Second Sight

We have evolved to act on first impressions: without them we might have had no second impressions.

It has been estimated that we make thousands of unconscious judgments within the first moments of meeting. Many are wrong.

It is well established that, having formed a first impression, we tend to confirm it by attending to supporting evidence and by ignoring contradictory evidence.

A man who tells you that he always goes by first impressions, is telling you that he is a bad judge of character.

It may be unfair to judge someone’s future behaviour by their past behaviour but it is the best, and often the only, evidence available. You will be right far more often than wrong.

(For the interview with Professor Marshall go to STOP PRESS)

Science and Faith, July 18

In Pope John Paul II’s impressive encyclical Veritatis Splendor (1993) he
teaches that there are acts which are always wrong in themselves,
“independently of circumstances”. And among the examples he quotes from
Vatican II is “whatever violates the integrity of the human
person… such as physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the
spirit…”
Discussing this with friends recently I was not surprised to be met by the
“ticking bomb” example. Imagine a situation in which your family are locked
in a cellar with a ticking bomb, which is due to detonate in a quarter of an
hour. You have captured the villain who has arranged this, but he refuses to
give you the combination of the lock which will allow you to open the door.
Assuming there is no other way in the time available, would you be justified
in torturing him to get the information, or would you pass the quarter hour
reading Veritatis Splendor? And there is a third answer: you might agree
that torture was wrong but be prepared to carry it out.
Everyone has to answer those questions for themselves. But my friends argued
this way: this villain is an aggressor and you would be perfectly entitled
to kill him in your family’s defence if that would do any good (for
instance if he were guarding the door with a lethal weapon). But to torture
him is less grave than killing him and it is the only option left with a
hope of success. So ample justification is there.
This, of course, is an extreme example for debating purposes but it does
appear to clash with the Council’s “independently of circumstances”. In real
life we are more likely to be thinking of people whom we are morally certain
are terrorists (threatening our families) and who hold information about
other terrorists which they are not prepared to divulge.
There are important real-life issues. It may that the victim has not himself
been guilty of colluding in terrorism; he may not have the required
information; the information he is forced to give may be inaccurate. The
authorities who authorise the torture, or turn a blind eye to it, may do
more harm to their claim to democratic freedom and the rule of law than any
benefit which results. Many argue against torture for such practical
reasons.
But I think that the late Pope is digging deeper. What he is saying is that
torture dehumanises the victim. In effect it has to break down the victim¹s
personhood, by removing his human freedom to choose, and reducing him to
forced action through pain and fear of pain. The phrases “violate the human
person” and “coerce the spirit” indicate this.
Now let’s look at history. The British Medical Journal of June 28 reported
on a study conducted by Physicians for Human Rights. They studied 11
detainees held in American facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo
Bay. None had been charged with any crime.
The methods used to bring about “excruciating pain, terror, humiliation, and
shame for months on end” were various. “Suspension, stress positions,
routine isolation, sleep deprivation with sense bombardment and extreme
temperatures, sexual humiliation and forced nakedness, electric shock,
beatings, threats to life and families” are among the methods reported,
either as authorised or countenanced. It provides a general idea.
Major General Taguma, who led the investigation of the scandal at Abu
Ghraib, commented on the indiscriminate flouting of the UN Convention
against Torture, and said: “There is no longer any doubt as to whether the
current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is
whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
There were only 11 detainees in the study, each of whose cases had to be
investigated over two days, and the medical records provided by the
interrogators examined. But other generalised evidence suggests that some or
all of these practices were routinely used.
In this report there was no suggestion that so-called truth drugs were
employed. There are a variety of substances which are alleged to have the
capacity to ensure that all is revealed. Here there need be no external
symptoms; indeed the victim might not even recall what had happened. At
present they have a reputation for unreliability. One would imagine that if
they did the intended job there would have been no need for the physical
abuse of alleged terrorists.
But science advances, and effective drugs may well be developed in the
future. It would be interesting to know if secret research work is being
done in this country, or any other. And, as we learn more and more about the
brain, it is quite possible that ways will be discovered to exercise direct
control over brain functions, which might have the same effect. All these
would dehumanise, and so fall under the Council’s stricture.
Meanwhile we are left with the question: how far would we personally go to
extract information which we are confident will save the lives of innocent
people? Remember the villain who locked up your loved ones with a ticking
bomb. If you are a newcomer to this blog, there’s plenty of interest here if you follow down through the posts, or have a look at the STOP PRESS page. You don’t have to make a comment to register for the blog, but registration enables me to let you know about interesting new material

Bureaucrats understand their function, but they do not understand the purpose of their function.

