Continuing Official Catholic Confusion on the Morality of Child Molestation, Rape and Pedophilia

A new Pope has just been elected and immediately, one of the very cardinals that took part in the election-process (the so-called Conclave) is on the news making a massive fool of himself, as well as illustrating that the complete confusion and ethical morass within the official Catholic institutional establishment has not become any less than before. I have from time to time commented just a little bit on the amazing stupidity and deepest immorality of central official institutions and representatives of the Catholic Church when it comes to its dealing with allegations of systematic sexual child abuse against their own clergy. I am therefore not very surprised at this latest piece of folly that is reported in my country's leading daily this morning (here):

In a BBC interview, the Arch Bishop of Durban, one Wilfrid Fox Napier, states that child molesters and rapists are not properly to be held criminally responsible for their actions. While I'm not at all surprised that a Catholic Cardinal and Arch Bishop holds and expresses such an opinion – even less so since he represents the South African wing of the Church, known since before for airing massively confused official statements on sexual morality – I do have a few things to say about the way in which he tries to support it.

Here is what he says on the matter, quoting from the BBC interview:

'Cardinal Napier referred to paedophilia as "a psychological condition, a disorder".
"What do you do with disorders? You've got to try and put them right.
"If I - as a normal being - choose to break the law, knowing that I'm breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished."
He said he knew at least two priests, who became paedophiles after themselves being abused as children.

"Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged."'

 Let us break down the argument in steps. Adding some hidden premises that are apparently assumed by the good Arch Bishop, the most likely (and potential least faulty) version would look something like this. It is rather complicated and partly sophisticated, and therefore needs to be presented in separate bundles of deductions, where I have put the important conclusions in bold type:

1. Pedophilia is a psychological disorder
2. Psychological disorders are conditions and not actions
3. People cannot be properly held criminally responsible for anything else than those of their actions that break the law
4. People cannot be properly held criminally responsible for being pedophiles

5. Sexual child abuse is caused by pedophilia

6. If an action that breaks the law is caused by a psychological disorder for which he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible, then the person who performs it does not know that he/she is thereby breaking the law
7. If a person performs an unlawful action without knowing that it is against the law, then he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible for performing that action.
8. If a person performs an action as a result of pedophilia, then he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible for performing that action
9. No one can properly be held criminally responsible for sexual child abuse.

10. If an action that breaks the law is caused by a psychological disorder for which he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible, then the person who performs it has not chosen to perform it
11. If a person performs an unlawful action without choosing to do so, then he/she cannot properly be held criminally responsible for performing that action.
12. Same as 8
13 Same as 9

14. Therefore (by 4, 5, 9 and 13): No one can properly be held criminally responsible for sexual child abuse

It is quite easy to spot the gaps, as well as the sinister rhetorical tricks employed, in this argument. To begin with the latter, the basis of Mr. Napier's argument is the completely plausible claim that pedophilia is a psychological disorder and that the criminal law system should not punish people for  having disorders. On this, I presume, we may all agree – pedophilia is in this respect no different from, e.g. psychopathy or kleptomania or, for that matter, the flu, being taller than 2 metres or shortsightedness. The law holds people people responsible for what they do – possibly in combination with why they did it – not for what they are. This is trivia, which the dear Bishop tries to create an impression having bearing on whether or not we should be held responsible for our actions.

However, as soon as the first step in that direction is taken (premise 5), trouble begins. For, as a matter of fact, it is by no means obviously true that sexual child abuse is caused by pedophilia. The thing is, you see, that it is rather the case that to the extent that someone is a pedophile in the sense that makes it into a disorder this simply means that they are prone to sexually abuse children, and the only indicator of that is that they in fact do so. That is, if someone is a pedophile in the sense of a disorder, then this is partly constituted by having on at least some occasion sexually abused a child. Similar things hold for many other psychological conditions that may be held out as disorders, such as sadism. Now, you might object that we may imagine someone who harbours sexual desires directed at children, but does not act on them – at least not in the form of actual abuse (but, e.g. fantasy only) and that such a person should be called a pedophile. Sure, I'd say, we may very well do so, but in that case, premise 1 of the argument becomes implausible, since what makes it sensible to say that a pedophile suffers from a psychological disorder is that this person does not direct his/her actions properly on the basis of prudence or social, moral or legal norms. It may further be observed, that if we thus would weaken the concept of pedophilia, premises 6 and 10 would be severely weakened as well. So, if this argument is to work, we need to hold on to a strong concept of pedophilia, where it means simply tendency to sexually abuse children and that, of course, does not tell us that pedophilia causes sexual child abuse, merely that acts sexual child abuse is an indicator of the mentioned tendency – i.e. pedophilia. The cause of the actions of sexual child abuse is not revealed.

