Ethics in Tangents: Part 3 - Ayodhya Dispute and Claims from Faith

In this post I very briefly discuss the Ayodhya dispute, and using points of departure from it, try to point out the inferences that could be drawn. These inferences fall largely in the domain of ethics. Note here that I am not saying I am drawing these inferences, but that they could be drawn, and will rather try to show that the way ethics in our World are perceived and had perhaps traditionally been practiced in the past, there are many inconsistencies in their application. Readers are obviously encouraged to give their feedback, for I lay no claim to perfection in the logic I use (especially so in this blog post) as I deal with something so contentious that the Indian Judiciary has not been able to come up with a verdict on the 'ownership' of the land despite little paucity of, or for that matter, even need for evidence. In the process, I rely upon two major assumptions (kindly note the emphasis). The first one being that a temple devoted to Ram had actually existed in Ayodhya at the disputed site, and second, that journalist-writer, Dilip D'Souza (click) has paraphrased quite faithfully L. K. Advani's (and the BJP's) stance when he states the following in his article - Memories of resolution and resolve (click):

1. "...how could the courts rule on this matter of faith, they (BJP) asked righteously"
2. "For a man (Atal Behari Vajpayee) who resolved with his party -- then not in office, OK -- that the dispute could not be resolved in the courts, this is a complete and abject turnabout."
3. "Seeing hope now in the courts is as frankly silly as when Advani shouted hoarsely from his Toyota that no court on earth could decide this matter of faith"

So, from above three sentences used by Dilip, one could conclude that the BJP and especially so, Advani had asserted that: matters of faith cannot be decided by courts of law. Elsewhere in the same article, he is quoted to have provided both legislation or out-of-court settlement between the two religious communities as viable alternatives to break through the impasse.

The reasons I make the above assumptions are because they seem reasonable ones to make, and that there is little reason to be skeptical about them. Though I must point out that the first assumption has been contested. This contention, and the sequence of important events and their historical background could be found in two Wikipedia articles - Babri Mosque (click) and Ayodhya Debate (click), which I have incidentally used as my primary sources of information. This dispute is sourced in the 16^th century, much, much before I was born. As is usually the case, history is rarely chronicled reliably, which is of special significance in the given issue. Moreover, I am not a professional historian, nor a journalist to have kept tabs on all the major events. Lastly, I was quite young when the Babri Mosque was demolished in 1992, of which I remember little. So obviously, my knowledge and understanding of the issue cannot be taken as an authoritative one, still I have formed opinions on it, which are in flux, and yet I venture out to publicize them for two reasons. One, there is hardly any subject on which the 'final word' is ever spoken. Meaning, we always come across new pieces of information that alter our opinions, or new arguments to shift our positions. So in most areas of life, we form opinions or reach decisions despite possessing knowledge and understanding that could be assessed as only far from complete, so why not on this one? Two, as I am not a stakeholder of the disputed site, nor an influential person insofar as my opinion can have a bearing on the final outcome of verdict to be announced on the 28^th of this month, I believe, there is no harm in coming out with it (my take).

In very brief, I discuss the timeline of Ayodhya dispute, as I understand it:

1. 1558: 'Mir Banki' - a General of Babar, the Mughal ruler, destroys the Ram Temple.
2. 1850s: In the interim, both Hindus and Muslims used to worship at the site. However, there were clashes between the two communities in 1850s, and the British had built a fence around the main structure. Hindus were not allowed entrance, and they used to offer prayers on a raised platform. The festival of Ram Navmi (which marks the birth of Ram) was also celebrated by the Hindus at the site for at least since over a century.
3. 1883-86: Few representations were made by Hindus seeking permission to build a Temple on the raised platform, which were rejected by the British Judges.
4. 1934: There were some religious clashes between Hindus and Muslims, the Mosque was damaged, which was made good by the British.
5. 1936: Within the provisions of an act passed in 1936, the Mosque and the surrounding area were recognized to be owned by the 'UP Waqf Board'
6. 1949: Gradually, as claimed by Hindus, Muslim interest in the site had waned and by 1947, they had stopped offering Namaaz there. Moreover, the government had disallowed Muslims to enter within 200 m of the site. Only Hindus were allowed to enter, but that too through a side-door. [Here though, I must point out that if Muslims were anyway not offering prayers there, why would there be a need to make the site out-of-bounds for them? So, something is not making definite sense to me, but as I mentioned above, some of the details of events and reasons behind them remain unclear.]
7. 1949: Idols of Ram and Sita were sneaked into the Mosque at night. This was reported by the police, when discovered. The following morning a large mob of Ram devotees had tried to enter the Mosque, but which was prevented from doing so. At this point, the then Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru on learning of the incident had ordered removal of the two idols from the temple. Significantly, a Waqf Inspector at around that time had complained that Hindus would jeer at Muslims entering and exiting the Mosque for offering Namaaz (something that contradicts the claim that Muslims were not using the Mosque).
8. 1984: Though Hindus had since long been interested in the reclamation of the site and restoration of the Temple, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad revived this demand more vocally and had resolved to build a Temple devoted to the infant Ram at the site.
9. 1985: Rajiv Gandhi government had passed a resolution to have the main locks of the Mosque opened for Hindus, the Allahabad High Court also ordered the same in 1989.
10. 1989: In November (prior to General Election), the VHP had obtained permission (from whom? - that is unclear) to perform Shilanyas ("stone laying ceremony") at the site. This had sparked Muslim unease and protests.
11. 1992: December 6 - the Babri Mosque was demolished, in which prominent leaders of the BJP, like L. K. Advani have been implicated to have played a provocative role by the Liberhan Commission instituted by the then Congress government.
12. There are claims that during excavation remnants suggesting existence of Jain or Buddhist architecture were also found. However, I do not know if these claims are verified, and that in which stratum of the soil were these remains found - that is what would eventually determine what was the first place of worship built at the disputed site.