For the bureaucrat ‘I think therefore I am’ becomes ‘I refuse therefore I am’.

It is only necessary to move from market forces to a bureaucracy to understand how little work can be accomplished in a single day.

Thrust your status at the bureaucrat, and latent fires of generations of disadvantage will leap into flame.

Open a transaction with a bureaucrat with the phrase ‘I wonder if you could possibly help me.’ You may give him the opportunity, if only momentarily, of actually contributing to human welfare. He may enjoy the novel experience, and wish to repeat it.

Every fortnight I have the stimulating pleasure of leading a group on
philosophy, under the auspices of the University of the Third Age. Our range
is wide but, over the years, we have returned time and again to questions of
morality. Given the diversity of backgrounds –­ Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and
agnostic –­­ you might think that we had so little in common that serious and
probing debate would be pointless. On the contrary. Although we often agree
to disagree on particular questions we share fundamental principles in
common, and we are always ready to give reasons for the conclusions we
defend.

This is what is known as the natural law in action.

The protagonist of natural law in the western tradition is Thomas Aquinas.
Even the secular philosophers who write about the concept, and maintain
their variations, have Aquinas on their shoulder. And behind him stands
Aristotle.

The first principle is that practical reason obliges us to follow the good
and avoid the evil. We may be wholly mistaken about what constitutes the
good in a given instance, but that is what reason obliges us to follow.
However, we achieve our basic understanding of the good through our
understanding of nature, because acting in accordance with nature ensures
that we are directed at the right target: that is, we flourish.

A simple example is provided by the dog. The nature of the dog, among other
things, is to be active, to give and receive affection, and to relate
closely to human beings. (We might note here that some key characteristics
of this nature have come about through evolving from the wild, ancestral,
species.) If we treat a dog in accord with its nature, it flourishes. If
not, not.

In a recent column, I looked at how we could discover the role of
fatherhood through looking at the needs of human nature. Human nature is
qualitatively more complex because it is a fusion of animal nature and
spiritual nature. That is, it involves elements such as intelligence, free
will and moral responsibility. We often speak of two natures –­ the lower
nature and the higher nature ­– but this is just a convenience for discussion
because the two interpenetrate in ways we cannot completely understand.

Aquinas speaks of a hierarchy in our grasp of what human nature requires to
flourish. There are major constituents such as justice, responsibility to
neighbour, right to life and conscience and so forth. These are recognisable
by all. But as we move down the hierarchy towards more detailed application
of these major principles so there is greater and greater room for
disagreement. This can come about because our understanding of human nature
and circumstance inevitably varies at the more detailed level, and so we
arrive at different conclusions. Nevertheless, the UN was able to proclaim
an agreed code of human rights, and call it “universal”. Such declarations
implicitly stem from natural law.

More importantly, grasp of natural law can vary because of ill-will and bad
habits. We know that it can also be distorted through culture. Decent,
commonsense people (such as many in my group) broadly accept our current
abortion laws; we live in an abortion culture, and those out of line are
considered indoctrinated or eccentric. So, for such reasons, deliberate or
indeliberate, we may be blinded to what natural law demands.

Can natural law change? Certainly our knowledge of it can. For instance, a
mistaken understanding of embryological development, which science corrected
in the 19th century, led to a change in the status of abortion. And
perception can change. The deeper understanding of conscience which led
Vatican II to accept the fundamental human right to free choice of religion
was an unacknowledged reversal of a long-standing Church teaching.