However, just as the weaker concept of pedophilia would make trouble for premises 6 and 10, we can now see that also the stronger would – besides invalidating premise 5 that is. For the tendency to sexually molest children when provided with a (from the perpetrator's point of view) fitting opportunity would not, it seems to me, provide any reason to believe that a person having such a tendency is either unable to understand or know that sexual child abuse is against the law, or incapable of choosing to sexually abuse children. On the contrary, this tendency whereby the person selects certain occasions to perform acts of sexual child abuse, in fact supports the notion of them both knowing very well that it is against the law and performing acts of reasoning to make decisions about when to try to get away with the unlawful act and when not to. In short neither the fact that your actions result from an urge, or that they result from a tendency in virtue of past actions, invalidates that you may properly be held legally responsible for them. This is perfectly consistent with accepting the claim that such a person is not to be properly held criminally responsible for said urge or tendency, but for his/her actions.

So, why is the dear bishop making such a flawed argument? One explanation is, of course, the he is himself confused. However, a much more charitable and less insulting explanation is that he is doing his best to do what catholic officials always seem to be doing when the topic of sexual child abuse by clergy is raised – namely to protect his peers and defend the way in which the Catholic Church has been handling these things – that is, shielding hard criminals from the criminal justice system and on many occasions providing them with the opportunity to go on destroying the lives of children and youngsters in their care.

To see how this fits Mr. Napier's line of argument, we can inspect some possible corollaries (sub-conclusions) of its alleged conclusion (14). If 14 is true, it follows:

15. No Catholic clergy can properly be held criminally responsible for sexual child abuse

And if we for a moment forget that, legally and morally, we should all report suspected unlawful acts to the proper authorities, so that they can be investigated and decided on according to due process, thereby protecting legal security and rule of law, it would also follow:

16. The Catholic Church or its representatives are under no obligation to report suspected cases of sexual child abuse by clergy

So, as usual it comes down to the usual thing: trying to get away with it.

COP-17: Brazil, China, India, South Africa and USA Wearing the Dunce Cap, Europe the Jester's

Some of you may know that this has happened to become a bit of yearly feature – me commenting on the latest climate policy debacle happening as clockwork this time of year. Earlier posts are here and here. Sources for getting to know about the outcome of this year's COP are here, here, here, here, here, here (last three international, more below).

To summarise, the outcome of COP-15 in Copenhagen in 2009 was nothing except that everyone agreed to keep meeting and that having a climate change policy deal capable of stopping the increase of the global mean temperature at 2°C is an important target. In Cancún last year (COP-16), not even that happened, since Bolivia declined to sign on to continued talks. What did happen, though, was a sort of thing that ended up as the main product of this year's talks, namely agreement not on any policy, but on the practical structure of continued talks. In the COP-16 deal, this agreement was restricted to the way of handling the most difficult questions of all, namely the distribution of the costs of climate change policy (emission reductions as well as adaption to inevitable natural changes); which is planned to be dealt with through a special fund.

This year, nothing more about this fund was said (such as how it is going to become filled with money), but a similar empty institutional form has been set up for the entirety of the continued process, planned to lead to an agreement on emission reductions in 3 years. In short, instead of yearly meetings at the highest levels, there will be a committee that will work for almost 3 years to tailor an agreement and a new COP-meeting in 2015 where, hopefully, the committee can present a substantial deal about climate policy rather than meeting policy that all countries are willing to sign on to. This is the "roadmap" that is presented as the success of COP-17 in Durban.