As is the case with complicated problems, let me try to bring in an analogy, which I hope would simplify the considerations involved.

There are two neighbors - 'A' and 'B'. 'A' owns a board game, which is his major source of entertainment. 'B' is a much more powerful person, and for some reasons, snatches away the game kit from 'A'. Moreover, 'B' does not have much use for the game kit as he does not enjoy board games much. Whether 'A' had protested or not is not clearly known, though he would have, as can be thought of as natural with any kind of extortion. At the same time, the B-family erases the preexisting design on the board, and replaces it with one that would make it conducive to a set of rules different from the one by which the A-family plays. Significantly, they also remove a few squares from the board that are most vital to the A-family's set of rules of game-play. Now, 'B' 'bequeaths' the game kit to his son, who in turn bequeaths it to his son, and henceforth. Now, the game kit ends up with one of the descendants of 'B'. Just like 'B', 'b' also does not find that particular board game too interesting. Correspondingly, the contemporary of 'b' is 'a', who is a descendant of 'A'. All through the course of time, certain indeterminate (but perhaps, large) fraction of the descendants of 'A' very much want the game kit to be theirs, and are opposed to its possession by the B-family, which the A-family members feel is illegal. The reason protesting A-members cannot seek legal redress is because the B-family also happens to be the village head, who sits in judgment of all such disputes! Then, the village head changes. This time it is 'J'. Again, members of the A-family demand that the game kit be returned to them, but the new village head tells them that "as the incident of snatching away the game kit was too old, nothing could be done about it". Now, the new village head recognizes the A-family's need for entertainment and thus takes a view more sympathetic than had been taken by the B-family, and asks that the A-family be allowed to use certain section of the board, but still leaves its possession with the B-family, and in fact legitimatizes such possession of the board by B-family using a new provision of law. Moreover, the new judge does not allow restoration of board's original structure as otherwise the game kit would be rendered useless for the B-family, which would amount to injustice, because the new Judge deems the B-family to be the rightful owner. Then, again the judge changes to 'j' [please note here that 'j' follows most of the laws 'J' had defined and also does not recognize himself as truly distinct from 'J' by way of honoring the precedents set by 'J' and also by recognizing the records of ownership maintained by 'J'] . By now, the A-family becomes much more powerful than the B-family. Some of the A-family members forcibly insert the missing squares so that the board would become fully functional for the manner in which they want to play their game. However, 'j' intervenes, and has those squares removed. But 'j' also disallows the B-family from using the board, though its 'possession' remains with the B-family itself. Ultimately, 'j' allows A-family to use the entire board, but without allowing re-insertion of the squares nor allowing any kind of redrawing. Also, some of the A-family descendants want to make the board look more beautiful, of course which is denied by 'j'. Concurrently, the B-family was offered another board to design its game on, which was rejected by those members of the B-family that were deemed as the both the representatives of the B-family and also as 'owners' of the original board by both 'J' and 'j'. So one of these days, few of the A-family members completely erase the designs drawn by the B-family. The B-family vehemently protests this. This act by the A-family is seen widely as illegal, because the erasure of the design did not have the sanction of 'j'. Another reason it is critiqued is is because the B-family protests the act and sees it as bullying. Later, some sketchy evidence emerges that even before the board was owned by A-family, it was owned by the 'C'-family!