Circumstances can change, too. The general proposition that cannibalism is
always wrong might be questioned should a group find themselves abandoned in
a remote area and without food after, say, an air crash in which one of the
party had been killed. In America in the 1880s the average woman gave birth
to about seven children. And this was necessary to maintain the population
because child mortality meant that only two or three children would survive
to procreate. Today such an average birthrate would lead over a few
generations to an astronomical increase in population. Do the maths. Such
examples remind us that we cannot invariably generalise about what is needed
for humans to flourish.

So far my description has been couched in terms of unaided human reason.
Consequently we can debate the application of morals in the public forum.
And it does not follow that atheists can have no moral sense. In fact their
attacks on religion are often made in moral terms. They may have difficulty
in explaining the source of moral obligation, but that is not the same as
lacking it. Christianity, through St Paul, describes it as a law written by
God in men’s hearts. And indeed we hold that the imperatives of the natural
law fundamentally arise from the fact that God created our nature.

The Church goes further, declaring that she has a special competence to
interpret the natural law with an understanding illuminated and enriched by
Revelation. Undoubtedly the concept of what it means to flourish is
marvellously extended when human nature is understood as elevated by
redemption, and created for an eternal destiny. But there remains a need to
demonstrate the link between natural law as open to reason and its deeper
application. For example, while natural law can make a very strong case for
monogamous marriage, it has a higher imperative derived from Christ’s
declaration that monogamous marriage was intended for the human race from
the beginning. For the believer, but not the sceptic, the case is closed.

The need to demonstrate this link is particularly great when a moral
teaching which allows of no exceptions is declared. Sadly there have been
occasions where accepted doctrines have needed to be modified or abrogated.
Moving beyond the limits of human reason, where Revelation gives no certain
mandate, can be a hostage to fortune.

Experts, even with rows of initials after their names to prove it, consistently know less than they pretend or believe that they know.

You cannot judge how much an expert knows by what he chooses to tell you - only by what he answers to your questions. The first is under his control, the second is not.

Go to an expert with some questions for which you have researched the answers. If your future depends on his knowledge you are entitled to test it first.

Never go to an expert for advice without knowing more about your problem than he does. But it is more tactful to spare him the benefits of your instruction. Like the waiter he can always spit in your soup.

Never forget that doctors and lawyers used to use the tradesman’s entrance. Anyone to whom you pay a fee, directly or through taxation, is at your service. You have more interest in the health of your body or your rights than he has.

A professional is someone who uses particular skills for your benefit ahead of his personal interests. By that definition a plumber may be more professional than a lawyer.

