I have now read the full text of Pope Benedict’s Sept. 12 lecture, a passage of which provoked global controversy and violence. I read it with an open mind and genuine interest, but it seems to me that the section on Islam is gratuitous and rather poorly argued.

As the Pope said in his quasi-apology, he meant his discussion of Islam to be incidental to his main theme, which concerns the relationship between faith and reason in Christianity. This is the skeleton of his argument:

The Greeks, being philosophical, decided that God could not (or would not) act “unreasonably”: in other words, against logos. On this basis, Socrates and other sophisticated Greek thinkers rejected myth, which had described gods acting arbitrarily. Their equation of divinity with reason already influenced Jewish thought before Jesus’ time. The Hebrew Bible evolved from mythical thinking toward an abstract, rational, omniscient deity (first evident in the words from the burning Bush: “I am”). The association of reason with divinity was also essential in the Gospels, as shown by John’s prologue: “In the beginning was ho logos.”

According to Benedict, the union of faith and reason naturally took place in Europe, where reason had been born, not in the irrational East: “Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe.”

However, faith and reason have come apart in Europe since the 16th century. First Protestants tried to strip the Bible of Greek metaphysics and treat it only as a sequence of literal events. Liberal theologians (including some Catholics) reinforced this tendency when they advocated a “return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization.”

It is a mistake to drive philosophical reason out of religion, Benedict argues, because God is rational and can be understood by means of philosophy. It is also an error to imagine science without faith:

[The] modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature’s capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty.

Because modern rationality assumes that nature has a mathematical character, science hints at transcendence. But because it views empirical verification as the criterion of rationality, it rules out the possibility of God. This is a contradictory position, Benedict thinks. He recommends that we “acknowledge unreservedly” the benefits of science, yet we must “[broaden] our concept of reason and its application” so that it can encompass faith. By reuniting faith and reason, the West will reopen a dialogue with “profoundly religious cultures,” which cannot fathom “a reason which is deaf to the divine.”

All of the above seems fairly mainstream for a conservative Catholic theologian. But the Pope chooses to illustrate his argument with a digression about Islam. He says that for the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, “spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.” This “statement is self evident” to “a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy.” In contrast, for an “educated Persian” who debates Paleologus, “God is absolutely transcendent …, not bound even by his own word.”

This is a very odd example to support Benedict’s major point. Did Paleologus really emphasize that conversion by the sword was “unreasonable”–incompatible with logos–and thus alien to God? Or did he simply say that it was wrong? Did the Persian really reply that God was “absolutely transcendent,” and therefore it was appropriate to convert people forcibly despite the dictates of reason? Or did the Persian agree with the Emperor about forcible conversion, citing Qur’an 2:256: “There shall be no compulsion in religion: the right way is now distinct from the wrong way.”

Benedict calls this passage from the Qur’an “one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.” Later, according to Benedict, Mohammed preached holy war. I am not competent to assess that interpretation of the Qur’an. But I would note a resemblance between Paleologus and the young Mohammed: both led groups who were very vulnerable to conquest. Indeed, Byzantium soon fell to a Moslem army (one that tolerated Christians and Jews). On the other hand, when Christians have been triumphant, they have not always been eager to argue that faith must be voluntary.

David Cook writes, “Islam was not in fact ‘spread by the sword’?conversion was not forced on the occupants of conquered territories?but the conquests created the necessary preconditions for the spread of Islam.” One could write exactly the same thing about Christianity. For example, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes the advantages enjoyed by the first Franciscans in Mexico: “The fact that they had found the territory conquered, and the inhabitants pacified and submissive, had greatly aided the missionaries; they could, moreover, count on the support of the Government, and the new converts on its favour and protection.”

The Catholic Encyclopedia denies that Mexican natives were converted by force, but there were certainly wars declared for the purpose of converting countries to Christianity. As the Encyclopedia itself states: “The meaning of the word crusade has been extended to include all wars undertaken in pursuance of a vow, and directed against infidels, i.e. against Mohammedans, pagans, heretics, or those under the ban of excommunication. The wars waged by the Spaniards against the Moors constituted a continual crusade from the eleventh to the sixteenth century; in the north of Europe crusades were organized against the Prussians and Lithuanians; the extermination of the Albigensian heresy was due to a crusade, and, in the thirteenth century the popes preached crusades against John Lackland and Frederick II.”

