritten constitutional conventions. This turns out to be extremely significant to the discussion of separation of church and state in Canada.

In 1867 (and still to this day), the United Kingdom had an official state religion: the Church of England. Formed in the 16th century when King Henry VIII was denied an annulment of his marriage by Pope Clement VII, the Church of England is constitutionally entrenched as the official state religion of the United Kingdom. The King or Queen holds the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith; the monarch sits as both head of state and head of the official state religion. As a result of the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867, Canada inherited the Church of England as a state-established church and official religion. Just as in the case of the United Kingdom, our head of state is also the head of our official state religion. Because the Charter does not take precedence over other parts of the constitutional, the provisions regarding freedom of religion and equality do not affect the Church of England's status as an official state religion in Canada.

As if this weren't bad enough, Canada's constitution also requires the government to directly fund religious institutions through tax revenue. For example, section 93(2) of the Constitution Act, 1867 establishes the right to separate, publicly-fundeed Catholic schools in both Ontario and Québec. This is why Catholic education continues to be 100% taxpayer funded in both provinces to this day. The combination of this constitutional provision and the Charter is that the government is both required to fund Catholic education and (arguably) prohibited from funding any other form of religious education. In this sense, religious discrimination is required by the Canadian constitution.

In both cases (our state-established religion and financial interdependence with the Catholic church), Canada fails to meet to meet one of the required conditions of a constitutional separation of chuch and state. The apparatus and finances of the state are intermingled with those of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. Both of these things would be manifestly unconstitutional in a country such as the United States which, on this particular issue, is centuries more enlightened than Canada.

Time for Canada to Adopt a Constitutional Separation of Church and State

It is time for Canada to step into the 18th century and adopt a constitutional separation of church and state. The status quo is untenable: non-Catholics are required as taxpayers to subsidize Catholic religious institutions and to pay for the Catholic church to promulgate its teachings. While I take no particular issue with the existence of Catholic schools, I find it unconscionable and an affront to human equality that such school should be paid for by taxpayers in a liberal democracy.

Because the status of the Church of England and the mandatory funding of Catholic schools are entrenched in the constitution of Canada, these things can only be altered by way of a constitutional amendment. I would propose an amendment striking out s. 93(2) of the Constitution Act, 1867 (and a couple other offending provisions), adding a clause to the Charter prohibiting the establishment of a state religion, and an additional section explicitly revoking the constitutional status of the Church of England in Canada. This would result in either the privatization of Catholic schools in Ontario and Québec or their amalgamation into the secular public school system.

Why a Corporate Tax Cut Freeze is Not a Bad Idea

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 02:34:59 +0000

I calculated the above figures very quickly, so I apologize if I miscalculated anything.

Being Moral without Religion or God

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 06:06:50 +0000

Those who know me on Facebook may have noticed that I changed my profile picture this morning. I am participating in "'A' Week on Facebook", a campaign to raise consciousness about living a moral life without god. The object is not to offend or to challenge the beliefs of the religious - I respect other people's religious beliefs and I have no particular desire to change them. Instead, the campaign is a response to those who claim that it is impossible to live a moral life without religion.

The suggestion that religion is necessary for morality is both absurd and deeply insulting. According to Judeo-Christian teachings, morality comes to us from god as revealed through such mechanisms as the ten commandments. Yet, as Christopher Hitchens points out, it is unrealistic to think that the Israelites would have made it to the foot of Mount Sinai believing that murder and theft were permissible as they would have destroyed themselves before getting there. In other words, the Israelites had some sense of morality even before the commandments were revealed. The point is, even according to most religious texts, human beings have an innate moral sense that pre-dates the dictates of any religion.

This is hardly surprising. After all, human beings have been on this planet for around 100,000 years and did not have any belief in god or organized religion for the vast majority of that time. It is precisely because we have an innate sense of moral boundaries and human solidarity that we have been able to make it where we are today. Like other pack animals, we recognize that our success as a species is dependent on mutual cooperation, self-sacrifice for the benefit of the collective, and the sense of community we feel with those around us.

In contemporary times, there is considerable evidence for the proposition that it is possible to be moral without believing in god. In the first place, the non-religious are the second-largest religious grouping in Canada. No intelligent person would seriously claim that all 5-million-and-some-odd non-religious Canadians are significantly less moral than the rest of the country. If this were so, our nation would be in a deep state of violent anarchy. It is not. While I am unable to find reliable statistics on this point, I am disinclined to think that atheists are over-represented among Canada's prison population in any sort of statistically significant way. Of course, it is beyond question that Christians represent the largest segment of the prison population in absolute terms.

