I’ve seen that C.S. Lewis quote before, and it seems to me quite mistaken. In this part:
But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did-if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbors or drive them mad or bring bad weather, surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did.
Lewis seems to suggest that executing a witch, per se, is what we consider bad. But that’s wrong. What was bad about witch hunts was:
People were executed without anything resembling solid evidence of their guilt — which of course could not possibly have been obtained, seeing as how they were not guilty and the crimes they were accused of were imaginary; but my point is that the “trial” process was horrifically unjust and monstrously inhumane (torture to extract confessions, etc.). If witches existed today, and if we believed witches existed today, we would still (one should hope!) give them fair trials, convict only on the strength of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, accord the accused all the requisite rights, etc.
Punishments were terribly inhumane — burning alive? Come now. Even if we thought witches existed today, and even if we thought the death penalty was an appropriate punishment, we’d carry it out in a more humane manner, and certainly not as a form of public entertainment (again, one would hope; at least, our moral standards today dictate thus).
So differences of factual belief are not the main issue here. The fact that, when you apply rigorous standards of evidence and fair prosecution practices to the witch issue, witchcraft disappears as a crime, is instructive (i.e. it indicates that there’s no such crime in the first place), but we shouldn’t therefore conclude that not believing in witches is the relevant difference between us and the Inquisition.
If witches existed today, and if we believed witches existed today, we would still (one should hope!) give them fair trials, convict only on the strength of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, accord the accused all the requisite rights, etc.
We would? That seems incredibly dangerous. Who knows what kind of things a real witch could do to a jury?
If you think humanity as a whole has made substantial moral progress throughout history, what’s driven this moral progress? I can tell a story about what drives factual progress (the scientific method, improved technology) but I don’t have an analogous story about moral progress. How do you distinguish the current state of affairs from “moral fashion is a random walk, so of course any given era thinks that past eras were terribly immoral”?
We would? That seems incredibly dangerous. Who knows what kind of things a real witch could do to a jury?
There is a difference between “we should take precautions to make sure the witch doesn’t blanket the courtroom with fireballs or charm the jury and all officers of the court; but otherwise human rights apply as usual” and “let’s just burn anyone that anyone has claimed to be a witch, without making any attempt to verify those claims, confirm guilt, etc.” Regardless of what you think would happen in practice (fear makes people do all sorts of things), it’s clear that our current moral standards dictate behavior much closer to the former end of that spectrum. At the absolute least, we would want to be sure that we are executing the actual witches (because every accused person could be innocent and the real witches could be escaping justice), and, for that matter, that we’re not imagining the whole witchcraft thing to begin with! That sort of certainty requires proper investigative and trial procedures.
If you think humanity as a whole has made substantial moral progress throughout history, what’s driven this moral progress? I can tell a story about what drives factual progress (the scientific method, improved technology) but I don’t have an analogous story about moral progress. How do you distinguish the current state of affairs from “moral fashion is a random walk, so of course any given era thinks that past eras were terribly immoral”?
That’s two questions (“what drives moral progress” and “how can you distinguish moral progress from a random walk”). They’re both interesting, but the former is not particularly relevant to the current discussion. (It’s an interesting question, however, and Yvain makes some convincing arguments at his blog [sorry, don’t have link to specific posts atm] that it’s technological advancement that drives what we think of as “moral progress”.)
As for how I can distinguish it from a random walk — that’s harder. However, my objection was to Lewis’s assessment of what constitutes the substantive difference between our moral standards and those of medieval witch hunters, which I think is totally mistaken. I do not need even to claim that we’ve made moral progress per se to make my objection.
I’ve seen that C.S. Lewis quote before, and it seems to me quite mistaken. In this part:
Lewis seems to suggest that executing a witch, per se, is what we consider bad. But that’s wrong. What was bad about witch hunts was:
People were executed without anything resembling solid evidence of their guilt — which of course could not possibly have been obtained, seeing as how they were not guilty and the crimes they were accused of were imaginary; but my point is that the “trial” process was horrifically unjust and monstrously inhumane (torture to extract confessions, etc.). If witches existed today, and if we believed witches existed today, we would still (one should hope!) give them fair trials, convict only on the strength of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, accord the accused all the requisite rights, etc.
Punishments were terribly inhumane — burning alive? Come now. Even if we thought witches existed today, and even if we thought the death penalty was an appropriate punishment, we’d carry it out in a more humane manner, and certainly not as a form of public entertainment (again, one would hope; at least, our moral standards today dictate thus).
So differences of factual belief are not the main issue here. The fact that, when you apply rigorous standards of evidence and fair prosecution practices to the witch issue, witchcraft disappears as a crime, is instructive (i.e. it indicates that there’s no such crime in the first place), but we shouldn’t therefore conclude that not believing in witches is the relevant difference between us and the Inquisition.
Considering people seemed to think that this was the best way to find witches, 1 still seems like a factual confusion.
2 was based on a Bible quote, I think. The state hanged witches.
We would? That seems incredibly dangerous. Who knows what kind of things a real witch could do to a jury?
If you think humanity as a whole has made substantial moral progress throughout history, what’s driven this moral progress? I can tell a story about what drives factual progress (the scientific method, improved technology) but I don’t have an analogous story about moral progress. How do you distinguish the current state of affairs from “moral fashion is a random walk, so of course any given era thinks that past eras were terribly immoral”?
Who knows what kind of things a real witch could do to an executioner, for that matter?
There is a difference between “we should take precautions to make sure the witch doesn’t blanket the courtroom with fireballs or charm the jury and all officers of the court; but otherwise human rights apply as usual” and “let’s just burn anyone that anyone has claimed to be a witch, without making any attempt to verify those claims, confirm guilt, etc.” Regardless of what you think would happen in practice (fear makes people do all sorts of things), it’s clear that our current moral standards dictate behavior much closer to the former end of that spectrum. At the absolute least, we would want to be sure that we are executing the actual witches (because every accused person could be innocent and the real witches could be escaping justice), and, for that matter, that we’re not imagining the whole witchcraft thing to begin with! That sort of certainty requires proper investigative and trial procedures.
That’s two questions (“what drives moral progress” and “how can you distinguish moral progress from a random walk”). They’re both interesting, but the former is not particularly relevant to the current discussion. (It’s an interesting question, however, and Yvain makes some convincing arguments at his blog [sorry, don’t have link to specific posts atm] that it’s technological advancement that drives what we think of as “moral progress”.)
As for how I can distinguish it from a random walk — that’s harder. However, my objection was to Lewis’s assessment of what constitutes the substantive difference between our moral standards and those of medieval witch hunters, which I think is totally mistaken. I do not need even to claim that we’ve made moral progress per se to make my objection.