Well, I have laid the analogy above. Obviously, being an analogy, there are bound to be significant incongruities between it and the 'real' situation. Significant among them being:

1. In the analogy, the warring parties are well-recognized individuals with unambiguous property rights to begin with as far as the ownership of the game kit are concerned. Whereas, this is not the case with the disputed land. Though, it seems in 1936, the British 'invented' the ownership of the site by awarding it to the 'Waqf' board or in other words, awarding it to the Muslim community, thus granting a status of a syndicate
2. The emotional attachment aspect of both the communities towards their respective structures (whatever be its degree or justifiability) has been overlooked. But this because, I believe, justice should not be based on emotional attachment.
3. The motives of the A- and the B-families in wanting to hold on to the board have again not been figured. This is similar to the second point above, meaning, what one plans to do with what one possesses is not an index to whether that person is the 'rightful' owner or not.

I again encourage the reader to point out other significant departures in the analogy from the real thing.

Now, let us analyze the entire dispute over the game kit more closely. At the heart of the entire issue is one of 'ownership' - the idea that a board can be owned by a person or group of persons, who reserve the right of what could be done to that board, what could be done with that board, and most important, who else to allow or to disallow from using it, and what kind of uses to allow/disallow.

Let me start with a 'sub-analogy' (that is, an analogy within an analogy): Suppose, 1 steals a watch from 0, and then gives it to 2. Can we now consider 2 to be the rightful owner of the watch? Would we consider 0's demand legitimate that the watch be returned back to him?

I am guessing, most would answer that in 'no' and 'yes' respectively. The reason behind our answer would be that:

"To have the legitimate right to transfer the ownership of something one must own it in manner that is considered legitimate in the first place."

... [a.1]

But let us slightly complicate the sub-analogy above: what if 2, instead of keeping the watch for himself, transfers it to 3, who transfers it to 4, and who to 5. Would 0 still have the right to claim the watch as his own? Would 5 be considered the rightful owner of the watch?

I guess, many would still respond that the watch be rightly restored to 0, and that 5 cannot claim any ownership of the watch, because just like how transfer of watch from 1 to 2 would be not recognized as legitimate, that of 2 to 3, 3 to 4 and 4 to 5 would also not be recognized as legitimate. This leads us to yet another assertion:

"The illegitimacy of transfer of ownership is independent of the number of hands the property passes from 'under'. In other words, a series of transfers of ownership does not make legitimate the final transfer, if the first transfer of ownership was illegitimate (stealing, for instance)."

... [a.2]

So, using the above two points and applying them to the original analogy of game board, one would assume that 'b' never really was in its possession, as the first acquisition of the board itself was by an illegitimate method (extortion). This, because A had never willingly handed over the game board to B. So can we say that 'A' was the rightful owner of the game board, and by extension, so is 'a'? And as corollary, 'b' is not the rightful owner of the board?

It might be tempting to answer the above as 'yes' and 'yes', but let me try to explain the complications involved.

The answer in affirmative would depend on our assuming that the forceful acquisition of the board was illegitimate. The reason I say this amounts to an assumption and not some kind of verifiable, absolute truth is because, the said extortion seems illegitimate from the perspective of current code of ethics and the penal law we follow! And we cannot use the legal system of our times to impose the conclusions that follow on an entirely different system of justice (that must have existed when 'B' took away the board from 'A'). And it can also be safely assumed that the system of justice that prevailed when 'B' took away the board from 'A' did not find the act illegitimate, otherwise the ownership of the game board would have been restored to the original owner 'A'. Some might point out that the justice system back then must have not existed, or that it was undemocratic, barbaric, etc. But while trying to assess whether the transfer of ownership by 'B' to his son 'b' was illegitimate or not, we need to prove that the method by which 'B' had acquired it from 'A' was illegitimate exactly at the time when it was being acquired! Let me veer off into another small example. Let us assume there was a time when spitting on the roads was not illegal, and then a few years later when spitting was made punishable someone brings to a court's notice a video clip of a person spitting on road. Would we then apply the current set of rule to an act (and punish the spitting person) when different set of rules had existed, and under which spitting was not illegal? I guess, most would say that the spitting person cannot be punished. So, applying similar logic, if the system that existed during the extortion of game board did not find such acquisition illegal, then all the subsequent transfers that led 'b' to ultimately come in possession of the game board would also be legal. So, I submit that:

"The legitimacy or illegitimacy of an act are determined by the code of ethics and law that had prevailed and to which the concerned parties ('aggressor' and 'victim') were subjected. And the said legitimacy versus illegitimacy cannot be determined retrospectively using the current system of law and ethics."