Durga Thangarajah is a lucky lady. She was delivered on May 31 of a healthy daughter which had developed in her ovary. At any time the ovary could have ruptured to the great danger of mother and child. Only one in a 100,000 ectopic pregnancies is delivered safely, and usually action must be taken at an early stage.
Nearly all ectopic pregnancies take place in the fallopian tube, which leads from the ovary to the womb. The egg, and therefore the embryo, lodges there, and the pregnancy begins to develop. This is normally not diagnosed before the pregnancy is five to eight weeks old – and often later. This gives rise to an interesting moral problem. An obvious treatment is simply the removal of the fallopian tube. Of course, the developing baby dies, but, since this is a side-effect, it is not regarded as abortion.
This moral judgment is based on the principle of “double effect”. Two elements are involved: the therapeutic removal of the endangered fallopian tube and the death of the developing baby. One good effect and one bad effect resulting from a single medical action. The principle tells us that as long as the action itself is good, or morally neutral, and the side effect is not intended then, providing that the side-effect is proportionate, the action is justified.
A common application would be the bombing of a military target in a just war (an action which is, at least, morally neutral) when it is known that some civilian deaths are likely to be caused. The proportionality in each case would have to be judged. Similarly, the taking of the Pill to regulate the menstrual cycle is legitimate, even though the side-effect is chemically induced suspension of fertility.
But we might imagine that you are a surgeon preparing to remove a fallopian tube being asked by a colleague (who has not had the benefit of the cogitations of moral theologians) saying: “Hold hard, a moment. Why don’t you open up the fallopian tube, remove the foetus and allow the fallopian tube to recover?”
To which you reply: “But that would be direct abortion. I would be taking one innocent human life to save another. Can’t do that, I’m afraid.”
Your colleague persists. “Why don’t you use your common sense instead of looking up your little rule book? The foetus is going to die either way. But your way is going to risk the mother’s fertility by leaving her with only one, good, fallopian tube. And, if that gets damaged, she’s infertile for ever. Which is the better moral choice?”
And you answer… well, what do you answer? Tell us on Secondsightblog.
And how about Captain Oates on the Scott expedition, who walked out of the tent to a death which was as certain as jumping off a skyscraper. His intention was to relieve his comrades of the burden of assisting him home, but was his action suicide? If not, why not?
I hope that by now your mind is focused on moral questions because a different, but distantly related, problem arises in the question of kidney donation. A well-established principle of moral theology is that to remove an organ from a living person is justified when it is necessary for the good of the whole body. The removal of a diseased fallopian tube, as above, is justified because the organs are subordinate to the good of the whole body. But how about removing a healthy kidney in order to transplant it to another person?
That would not cause a moral blink nowadays but, when the operation first became a theoretical possibility some 50 years ago, many theologians argued that mutilation, as it was called, could not be justified when it was for the sake of a another body. Gerald Kelly, a meticulous Jesuit authority who specialised in such matters, concluded that we recognised that kidney donation was right, and in some instances heroic, “by a sort of instinctive judgment”, although he noted that many other theologians disagreed.
Later it was to be argued that, since the donor retained one kidney, which was sufficient for good health, this was not a true mutilation. But this is a very thin, and perhaps desperate, argument, for no one can doubt that the removal of a kidney leaves the donor in a permanently more hazardous state than before. Contrast it with blood donation where the blood lost is swiftly replaced by the system.
Nowadays of course kidney donation has papal commendation, and the moral issue is dead. But we are still left with Gerald Kelly’s response which I translate liberally as “chop your logic as you may, there are instances where you simply have to trust the judgment of common sense infused by love”. Or, put in theological terms, “prudence informed by charity”. I like it.
I have recently read that a reliable therapy for baldness is castration. Thinning almost to a point of disappearance though my hair may be, it does not sound a particularly attractive step. Fortunately both instinct and moral logic stand together on this one, and I am not tempted.
But who am I to decide such questions on your behalf? Would you have removed the fallopian tube or just the baby? Share your views with us on this site. And spare a thought for Origen, one of the greatest of the early Church Fathers, who, according to Eusebius, sought castration for the sake of the Kingdom. At least he may have had the consolation of a good head of hair.

Mankind lives by faith. If he does not believe what is reasonable to believe he will believe what is unreasonable to believe.

To encounter another person requires as act of faith; all we can demonstrate are the mechanical messages of our five senses. We make such acts of faith several times a day.

Doctrines are only the incidentals of religious faith. Essentially, religious faith is an encounter with the divine. We can search for such an encounter but it takes two to tango.

A person who says he envies us our faith might as well say how nice it would be to believe in fairies.

Atheism requires a greater degree of credulity than theism. It faces the difficulty of proving a negative.

We never know how someone stands with God. The most intransigent atheist may be closer than the most pious nun.

Agnosticism is often no more than a euphemism for the inability to makes up one’s mind. The true agnostic, who maintains that knowledge of God is impossible, can at least claim a respectable intellectual position

In truth I had in mind a somewhat critical column on how we conduct public relations with regard to the Church in this country. Fortunately a fine article by Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor in the Daily Telegraph has provided an example of just how it should be done. I will return to this below.

Public relations itself has bad public relations. We associate the idea with deceitful manipulation, often called “spin”. PR executives rank in the public mind with politicians, estate agents and, sadly, journalists. But, in principle at least, PR faces up to the fact that organisations and institutions convey an image, bad or good, to the public mind. And it is just the same for individuals: we like to “put our best face forward” and make a good impression. We are, in fact, manipulating our image, and doing our own PR.

A number of incidents in the recent past gives us an opportunity to look at how the Church in this country handles its PR image. Adoption agencies, Catholic schools and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill all provide examples. But, and not just to confuse you, I want to start by considering how we may feel about the Muslim community.