As, usual, if the expert commentators are to be believed, this agreement, is full of ambiguities, grey areas and explicit holes, but that goes with the territory of international agreements. However, what it effectively does is to reduce the number of opportunities for the global community to actually agree on something with any chance of reaching the goal of no more than 2°C increase of the global mean temperature from three to one. After 2015, experts advise us that we will have to start calculating with more drastic average global temperature increases even if very effective policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions are eventually put into motion. Now, the 2° target, it must be understood, is not in any way magical or set in stone. In fact, some claims it to be a much too allowing goal. Moreover, the target is rather a range than an exact temperature, since the climate models necessarily embody rather drastic uncertainties. But the 2°C is of importance for two reasons. First, it is one of the very few substantial things about climate policy that the global community has been able to agree on. Second, it approximates the limit of our empirical knowledge from the past and, thus, our basis for prediction, preparation and adaption in face of the various changes that increases of the global mean temperature bring. A bit simplified, beyond 2°C, what we have is basically mathematics and fantasy – something that is amply illustrated by the predictive models in climate change research. Our ability to prepare for whatever will be coming – and thus to be capable of reversing the process without considerable higher cost to human life and well-being – becomes drastically weakened. So, seen in this light, the bare bones of COP-17 is that such a prospect has become 66% more likely by agreeing on one attempt to agree rather than three.

Now, if any politically minded person reads this, he or she will probably protest. The reasoning above ignores that the model of yearly meetings at the highest level has a solid record of failure, and that the Durban roadmap means that a committee will be working for three years before the next meeting. This is a big different to the situation where initiatives were left to individual countries or leagues of such. They will say: the basic problems – the unwillingness of high emission countries to commit to the needed reductions and the unwillingness of rich countries to face the fact that if they do not pay for the needed measures, no one will – necessitates that whatever proposal is presented at the next meeting is well worked out in the eyes of all sides and parties. I accept this logic of the pragmatics of politics, but I am skeptical about the conclusion. In fact, when not having the spotlights of the world stage on them, isn't it even more likely that high emission countries will continue to press even more heavily the rest for more concessions and rich countries do the same to less rich ones? Then, when the result is on the table,  all that will remain is the window-dressing that makes it look OK in the eyes of the public, while under the shiny surface mostly expressing short-term and, in this context, petty national interests. In short, committee, fine – but let's speed up and have one working while keeping on having at least one high-level meeting every year to ensure public and critical scrutiny the whole way!

Looking at things from that angle, however, implies a standpoint that fit most politicians pretty bad. It means, for example, acknowledging that this year's COP meeting, just as the former ones, was a massive failure. Not, as this commentary from UK Energy Secretary Chris Huhne tries to spin, a series of successes. Why is this so repugnant to a politician? Well, basically, because of two things. First, in the current situation, where the unholy CO2 emission alliance of Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the USA, are allowed to keep bullying the rest of the world, everything that is an avoidance of total disaster is possible to hold out as success. This is what the statements of Secretary Huhne and a whole band of European politicians are illustrating today. The presence of the climate policy boogeyman (i.e. above mentioned countries) is used to make oneself appear as a hero when, in fact, what has occurred is that one has let oneself be pressed one more notch in the shortsighted game of chicken played by these countries. In this game, apparently, Europe and the rest of the Kyoto-protocol signing countries are allowing themselves to become what game theorists know as money pumps – someone who is applying a strategy that makes one systematically vulnerable to making deals that sum up to a loosing position, while one's counterpart is systematically winning, although each singular deal may look like a winner. Giving in to blackmail (which is, effectively, what Europe is doing in the climate policy negotiation game) is a prime example.

On a larger scale, what is achieved by the Eurpean (plus Canada and Japan) strategy is the following: Brazil, China, India, South Africa and the USA can go hone from Durban, as they could from Copenhagen and Cancún, telling their people that all is well and that they needn't worry. They don't have to tell them that they need to change their expectations to future material growth, the price of energy or anything like that. Why not? Because they have ample evidence that they can press other countries to pay all those bills the day when they arrive. In effect, we may expect no, repeat no, preparation on the political home-fronts of these countries for a climate deal in 2015 which implies making actual concessions and taking on actual commitments. This, I claim, is the main result of the strategy of the EU and the rest of the world in Durban. So ask yourself, how likely does a substantial climate policy deal in 2015 look in that light?

Good work, Europe!