... [b.1]

Now let me bring in another complicating factor. If someday using points a.1 and a.2, Red Indians in the USA appeal to the people of other ethnicities to leave their continents as they were the rightful owner of everything that existed in there and that each and every instance of acquisition of any kind of property was forceful and thus illegitimate, and so were the subsequent transfers, what would our response be? Would we be able to 'do justice' to their demand? I guess, most would be in an ethical dilemma at this question. What would justify the retention of status quo, that is, keeping the property with current owners and thus rejecting the claim of the Red Indians? [Here, I am not getting into distracting details like whether 'pure breed' Red Indians still exist or not; the question is purely hypothetical]. What would again prevent us from transferring back all the property rights to the Red Indians would partly be the reason b.1, but apart from that the fact that on analysis of many such historical cases of acquisition, it seems that the aggressor becomes the rightful owner of something if the original owner stops complaining or is put in such position by the aggressor that the victim cannot complain (say, by actually killing or threatening to harm). From citing of these instances, one could conclude that:

"If acquisition of a property is forceful, and if the new ownership is maintained for long enough so that the original owner is in no position to complain/protest or stops complaining/protesting, then even most current systems of law and ethics recognize the aggressor as the rightful owner and the original owner is thought to have been validly dispossessed of his property."

... [b.2]

Though, b.2 seems barbaric and quite at odds with our current world view, the fact is, for practical concerns, we are forced to take that position. And no, I won't even go into the perhaps-by-now-debunked 'Aryan invasion theory' and how all the 'Aryans' - whoever they may be - and the exhortation that they leave the Indian subcontinent to the native people - whoever they may be! ;) So, from the above two arguments (b.1 and b.2) it seems that the game board could be entirely turned over to the B-family. Please note that though there are exactly two reasons each to restore the board to A-family or alternatively, to maintain the status quo by entirely transferring the ownership to B-family, the b-points (that is, those that support B-family's ownership) supersede the a-points in their applicability. So, we can conclude here that B-family should be the rightful owner of the game board, provided it could be proved that B-family had completely decimated the A-family or had threatened the A-family sufficiently into conceding its ownership. But that is something that as of now remains indeterminate and the decision in that regard would depend on the evidence of such complaints/protests provided by the A-family.

But, but, but... every time the system of ethics and justice changes (which would usually happen with the change in the ruler), it automatically takes it upon itself to make null and void all the previously established norms of ownership and its transfer. This also enables the new regime to set new norms of ownership and also allows it to nullify the existing ownerships. It is precisely this mechanism that had allowed the justice system that had existed at the time when 'B' had forcefully acquired the game board from 'A' to do so. In simple words, the moment 'B'-family started applying its justice system (by virtue of being the village head). It had assumed the power to dissolve the previous norms of ownership and also the specific instances of ownership (e.g., the A-family's ownership of the board). Because had it not nullified the preexisting norm as well as the status of ownership, it would have never allowed 'B' to take ownership of the board. It is not difficult to see that the guiding philosophy of that justice system was sadism - of gaining pleasure through troubling the A-family and asserting B-family's supremacy over the A-family. Whether this goal was noble or ignoble or moral or otherwise is not the concern. But that the new justice system started reevaluating the individual instances of ownership based on its own goals and the ideals it envisaged.

"Each time a new system of justice and ethics takes over, going by the historical precedents, it has the right to consider null and void all existing claims of ownership. Moreover, the new system will try to take decisions based on its fundamental philosophy and the goals the regime it serves seeks to achieve."

... [c.1]

Above point c.1 sounds contradictory to b.2, but there is a subtle difference. b.2 says that we cannot call some act illegitimate using current standards if at the time of commission of that act it was not recognized as illegitimate. Whereas, c.1 legitimatizes the rights of a new justice system to consider null and void all instances of preexisting ownership, irrespective of whether those instances of ownership were considered legitimate or not. In fact, it is the same logic that had also allowed 'J' to further legitimatize B-family's ownership of the board in face of continual protests by the A-family and its attempts to take back the possession of the board.

"Same considerations would apply to the struggle of ownership between the C-family and the A-family. Original and rightful owner of the board could be considered to be the C-family (instead of the A- or the B-family) if it could be proved that they had also continuously protested the forceful taking over of the board by A-family just like A-family (seemingly) had protested such taking over by the B-family."

... [C.2]

Here, one more thing that needs to be considered is that by virtue of the fact that 'j' is a descendant of 'J', and in fact considers his own justice system and that of 'J' to be one continuum, it also gives 'j' the power to review and overturn the decisions taken by 'J'.