Thus I can imagine the “educated Persian” (a patronizing description, by the way) arguing that mass conversions to Christianity have often followed conquest. He could have observed cases in which Moslems tolerated Jews and Christians and cited the Book of Revelations to illustrate Christian bloodthirstiness: “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

The Pope was widely criticized for his lecture. As we know, he issued a new statement:

At this time, I wish also to add that I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address at the University of Regensburg, which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought.

I by no means condone violent reactions to Pope Benedict’s lecture. However, it strikes me that:

1) The digression about Islam and violence was gratuitous in an essay supposedly about faith and reason;

2) The Emperor Paleologus was obviously quoted to express Benedict’s personal thoughts;

3) The equation of Europe with reason (and the East with arbitrariness) is disturbing; and

4) It shows bad faith to depict Islam as a religion spread by the sword without at least noting the advantages that Christianity has reaped from violence.

A diverse range of people are arguing that we have overreacted to terror threats after 9/11. Their arguments include the following:

The statistical risk of being killed by a terrorist is very low. As John Mueller writes in a paper for the libertarian Cato Institute (pdf), “Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts.”

Responses to terror, however, can be very costly. Consider the price and inconvenience of airport screening procedures. Or the deaths caused when people drive instead fly because they are afraid of terror. Or public support for the Iraq war.

Acting terrified of terror encourages terrorists. It means that they can damage America simply by talking about plots. There is an emerging “we-are-not-afraid” movement that argues we ought to react to terrorist threats in a calm and unruffled manner.

The alleged British bombing plot probably shows a desire to blow up airplanes, but the conspirators may have been far from being able to pull off the terror of which they dreamed. (Phronesisaical has links.)

Fear of terror steers public resources to certain agencies and companies that have an incentive to stoke the fear further.

Irrational fear of terror distorts public opinion, to the advantage of incumbent politicians. Some see evidence of Machiavellian manipulation; but Mueller draws a more cautious conclusion: “There is no reason to suspect that President Bush’s concern about terrorism is anything but genuine. However, his approval rating did receive the greatest boost for any president in history in September 2001, and it would be politically unnatural for

him not to notice. … This process is hardly new. The preoccupation of the media and of Jimmy Carter?s presidency with the hostages taken by Iran in 1979 to the exclusion of almost everything else may look foolish in retrospect. … But it doubtless appeared to be good politics at the time–Carter’s dismal approval rating soared when the hostages were seized.”

I think these are good points, but there is another side to consider. It’s unreasonable to adopt a strictly utilitarian calculus that treats all deaths as equally significant. Every human being counts the same, yet we are entitled to care especially about some tragic events. If deaths were fungible, then none would really matter; they would all be mere statistics.

In particular, as a nation, we are entitled to care more about the 2,700 killed on 9/11 than about the roughly similar number of deaths to tonsil cancer in 2001. Pure utilitarianism would tell us that 9/11 happened in the past; thus it’s irrational to do anything about it, other than to try to prevent a similar disaster in the future. And it’s irrational to put resources into preventing a terrorist attack if we could prevent more deaths by putting the same money and energy into seat belts or cancer prevention. However, the attack on 9/11 was a story of hatred against the United States, premeditated murder, acute suffering, and heroic response. Unless we can pay special attention to moving stories, there is no reason to care about life itself.

In my view, we can rationally respond to 9/11 by bringing the perpetrators to justice, even at substantial cost, and even if they pose no threat. That violates the utilitarian reasoning that underlies Mueller’s argument. However, note that the Bush administration has not brought Bin Laden to justice. Also note that the 9/11 story may justify vengeance, but it does not justify excessive fear about similar attacks.

Finally, we must think carefully about responsibility. On a pure utilitarian calculus, we might be better off with virtually no airport security. A tiny percentage of people would be killed by bombers, because there aren’t very many terrorists with the will and the means to kill. By getting rid of airport screenings, we would save billions of dollars and vast amounts of time, and possibly even save lives by encouraging more people to fly instead of drive. But this reasoning doesn’t work. If a government cancelled airport screening procedures, some people would die, and it would not be irrational to pin the responsibility for those deaths on the government.

