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Two and a Half Cases Where the Argument from Really Bad Behavior Fails

Three Naughty Views

In the first post of this series we considered the following three claims:

• Evolutionary theory should be rejected because it leads to tragedies like the Columbine massacre.¹
• Christianity should be rejected because it leads to hate crimes like Matthew Shepard's murder.²
• Islam should be rejected because it leads to terrorist attacks like 9/11.³

After we considered these claims, we asked the more general question, when (if ever) can we legitimately blame a religion, worldview or theory for something bad that someone has done? In order to answer this question, we imagined a girl named "Smith," we supposed that Smith held some view called "Beta," and we stipulated that Smith was guilty of some immoral action, which we called "stealing." Then we asked, Under what conditions could we legitimately blame Beta for Smith's stealing?⁴

In the second post of this series, we saw that, no matter what view "Beta" stands for, and no matter what immoral action "stealing" stands for, the answer to this question is complicated. It depends on the relation between the instance of behavior we are considering and whatever religion, worldview or theory we are tempted to blame for it. By the end of the second post, we had arrived at a conclusion for every possible relationship between Beta and stealing. These conclusions can be found here.

To evaluate the above claims about evolutionary theory, Christianity and Islam, all we have to do is replace "Beta," "Smith" and "stealing" with the relevant views, people and immoral actions.

Christianity

Since it's the view I'm most familiar with, let's take Christianity first. Can we legitimately blame Christianity for Matthew Shepard's murder? The answer will strike most Christians as obvious. If Christianity is true, then murder is immoral.⁵ Henderson and McKinney's killing of Shepard seems to be an unambiguous case of murder. So, Christianity entails that Henderson and McKinney shouldn't have murdered Shepard. By Negative Conclusion 1, we see that Christianity was not to blame for Matthew Shepard's murder.

Islam

Actually, things are not quite this simple, and we can see why when we ask whether Islam is to blame for 9/11.

The question whether we can blame Islam for 9/11 is complicated by the fact that it's hard to tell how Islam bears on the moral status of 9/11.⁶

On the one hand, self-proclaimed Muslims like bin Laden say Islam commands terrorist attacks like 9/11. If bin Laden's right, Positive Conclusion 1 applies and Islam is to blame for 9/11. But on the other hand, other self-proclaimed Muslims (including clergy and scholars) argue that Islam explicitly forbids terrorist attacks like 9/11,⁷ and if they are right, Negative Conclusion 1 applies. In this case — just as in the case of Shepard's murder and Christianity — we can't blame Islam for 9/11.

When reading the news and watching television reports, it's not uncommon to see a distinction between Islam and fundamentalist Islam — the former forbidding terrorism and the latter condoning or outright commanding it. This distinction would allow us to say that Negative Conclusion 1 applies to Islam while Positive Conclusion 1 applies to fundamentalist Islam. Unfortunately, the distinction itself is disputed. Not everyone agrees that bin Laden's views should be qualified as "fundamentalist."⁸ Some argue that he's following the teaching of true Islam.

I admit, I know too little about Islam to know which interpretation is correct. (I hope it's not bin Laden's, but I'm just hoping.) So, with respect to the question whether or not we can blame Islam for 9/11, I'll have to admit ignorance.

Before moving on to evolutionary theory, however, I want to point out that similar issues affect the question whether Christianity is to blame for Shepard's murder. Just as people blamed Islam for 9/11 because certain self-proclaimed Muslims claimed that Islam commands terrorism, people blamed Christianity for Shepard's murder because certain self-proclaimed Christians say (for example) "God hates fags."⁹ From the perspective of an outsider, it can be hard to tell what a religion really teaches. Realizing this, it's easier to understand why people may have thought Christianity was to blame for Shepard's murder.

Evolutionary Theory

As you are probably expecting by now, similar complications surround the question whether or not we can legitimately blame evolutionary theory for the Columbine massacre. This can be seen when we consider the words "evolutionary theory." What do people mean when they say "evolutionary theory"? For example, which (if any) of the following theories do these words usually name?

Theory A

God doesn't exist, and life has no meaning or purpose. Our moral sensibilities are accidental products of evolutionary processes. While some of our moral sensibilities confer evolutionary advantages, none of them is true. The truth is that nothing is morally right, and nothing is morally wrong. Morality itself is an illusion.

Theory B

Because nature has determined that only the fittest survive, it follows that only the fittest should survive. The strong are always morally permitted to dominate the weak. In fact, the strong have an obligation to dominate the weak. Might makes right.

Theory C

The organisms that populate our planet have descended from a common ancestor. The morphological diversity and complexity we see among these organisms is a result of natural selection working on random mutations. Natural selection isn't goal-directed, and the way it "selects" has nothing to do with ethics. Natural selection is a blind, mechanical process whereby certain traits come to predominate in a given population because they allow the organisms that possess them to bear more offspring than similar organisms that lack them.

As we can see from these three theories, different people use different terms to name different things. Some people use "evolutionary theory" to name views in the ballpark of Theory A. Others use the term to name views in the ballpark of Theory B. Still others use the term to name views in the ballpark of Theory C.

Insofar as "evolutionary theory" names a view like Theory A or B — and insofar as Harris and Klebold actually held a view like Theory A or B — the answer to our question is obvious. We can legitimately blame evolutionary theory for Columbine.¹⁰

But this leaves us short of establishing any link between Columbine and the evolutionary theory taught in biology textbooks. As anyone who's bothered to read The Origin of Species can attest, it also leaves us short of establishing any link between Columbine and the theory of evolution credited to Charles Darwin. Neither The Origin of Species nor contemporary biology textbooks forward theories like A or B. In both cases, "evolutionary theory" names a view like Theory C.

Can we legitimately blame Theory C for Columbine? Granted, Theory C does not condemn Harris and Klebold's actions. But that would only count against Theory C if that's what it was supposed to do. Suppose that Harris and Klebold believed that the dinosaurs went extinct as a result of a meteorite, or that there were two gunmen involved in the Kennedy assassination. Could we blame these theories for Columbine? Why not? The obvious answer is that these theories aren't moral theories. They aren't about what ought to happen. They're about what did happen. But the same goes for Theory C. Theory C, after all, is a theory about events in history. It's supposed to be an accurate description of the physical processes by which generations of Earth's organisms have grown increasingly complex and increasingly diverse.

Because Theory C isn't about morality — it has no moral content, and it was never meant to — it follows that, insofar as "evolutionary theory" names something like Theory C, Conditional Conclusion 3 applies, and we cannot blame evolutionary theory for Columbine.

This is just to say that the theory of evolution taught in science textbooks — the one standardly accredited to Charles Darwin — cannot legitimately be blamed for Columbine.

An Objection

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you think evolutionary theory can be blamed for Columbine? Why or why not?

Join the discussion!

Right now, thoughtful readers are probably objecting as follows: Wait a second. Evolutionary theory (that is, Theory C) undermines the credibility of the Bible, and thereby undermines the moral view presented in the Bible. So, if Harris and Klebold had never been exposed to Darwin's ideas or taught evolution in the classroom, they probably would have had a better moral foundation, in which case they probably never would have murdered their classmates. So, we can blame evolutionary theory (Theory C) for Columbine. And the same goes for Christianity and Matthew Shepard's murder, since Henderson and McKinney would have had no reason to care that Shepard was gay if they had never been exposed to the Christian view of homosexuality. So Christianity is to blame, too.

I think both of these objections are misguided. I'll say why in my next post.