A small note: I had done all the above analysis, and drafted most of it independently using my understanding of ethics, law, concepts of ownership, human behavior and history. However a few days earlier, I had come across the concept of 'adverse possession' (click). Its concept is very similar to the point b.2 above. Wikipedia defines the concept as:

"Adverse possession is a process by which premises can change ownership. It is a common law concept concerning the title to real property (land and the fixed structures built upon it). By adverse possession, title to another's real property can be acquired without compensation, by holding the property in a manner that conflicts with the true owner's rights for a specified period."

The same Wikipedia article further gives the minimum criteria that must be fulfilled for the disseisor (the aggressor who seeks to supplant the original claim to ownership) to become the new rightful owner:

1. Actual possession of the property - The disseisor must 'use' the new property.
2. Open and notorious use of the property - Use of the property must not be covert, and the original owner must be aware of such use by the disseisor.
3. Exclusive use of the property - The disseisor must exclude others (including the original owner) from using the property. This would be seen as the disseisor claiming ownership of the property.
4. Hostile or adverse use of the property - The disseisor has to occupy and use the property in a manner that is protested or disapproved of by the original owner.
5. Continuous use of the property - The disseisor must use the property continuously from the time of taking over its possession to the point in time when the matter is brought under consideration.

Though, the Wikipedia does not mention it in the list of minimum criteria, it talks of two similar premises, on which the concept of adverse possession is based - the doctrine of laches (that the original owner, if not making claim to his adversely possessed property in timely manner is seen to have lost the claim) and statute of limitations (the time within which a crime has to be reported, otherwise the court would not take it up for hearing).

I have no idea of the sections of property acts in India that deal with adverse possession, and it also needs to be pointed out that the Wikipedia article is largely based on the US justice system, and the provisions there could be somewhat different. Moreover, I read that this provision that is seen to be sympathetic towards a hostile trespassers and unjust to the original owners is falling out of favor. The only reason I had brought up this concept was because it adds another angle to the legal aspects of the problem.

So, now applying all the above conclusions that were drawn from above premises, analogies and examples to the situation at hand, i.e., the Ayodhya dispute, we can conclude that what needs to be done would be largely based on the discretion of the present Indian Judiciary, because based on precedents set, it has the right to consider null and void all the titles of ownership that had existed before its establishment. Moreover, it is also within its power to review the decision by the British government of recognizing the ownership of the 'UP Waqf Board', more specifically whether such recognition falls in line with the founding principles of the Indian Constitution. Also inadvertently, the Indian Judiciary would be passing a judgment on what it thinks of the acts of Babar's general - Mir Banki - that is, whether it approves of the manner of acquisition of property by way of not reversing such possession despite having the right to do so. Please note that in the conclusions that I have derived, [a] series stands for arguments that support restoration of the disputed site to the (representatives of) Hindus, [b] series stands for complete restoration of the disputed site to the (representatives of) Muslims, and [c] series stands for arguments that lead to outcomes based largely on discretion.

I also need to point out here that, irrespective of whether the Court hands over the title deed of the disputed land to (representatives of) 'Hindus' or not, the act of Babri Mosque demolition would be deemed a crime as at the time of demolition, no one was authorized to demolish it.

Also, as I mentioned further what further complicates the matters is, though the majority of Indians view the Babri issue as a struggle between the Hindu and the Muslim communities, the fact is that the courts do not recognize an owner-entity called 'Hindu community' or 'Muslim community'.

Now, returning to Mr. Advani's assertion that matters of faith cannot be decided by courts of law, I would just like to ask, then what is all that precedes? Of course, I am no expert in law, nor of philosophy/ethics. But despite my limited knowledge and understanding, I have tried to resolve the larger issue into its individual attendant smaller issues. The claim from faith is one of the most horrible one. It seeks to spit in the face of one ability that separates humans from other animals - that of observing, questioning, thinking and answering. This intelligence is what separates humans from other species. An out-of-court settlement though seems a good solution as it might, in opinion of few, prevent lot of violence and blood shed, but in reality, it might be an unethical way of dealing with things also. Meaning, who would negotiate, and on what basis would we be able to determine who they represent? What if the 'UP Sunni Waqf Board' does not represent the views/aspirations of all/majority of Muslims? Or alternatively, is 'The Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas' truly representative of all Hindus' views/aspirations? Also, a legislative action would not be appropriate as the legislature is not trained nor qualified to weigh the various evidences available. So, whatever be the dispute, faith, which is antithetical to human capacity to reason cannot be invoked for resolution.

Synopsis:

I hope that I have been able to highlight the major ethical considerations in my analysis. It is easy to confuse that I was trying to deal with the legal aspects of the problem, because law is very much based on ethics. However, I have studiously avoided dealing with legal issues, because I am not an expert, I do not have all the evidence at my disposal, and also because, in some areas law might not coincide with what is most pragmatic or what could be perceived as most ethical.

