Home » Academics » Nerds' Corner

An Argument from Really Bad Behavior?

Really Bad Worldviews

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School and killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher before committing suicide. Wild speculation followed the massacre. Why did it happen? Michael Moore blamed guns. The media said Harris and Klebold had been bullied by jocks. Parents blamed Marilyn Manson. According to one popular theory, evolution led to this massacre.¹

On October 6, 1998 — six months before the Columbine shootings — Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney lured Matthew Shepard into their car by posing as homosexuals. They took Shepard to a remote area outside Laramie, Wyo., tied him to a fence and beat him to death. Why did they do it? Some said the murder was drug-related. Most thought it was a hate crime: Henderson and McKinney killed Shepard because he was gay. And why did they care about that? Because of Christianity; they'd fallen under the bad influence of the Bible. In fact, according to one Web site, Henderson and McKinney didn't really murder Shepard. Christianity did.²

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaida terrorists hijacked four airliners, crashing two of them into the Twin Towers, one of them into the Pentagon and one into a field near Shanksville, Pa. There are conspiracy theories, of course, but most believe fundamentalist Islam was responsible.³ A less common but still popular view says that the Islam responsible wasn't fundamentalist at all. According to this view, the terrorists were just acting in accord with the teachings of mainstream orthodox Islam.

Really Bad Arguments?

When terrible things happen, we want to know why. This is why we care what Harris and Klebold believed. Following Oct. 6, 1998, April 20, 1999, and Sept. 11, 2001, a different interest emerged. Columbine, Matthew Shepard's murder and 9/11 became fodder for apologists. Creationists cited Columbine as a reason to reject evolutionary theory. Humanists cited Shepard's murder as a reason to reject Christianity. Nearly everyone cited 9/11 as a reason to reject fundamentalist Islam.⁴

Now, here's the thing. Many reading this post will agree that, one way or another, 9/11 counts decisively against fundamentalist Islam. And, my guess is, some people reading this post blame Darwin for Columbine. (At least, they would be willing to if they thought about it.) Almost certainly, though, few people reading this post think Shepard's murder counts in any way against Christianity.

But why this discrepancy? Are we merely biased in favor of our own view, or do we have reasons for treating these cases differently? To answer these questions, we need to get straight on two things.

First, when (if ever) is it appropriate to fault a religion, worldview, philosophy or theory for something bad that someone has done? If it's appropriate to blame fundamentalist Islam for 9/11, then why isn't it appropriate to blame Christianity for Matthew Shepherd's murder? And if it's not appropriate to blame Christianity for Matthew Shepherd's murder, how could it be appropriate to blame evolutionary theory for Columbine? What makes the difference in these cases? Is there really a difference?

Second, if it is appropriate to fault a religion, worldview or theory for something bad that someone has done, does this fact give us good reason to reject that religion, worldview or theory? To reject a worldview or theory, after all, is to reject it as false. But how could Matthew Shepard's murder possibly give us a reason to think Christianity is false? Or how could Columbine give us a reason to think that evolutionary theory is false? "Harris and Klebold murdered their classmates; therefore, life on Earth isn't the product of natural selection working on random genetic mutation" just doesn't sound like a good argument. So, why think we can debunk a religion or worldview by showing that it led to some tragedy?

Let's Not be Stupid

As it happens, I think there are cases where it's appropriate to blame a view for something bad someone has done, and I think that, in such cases, there can be good arguments against the view in question. In the rest of this series, I will say when it's appropriate to blame a view and how a good argument against that view might go. Then I'll say a few things about Matthew Shepard's murder, Columbine and 9/11, and how each of those events bear on rational belief in Christianity, evolution and Islam, respectively.

Now, let's assume that the question whether (for example) evolutionary theory led to the Columbine massacre is an important one, and let's agree that, where important questions are concerned, we don't want to say something stupid. We can reduce our chances of saying something stupid by taking the time to be careful. So, that is exactly what we're going to do.

Seven Relations Between a View and an Action

Every action falls into one of three moral categories: (i) morally forbidden, (ii) morally obligatory and (iii) morally permissible.⁵ An action is morally forbidden if and only if it would be immoral for someone to perform it. An action is morally obligatory if and only if it would be immoral for someone to refrain from performing it. An action is morally permissible if and only if it wouldn't matter (morally speaking) whether or not someone performed it.⁶ So, for example, we are morally forbidden to rob our local grocer, we are morally obliged to defend the defenseless, and we are morally permitted to wear jeans instead of slacks.

Now, imagine a girl named Smith, and let "Beta" stand for some religion, worldview or theory that Smith accepts. Also, imagine Smith performing some immoral action, and call this action "Stealing." What are the possible relations between Beta and Stealing?

First, Beta might entail something about the moral status of Stealing.⁷ For example, just as the Bible explicitly states that worshipping idols is immoral, Beta's texts might explicitly state that Stealing is immoral. Or, alternatively, just as the Bible states that worshipping idols is immoral and this entails that worshipping a plaster Elvis bust would be immoral, Beta's texts might state something that entails that Stealing is immoral.

Second, Beta might suggest something about the moral status of Stealing. For example, nothing in the Bible entails that we have a moral obligation to protect endangered species. Nevertheless, the Bible says God's creatures attest to His glory,⁸ and this suggests that we have a moral obligation to protect them. In the same way, Beta's texts might suggest something about the moral status of Stealing.

Finally, Beta might be silent on the moral status of Stealing. Beta might be completely irrelevant to the moral status of Stealing in the same way that Newton's theory of gravitation is completely irrelevant to the moral status of abortion.

Given all of this, there are seven possible relationships between Beta and Stealing:

1. Beta entails that Stealing is morally forbidden.
2. Beta entails that Stealing is morally obligatory.
3. Beta entails that Stealing is morally permissible.
4. Beta suggests that Stealing is morally forbidden.
5. Beta suggests that Stealing is morally obligatory.
6. Beta suggests that Stealing is morally permissible.
7. Beta is silent on the moral status of Stealing.

Can We Blame Beta for Smith's Stealing?

C O F F E E  S H O P

---

When do you think you can blame a view for someone's bad behavior?

Join the discussion!

Whether or not we can blame Beta for Smith's stealing depends on the relationship between Beta and Stealing. And the same is true of evolutionary theory and Columbine, Christianity and Shepard's murder, and fundamentalist Islam and 9/11. In my next post, we will come to some conclusions about 1 through 7 and then apply these conclusions to the question of whether evolutionary theory can be blamed for Columbine, Christianity can be blamed for Shepard's murder, and fundamentalist Islam can be blamed for 9/11. In the meantime, see what you think about 1-7. In which cases can we legitimately blame Beta for Stealing?