Those who seriously believe that religion is necessary for morality should not be trusted. Think about it: anyone who makes that claim is basically saying "had I not been brough up as a [Christian/Jew/Muslim/whatever], I would be out killing, raping, and stealing as much as I could". Anyone who would seriously endorse that proposition is a dangerous sociopath, because their only motivation to act morally is the threat of eternal consequences. By contrast, those who think it is possible to be moral without religion recongize the need for personal moral responsibility and critical decision-making based on a deep respect for our shared humanity. Incidentally, it is more than possible be religious and nevertheless recognize that the non-religious can be moral too.

Given the prima facie absurdity of the idea that morality must of necessity come from religion, why do people continue to hold that belief? I think that it has to do, in part, with the fact that so few people think explicitly about their moral decision-making. What I mean by this is that most people make moral decisions based on "gut" reactions to situations without ever stopping to try to come up with a theoretical moral framework that supports those moral intuitions.

Why would that lead people to believe that religion is necessary for morality? Most people believe (as do I) that morality requires an objective basis. Without objectivity, there is simply too much moral relativism for humans to get along with one another. For those who haven't given much critical attention to moral theory, it is easy and satisfying to simply point to god as that objective basis for morality. However, those who have spent time studying ethics and philosophy (this, by the way, was the primary focus of my first university degree) recognize that there are other candidates which could serve just as well as bases for objective moral standards. While it is beyond the scope of this blog post to list those possibilities, suffice it to say that most modern ethical philosophers consider moral theories predicated on the existence of god to be on the bottom rung of intellectual rigour.

While it is not my intention to suggest (and indeed I do not believe) that a belief in god makes the believer less moral, I certainly would reject the proposition that believes are, as a group, any more moral than the rest of us. Whether your morals come from a belief in god, from intuition, or from explicit analytical thinking, we should all be able to agree that it is at least possible to simultaneously be moral and an atheist.

Unfortunately, this is not so. In a 2007 Gallup poll taken in the United States, more than half the respondents (53%) said they would not vote for an atheist Presidential candidate, even if the candidate was perfectly qualified for the job. I believe that the reason for this trend is the pervasive yet false belief that it is impossible to be both moral and an atheist. Most believers are disinclined to trust an atheist in elected office, even though they would trust someone of a different faith than their own. Out of the thousands of people who have served in the United States Congress, there has only ever been one to openly serve as an atheist: Representative Pete Stark, a Democrat from California's 13th district. To me, this fact bespeaks widespread anti-atheist bigotry in the United States. While I suspect that there is less anti-athiest prejudice in Canada, it certainly exists north of the border as well.

For some reason, anti-atheist bigotry does not attract the same revulsion as other forms of prejudice (try substituting the words "Christian", "Jewish", "black", or "female" in the above mentioned poll and reassing your reaction to it). Maybe it should. Atheists are one of the largest minority groups in most western countries and have suffered a long history of oppression at the hands of religious majorities. For centuries in most European countries, the penalty for not believing in a personal, interventionist god was death. For that reason, atheists were forced to either abandon their beliefs or else remain closeted.

Dr. Richard Dawkins has made the observation that there is a close statistical relationship between level of education and religious belief. Stated bluntly, the more formal education one has, the less one is likely to believe in god. As Dawkins points out, this means that election to the United States Congress is heavily loaded against the most educated people in America. That thought should frighten most people, and it should cause even the devout to snap out of their prejudiced voting patterns and start casting their ballots based on policy platforms instead of on personal metaphysical beliefs.

My goal today has been to raise consciousness about the manifestly ridiculous proposition that it is impossible to be moral without religion. Throughought the rest of the week, I will be addressing additional topics relating to religion and politics, with an emphasis on the need for greater tolerance and the elimination of bigotry against non-believers. It is not my goal in any of these posts to "convert" the religious to atheism, nor to suggest that atheism is "better" than religious belief (I think that all adults should think for themselves about what to believe when it comes to the big questions of our universe). I hope that you will read these posts with an open mind, and I hope that any of my non-believing readers will choose to participate in "A" Week. Details are found below.

"A" Week Links and Resources

Corporate Tax Cut Freeze is a Step in the Right Direction

devin@devinjohnston.ca (Devin Johnston) — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 04:22:52 +0000

All in all, the Liberal Party's "thinkers' conference" was uninspiring and failed to deliver anything even approaching a complete and coherent election platform (which, by the way, was supposed to be ready by June 2009). Having said that, the main promise Ignatieff is making in the wake of the conference is a good one: the cancellation of $6-billion in corporate tax cuts planned by the current government. While I might quibble with the details a bit (I would prefer a reduction in corporate taxes for small business and a raise for larger corporations), the fundamental thinking here is sound. It seems that the current economic crisis has shown, even to the Liberals, that the neo-liberal tax policies of the 80's and 90's were generally a failure. At present, the corporate tax rate is a fraction of what individuals pay.