We may see it as an essentially foreign community interfering with our traditional way of life. Why do they choose to live among us, yet refuse to accept the value systems of our society? Secondly, we may strongly resent what we perceive as an outside influence; they take their orders from religious authorities in the Middle East. Their primary loyalty is not to the Queen, but elsewhere. We do not, because of course we are liberals, want to interfere with their personal beliefs as set out by Mohammed in the Koran and other early documents. But we regard these as unfounded, and strongly resent the idea that our civil life should in any way be bound by them. We note that they indoctrinate their young, who may take their brainwashing into adulthood, with dangerous consequences. We greatly fear their rising political influence, not simply because their numbers increase but because they have the power to organise themselves so that they can have a disproportionate influence on democratic decisions. And since they do not believe in democracy but in a Muslim state, this is doubly dangerous.

Remember that I am describing an image, parts or all of which, we may share. I am not saying that the image accords with reality. But, having seen how Muslims may look to us, now consider how Catholics may look to others.

Might we be seen as having loyalties divided between the Queen and the Pope? Do we attempt to impose our unprovable beliefs, based on ecclesiastical authority and the Bible? Do we attempt to indoctrinate our children with these beliefs? Do we organise ourselves politically in order to obtain undue influence over democratic decisions? Does our history, if not our present doctrine, show that we would willingly form a state with religious privileges restricted to Catholics, and a legal system which favours Catholic values? And even if Guy Fawkes is old history, terrorism in Northern Ireland is not. Like the Muslims, do we not focus on the negatives, with prohibitions - a religion of “thou shalt nots”? And we combine our deep-rooted hatred of sexuality with a clergy doing unmentionable things to the young, so that a priest scarcely dares appear in public wearing a Roman collar?

Until we realise that, fair or unfair, that sort of image - to a greater or lesser degree - is held by many of our compatriots, we will not be able to correct it.
This is where Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor’s article gives us a lead to follow. In commenting on the outcome of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology debate his tone is one of regret, not anger. Indeed he praises the seriousness of discussion. He declares his belief that there is no conflict between faith and reason. He states the essential ethical neutrality of science. And he identifies crucial questions: “What is it to be a human being? What conditions do we need for our flourishing? In what sort of society can we put our faith and know that we are cherished and valued and above all enabled to grow in our search for what is right and true?” This is the language of natural law and so, by definition, accessible to all people of good-will and open mind. He repeats his call for a continuing statutory national bio-ethics commission, in which a range of perspectives are represented, fitted to discuss these important matters.

I am not going overboard in my enthusiasm. Mistakes have been made in the past in matters such as adoption and Catholic schools, without even mentioning Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s tendency to allow the flamboyance of his language to become the message. His short video on YouTube was a relief by comparison. He follows in the tradition of Cardinal Winning, who described a homosexual act as “perversion”, insensitive to the emotional load that word carries. By the same reasoning everyone who practises artificial contraception is perverted.

And lest you think that this is simply a criticism of senior clergy, we have just as important a part to play too. The childish irreverence of Jerry Springer: the Opera was trivial by comparison with the damage done by Christian protest, to which many Catholics subscribed. And everyone, in each ordinary encounter with non-Catholics, either improves or mars our image.

But it is an excellent sign that we can, when we think about it, present our image in a way that engages people of good will. Of course, fundamentalist opponents will not be appeased. Let them stew in their own juice; but let us not be seen sitting in the pot with them.

Now, make a comment, and tell me how wrong I am.

(See STOP PRESS for an article on the baby with two genetic mothers)

Many great changes in society have only come about because they were introduced by extremists and fanatics, repudiated by those they claimed to represent.

To use considerate language is only good manners and a sign of sensitivity to others’ feelings. Distinguish this from political correctness whose historical origins lie in a tactic to manipulate society.

A group defines itself as much by the way it is hated, as by the way it is loved. So for countries, and for races, and for individuals

Those who have suffered most from injustice are the first to inflict the same injustice on others.

The brain has two reference points - one for the judgment of others’ behaviour and one for the judgment of our own.