One of the most important problems I wanted to highlight was that as the human race has progressed ahead, somehow, perhaps because of lesser scarcity of resources for basic survival, frequency of armed conflicts has drastically come down. Some might wish to disagree, but it must be noted that this shift can be gauged from the fact in quite a few discussions, violence is seen as reprehensible and it is accepted that it should be used as the last resort. [I do not know how it used to be in the past, but it seems mass murderers were celebrated as 'conquerors' and 'successful' kings, etc. It also seems that in the past, high premium was laid on physical strength and the ability to inflict wounds and kill. But such people are not usually celebrated in the civil society]. What this shift in public opinion, which tilts towards universal human rights, has done is that violent means of acquiring property are outlawed and are severely criticized in the public. This has reduced the number of instances of such forceful acquisitions. But when we look back in history, such forceful acquisitions were considered quite legitimate, and in fact were even celebrated. So, when we try to determine the legitimacy of current ownerships that were at behest of such coercion, we are faced with an ethical dilemma. Can such properties that were acquired by the ancestors of current owners through force (illegally bu current standards) be considered legal/legitimate/ethical. This confusion arises, because one of the important caveats in application of both ethics and law is consistency, meaning that two similar/identical acts carried out in exactly same circumstances but involving different people at different time and place should be considered similarly/identically legal/legitimate/ethical or otherwise.

So, the question is: what point in time shall we set before which the forceful acquisition of any property that would have occurred should be considered legitimate and whatever would occur later than that would be considered illegitimate?

Disclaimer:

1. I am not an expert at law. This analysis is an outcome of my crude understanding of various issues involved. Also, it was not keeping in view the technicalities of law and the need for evidence (e.g., whether a Temple devoted to Ram existed at the disputed site and whether what was demolished in 1992 was indeed a Mosque going by the legal definition of a Mosque), but rather my crude understanding of ethics, on which legal system of almost all democratic and liberal countries are based.
2. Many have argued that the site should be taken over by the government (using the Constitutional provision equivalent to that of 'eminent domain') and used for larger good of the public. I very strongly opposed to this idea. Because, this view would then allow for sadistic elements in the society to dispossess others of their legitimately owned property simply by disputing its ownership fully knowing that others would urge the property's taking over by the Indian State. E.g., if I break the glasses of a pub at a disputed site, can then others urge that instead of trying to establish its genuine ownership using evidence available and the provisions of law, that the government take it over and convert it into a hospital for larger good of the society because nobody needs a pub anyway?

PS: A good article I had come across explaining the basic issues considered by the Allahabad High Court could be found here - The Ayodhya Anatomy (click) by The Telegraph (Calcutta).

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Ethics in Tangents: Part 2 - Ethicality and False sense of Obligation of Producing Children

What follows is modified and significantly expanded from one of my (long) tweets, but it contains doubts/conjectures that I have had for a long time, and which I have articulated at various places in different words.

How ethical is the decision to have a child? If it sounds weird, by it, I mean, do prospective parents really have a right to bring children to life, without seeking (the prospective children's) permission? Perhaps the elaboration sounds even weirder, but given that a hitherto unborn person cannot 'regret' not being born, but an alive person - depending on how life treats him/her - could end up very unhappy and in pain, it seems that every time parents decide to have a child, they are risking pain and unhappiness to the child despite having the option of not taking such risk. What to me makes this very tricky is that the impact of a decision taken by two (or more, in case of Indian families) people affects a totally different person!

To give an analogy:

If you are given a choice to press or not press a button, which would totally randomly give either a chocolate or a pin prick to someone else who is sound asleep (and is thus, neither experiencing pain nor pleasure), what would you do?

For me, the ethical choice would be to not press the button. It might be argued that "but then there is also a chance that the person would get the chocolate"! But remember, putting up that argument still entails taking a decision on someone else's behalf whose disposition we just do not know! How do we know such a person would prefer chocolate to avoidance of a pin prick? However, if I do not press the button, the person remains asleep, and would never regret not being able to get the chocolate he/she could have got on the pressing of button. The counterargument could be that, that by not pressing the button we are depriving the person of a chance to get a chocolate, which would also be a decision in itself. True, it would be, but usually any sort of inaction is unethical when an action is called for. E.g., if a person walking by your side suddenly feels giddy and extends his/her hand towards you (indicating a demand for assistance), then taking an action (helping) would seem more ethical than inaction (not helping). But imagine, that person is not feeling giddy. In that case, action is not called for, and your not helping (obviously) would not be unethical. I hope, I could explain how this example would apply to depriving a person of a chocolate that he is not needing/desiring by virtue of being asleep. [Of course, it needs to be assumed that he/she will remain sound asleep forever, and not complain after 'waking up'!] One of the important things I wanted to highlight alongside the original question was:

Most decisions in life have certain risk involved of their turning out wrong, but usually they directly impact the one taking that decision, and not someone else.

