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| Phil Robertson on "I am second" |
APOLOGIA
By
Hendrik van der Breggen
The Carillon, February 6, 2014
Ducks, hate, and logic
(part 2)
Much
anger was expressed a few weeks ago in the media about Phil Robertson, the
patriarch of Duck Dynasty (an
extremely popular A&E television show), and his alleged anti-gay comments
in Gentleman's Quarterly (GQ
magazine). Robertson stated publicly, albeit bluntly and explicitly, that the
Bible says same-sex sex is morally wrong—i.e., it's a sin, among other sins,
including bestiality, heterosexual fornication and promiscuity, greed,
drunkenness, slandering, and swindling.
In
an earlier installment of this column (January 2, 2014) I addressed the
oft-heard objection that Robertson equated and compared same-sex sex to
bestiality, thereby diminishing the humanity of persons who engage in gay sex, thus
inciting hatred toward them. I showed that this objection is false.
Today
I examine the objection that setting out a moral objection to gay sex is,
automatically, to engage in hate.
Clearly,
for some angry critics it was assumed that Robertson's saying that same-sex sex
is morally wrong is, because of the mere fact of saying same-sex sex is morally
wrong, an instance of hatred.
But
these critics should think carefully here.
If
"saying X is morally wrong" is an instance of hatred, then
"saying 'saying X is morally wrong' is morally wrong" is an instance
of hatred, too.
It
turns out that the view that all claims asserting moral wrongness are instances
of hatred and thus morally wrong is a view that includes itself in its field of
reference and thus self-defeats. The claim is guilty of the very thing it
claims is wrong!
The
claim, in other words, is attempting to take the moral high ground while at the same time destroying the moral ground on which it's standing.
Note
for the sake of clarity: I am not saying that "saying X is morally
wrong" is in fact an instance of hatred, at least it's not necessarily
true that it is such an instance. Surely, and significantly, there is room to
express moral views respectfully.
Think
carefully about the if-then claim I set out. Here it is again: if "saying X is morally wrong"
is an instance of hatred, then
"saying 'saying X is morally wrong' is morally wrong" is an instance
of hatred, too.
Above
I have simply set out a conditional statement (an "if-then"
statement) which is true even when the antecedent (the part immediately after
the "if" and ending at the comma) is false. The interesting logical fact
is that the conditional statement shows that those who do say "saying X is morally wrong" is an instance of
hatred (i.e., they assert the antecedent to be true) have a serious problem on
their hands: i.e., the consequent (the part immediately after the
"then") has got to be true too.
But
then this morally undermines the objectors' own view: if their view is true,
it's morally wrong. Also, if their view is false, then, well, it's not true.
Contrary
to what some angry critics would have us think, then, the
simple fact is this: To set out an objection based on moral principle is NOT
automatically to engage in hate.
The
fact remains that it is possible to raise moral objections without engaging in
hate—and this is what Phil Robertson has done.
All
this to say, to (once again) paraphrase C. S. Lewis’s wise old professor in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:
“Logic! Why don’t they teach logic in schools these days?!”
(Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is associate
professor of philosophy at Providence University College. The views in this column do not always reflect the views of Providence.)