The emperor penguin dad incubates his mate’s eggs, protecting them with a flap of skin, and when they are hatched he plays a full part in providing for them. Most fish dads spread their seed externally, and take no further interest.

Fatherhood accords with the needs of each species, and the proof of success lies in the fact that they survive and flourish. Their instinctive behaviour accords with the law of their own natures as these have evolved.

So what does the nature of the human species require of fatherhood if it is to survive and flourish?

We can try a little reasonable speculation. The complexity of the human being requires a long period of development between conception and adult independence, so we can infer that long-term parental care is needed. We see this first in the mother, who not only carries the baby from conception to birth but is able by nature to feed it. We also know that there is a crucial period in the first two or three years of life when the child’s basic apprehension of his place in the world is largely set. Am I lovable and competent? Do I trust other people? What is approved behaviour? And so on. The child learns by a kind of radar - the messages to and from its close carers.

What is the father’s role at this stage? At the material level he may have to ensure economic security. But he will also have to be a close carer. Anyone who has fathered girls, for instance, will have noticed how quickly they develop the art of managing men. It is here that the child learns to react in somewhat different ways to men and women. Through both parents, the foundations of relationships between the sexes are laid. The future of its lifetime sexual relationships is to a large extent set.

But of course the process continues and, at each stage of development, the child or adolescent has new things to learn about being an adult. Both parents provide role models. We may hope that these are good, complementary models; but we also hope that they will differ in certain respects because the child needs to learn different things from each of them. Another clue to the natural role of the father is through biology. Thus a zoologist from Mars would notice that, in homo sapiens, sexual activity is not confined to the time of fertility but is used as an important bonding activity. So there is a built-in inducement for the mates to remain together. For humans, procreation is not just an instantaneous episode of fertilisation but a long-term process of two-parent nurturing. He would also notice that, whereas the natural law is imposed willy-nilly on the lower animals, the human animal is free to obey or disobey.

This last distinction is important. When a species acts according to its own nature, it flourishes. But since human beings have free will they can choose whether to flourish or whether to decay. And we would expect to find that getting fatherhood wrong would lead to damage. There is plenty of evidence that this is so.
A recent survey shows some of the effects of poor fatherhood on criminality, and this site gives a broad account of general research. This looks at fatherhood under seven dimensions and concludes, following a review of research studies, that “fathers who do well in most of them will serve their children and their families well”.

This will come as no surprise since our own experience and observation confirms this. For instance, when I was marriage counselling I often found that the death of a father was reported, by both men and women, as a major point of change. The death of a mother was much more rarely reported. I speculate that we take a mother’s approval for granted (valued of course, but seen as the mother’s natural duty). But the father’s approval is gratuitous, and so experienced as more important. Paternal support, living up to one’s father’s expectations, failing one’s father, are all highly charged factors. As one study concludes: “Overall, father love appears to be as heavily implicated as mother love in offsprings’ psychological well-being and health, as well as in an array of psychological and behavioural problems.”

There are circumstances, such as bereavement or a father’s profession, which make the full discharge of fatherhood impossible. And mothers may, often heroically, find ways to mitigate the lack. But this is damage limitation rather than an alternative.

Our society puts a low value on fatherhood. We see this in our high rate of teenage pregnancy, the ease of divorce, the growth of co-habitation, which is notoriously unstable, and the fiscal benefits of single parenthood. Our attitude towards placing a child for adoption in a same-sex partnership, or even allowing a child to be born into a same-sex partnership, needs have nothing to do with any moral view we have of such partnerships. It is simply something to be avoided just as we might avoid placing a child with elderly parents or in a marriage we know to be unstable. The child is less likely to flourish.

You will have seen that I have traced the deep need for fatherhood entirely from what we know about human nature. The only assumptions I have made are that the interests of the child trump the interests of the putative parents, and that we should wish to arrange society in ways that help it to flourish. It is up to those who think fatherhood to be unnecessary to demonstrate their case with the same tools.

Note

Visit the STOP PRESS page to review The Catholic Herald’s strong leading article this week on the outcome of the Second Reading in the House of Commons of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. Tell us what you think.