I would also like to point out here that dying is not the same as not taking birth. By way of living a life, we become afraid of death and also get, what I call, 'addicted' to life. E.g., to have never had a cell phone is not the same as being robbed off of one's cell phone. So, keeping this in mind, is it possible to imagine what it would be like to never have been born? If I ask you: "Would you have liked it better to never have been born?", In all honesty, I cannot answer that question. And if one is able to visualize the situation, and especially respond to it in negative, then, they are severely deluding themselves by (unknowingly) invoking the concept of 'soul'. But one thing I am certain of is: without taking birth I would have definitely never regretted not taking birth, because 'regret' is a feeling that is felt by a conscious mind, which in turn is a function of the brain and that certainly requires one to be alive in the conventional sense of the term! Now, try to answer another similar question: would you regret dying after you die? Again, if one is able to answer such a question, and especially so in affirmative, then their mind is leading them astray. But despite admitting that both the situations cannot be visualized, I do feel a tinge of fear at the prospects of not being born and of dying. This, we can call the 'fear of not existing', which I shall shorten to FNE in what follows (perhaps it contributes to our survival instinct as individuals). But again remember, to experience this fear one needs to be alive! Unborn and dead people are not going to feel it! Perhaps, the logic I am trying to illustrate is getting too circular. And perhaps, it is for the same reason we feel grateful to our parents for bringing us to life (and of course, for extending nurture despite the effort and pain it entails), because whenever we think of our parents' decision, our analysis is tinged with FNE. People feel suicidal if the pain or the effort they experience in process of living overwhelms their FNE.

That was all simply about ethicality (or lack thereof) of decision to have a child. Now, if you could understand my questions and arguments above, think of them at a larger scale - would it have been 'bad' had the human species never come into existence? Would it be 'bad' if the human species gets extinct? Respectively, "to who it would have been bad?" and "to who it would be bad?" Can the same be said about the existence of the Earth and the Universe? So, is the fact that the Universe exists something special when our FNE is factored in? Just like how we feel grateful to our parents for giving us birth because our thoughts are tinged with FNE, we feel a sense of gratefulness for the existence of our Universe (which had enabled 'our' existence in the first place). But who do we feel that gratefulness towards? God, of course! But it is important to note here that, not everyone believes that God exists. Also, it is to be noted that it is humanization of the Universe we indulge in each time we think that whatever exists needs to be created from something, and that thus it needs a creator. Of course, this assumption is unfounded!

But getting to the other arm of the analogy, death, we feel FNE with regard to the humanity as well as towards the Earth. As an example, try to examine your feelings if I say, "the Earth would be hit by a large asteroid 150 years from now, and all life would be destroyed by it". I guess, most people would feel a sense of dread. Now, make a simple calculation. Assuming, each of your successive progeny become parents at the age of 35; it means, it would be your fourth & fifth generations that would face the wrath of the asteroid. And honestly, who cares about one's great grandparents, for instance? Meaning, how many of us feel emotionally attached to our great grandparents and great great grandparents (that is four and five generation 'before' us for you). But yet, we feel a sense of dread in response to such prophecies, where those getting affected would be four or five generations removed from us. There are two possible reasons for that: one, that we cannot visualize not existing, and we always subconsciously assess things as if they would affect us (thus insinuating a soul-like eternal existence in the process); and two, that perhaps we feel for humanity and Earth, what we feel for our 'self'. Meaning, I am humanity, and I am Earth (okay, that sounds funny, but I cannot explain it better). And it is for this reason that we invest so much in future to try to save our planet from destruction, when perhaps the fact is that such 'destruction' would not affect us, nor some of the generations that immediately follow us.

In my analysis, I have obviously not considered the fact that it is not possible to consult unborn children, nor the fact that if everyone would start thinking like me, the human species could get extinct! As you might appreciate, those two concerns do not figure in the equation of ethics here. So if you are confused whether to marry or not, and then, whether to have a child or not, I hope I have been able to assure that if by your not producing children, you fear that you might be contributing to the extinction of the human species, then your fear is unfounded! ;)

I believe with this post I have crudely dealt with:

1. The ethicality of decision to have a child.
2. Why we think there needs to be a creator for the Universe to exist.
3. Why we fear for damage to and/or extinction of the human species and the Earth.