Thus no government can dismiss the terror threat, because people understandably hold the national security apparatus responsible for protecting them against terror. In contrast, protection against tonsil cancer is not seen as a state responsibility. I like the following passage by Senator McCain (quoted in Mueller), but I’m not sure that any administration could get away with using it as an anti-terror policy:

Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of being harmed by a terrorist! It?s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave. Suck it up, for crying out loud. You?re almost certainly going to be okay. And in the unlikely event you?re not, do you really want to spend your last days cowering behind plastic sheets and duct tape? That?s not a life worth living, is it?

To tell the truth, I have never taken a single course in either economics or psychology. However, my professional interests have led me to read a fair amount in both disciplines and to talk to scholars of both persuasions. I think I have noticed a basic difference.

Economists are interested in concrete actions: behaviors. They began by studying financial exchanges, but now they will investigate practically anything, including learning, war, marriage, and civic participation, as long as it involves observable or reportable acts. In contrast, pyschologists (since the decline of behaviorism) are interested in mental states, many of which are not directly observable. You can’t see what someone’s identity or mood or capacity is, nor can you necessarily ask the person directly. Pyschologists tend to measure these mental states by asking many questions or making many observations and creating statistically reliable “constructs.” Thus they like to use scales and factor analysis. (See this apparently classic 1955 paper.) Economists are suspicious of such constructs because there is always an imperfect correlation between the construct and its directly measured components.

I don’t think you can tell the difference between the disciplines by asking what they study: pyschologists explore human behavior in markets, and modern economists investigate practically everything. Instead, the divide is between a kind of empiricism or nominalism that distrusts general constructs, versus a kind of philosophical “realism” that takes unobserved mental states seriously.

As for political science–with apologies to my many friends in that field, it isn’t a discipline at all, but rather a topic area that uses methods from economics, pychology, philosophy, and narrative history.

I’ve been commissioned to write an article about John Dewey’s 1927 book, The Public and its Problems, and what it implies for contemporary democratic practice. Given my own interests, I have focused on its implications for public deliberation and civic education. My whole first draft is pasted “below the fold” for anyone who’s interested in Dewey or the philosophy of democratic education.

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I find it useful to teach WALKER v. CITY OF BIRMINGHAM, 388 U.S. 307 (1967) as an example of legal and moral reasoning. This is the case that originated with the arrest of Martin Luther King and 52 others in Birmingham, AL, at Easter, 1962. It is a rich example for exploring the rule of law, civil disobedience, religion versus secular law, procedures versus justice, and even the way that our moral conclusions follow from how we choose to tell stories.

By way of background:

In 1962, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) hoped to generate massive protests in Birmingham before the end of the term of Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor, the violently racist Commissioner of Public Safety. As the protests began, Connor obtained a state-court injunction against the marchers. When the SCLC leaders received the injunction on April 11, they stated, "we cannot in good conscience obey" it. King called it a "pseudo" law which promotes "raw tyranny under the guise of maintaining law and order."

At this point, the Direct Action campaign is in crisis: there have been only 150 arrests so far, and no more bail credit is available. On April 12 (Good Friday), Norman Amaker, an NAACP lawyer, says that the injunction is unconstitutional, but breaking it will result in jail time. King disappears from a tense conference, reappears in jeans. "I don’t know what will happen … But I have to make a faith act. … If we obey this injunction, we are out of business." Leads 1,000 marchers; he and 52 are arrested. He is sent to solitary confinement. In NYC, Harry Belafonte raises $50,000 for bail. The New York Times and President Kennedy condemn marches as ill-timed.

April 15 (Easter Sunday): MLK is released from solitary confinement, still in jail. Writes "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."

April 26: King is sentenced to five days with a warning not to protest. Sentence is held in abeyance.

May 2: Children’s march. King: “We subpoena the conscience of the nation to the judgment seat of morality."

May 20: Supreme Court strikes down Birmingham’s segregation ordinances. A deal is worked out.

September: bomb kills four little girls at Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

SCLC appeals King’s conviction for two reasons: to overturn the Birmingham parade ordinance, and to prevent future uses of injunctions against civil rights marchers. The case is [Wyatt Tee] Walker v. City of Birmingham. It is not decided until 1967 by the Supreme Court, which upholds King’s arrest and imprisonment on basically procedural grounds:

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