Disclaimer: I am unmarried [and if the one reading this is a woman of my age who would be ready to marry me and put up with rants as above, then she can consider this as an advertisement! ;) ], and this doubt (doubt about ethicality of having a child) does not have much to do with my own life, but I cannot get the doubt out of my mind. Of course, what I eventually conclude would influence my wanting to have a child or not, but of course that would have to be in consultation with my then spouse.

Ethics in Tangents: Part 1 - Lessons on Inequity of Risks and Benefits

In a lecture on radiation safety, the teacher had veered a bit into the ethics of peaceful uses of nuclear energy. He explained that it has to be ensured that those working at nuclear establishments for larger good of the society (e.g., energy production, diagnosis & treatment in medicine) despite facing risks to health & life, must be adequately compensated as not all the benefits that arise off their work go to those working. A logic similar in line has been laid out by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (IRCP) [click] in their (PDF) document on their History, Policies, Principles (click to download):

For equity reasons (because those who are exposed are not necessarily those who gain by a practice) some dose or risk limitation is necessary to prevent the optimised situation from being one where a few individuals receive inappropriately high doses.

It was agreed between the teacher and the students that that compensation to the workers is in the form of the salary they draw. But that got me thinking: is that really so, more so in the government-controlled nuclear establishments in India? Do those working at high-risk places get higher pay as compared to those doing the same work in low-risk environments? Does for instance, an office clerk working in precincts of a nuclear establishment draw a larger salary than one working in a college administrative office? Answer, as of now is “no”. Why is that so?

My above thoughts were tangential to what was being discussed in the class (though, I would return to them later). The teacher went on to assert that if nuclear establishment worker gets monetarily compensated for the risk he/she takes, then the converse must also hold true, i.e., all those who derive benefit from existence of such establishments must face a non-zero quantum of risk. Well, that made perfect sense to me. And that is how he justified the risks posed to the general public by the operation of facilities with radioinuclides [click] (those forms of elements that emit ionizing radiation, which have potential for health hazards). As an aside, I came across this (click) blog post, which explains how risks posed by waste routinely generated from nuclear power plants have been overestimated by many [note: the article does not cite many sources, moreover, it does not cover risks posed by nuclear accidents, but to the best of my knowledge is quite correct].

Later, the teacher also explained how the principle of ALARA (click) - As Low As Reasonably Achievable that the ICRP uses for (radiation) dose-optimization has a flaw. Why what risk (radiation dose) I find reasonable for the benefits I derive, should also be reasonable to my neighbor? What alternative does one who applies most stringent threshold for radiation exposure have if the majority in an area consent to a higher dose? This led me to think about the representative form of governance. It allows a small number of people to take decisions on behalf of a very large number of people who ironically would be influenced much greatly by such decisions. So possibly, not just a minority, but even the majority in a constituency could be opposed to construction and operation of nuclear establishment in their vicinity, and yet the government (small number of individuals) would have the legitimate authority to overrule such a wish. But this ethical predicament is taken care of by the assumption that the electorate would choose with greatest conviction (and hence, numbers) a person they trust the most to take decisions in their best interest. This was just an offshoot of thoughts in my mind, and I would not like to comment any further on this aspect of representative form of democracy.

Returning to one of the original predicaments: why would a clerk working for a nuclear establishment in India not be paid more than another clerk working in an administrative office of a college despite the former facing a greater risk to health and life? It is not difficult to answer – unemployment. Of course, there could be other reasons too for the said clerk not demanding a higher pay, e.g., ignorance of the risks posed by working there. But yet, I believe the biggest reason is unemployment. The state of employment market, even in government sector, whether we realize or not, is greatly influenced by demand-supply factors. The said clerk does not have any bargaining power. The moment he would say, “I want higher pay for the additional risk I would be facing”, the government would tell, “fuck off! Next!”. So obviously, our clerk is not going to make such a plea. Because he would know that there are many people with his kind of abilities seeking livelihood. If not him, someone else would take his place. This brings us to a somewhat intuitively obvious inference – the money that can be earned from doing a job is a function of:

1. Number of people wanting a job done. Greater the demand for a job, greater would be the pay.

2. Number of people willing to do that job. More the number of people willing to do the job, greater would be the bargaining power of those wanting the job done. Thus lesser would be the amount paid.

3. Number of people capable of doing that job. Greater the skill/training/experience a particular job requires, fewer would be the people capable of doing that job.

While, I had been vaguely aware of above factors, I was made to think more about them during one of my train journeys from Delhi to Mumbai. I had a very heavy luggage with me, mostly consisting of books - could have exceeded 100 kg. Whatever be the exact weight, I had to engage a porter to carry my luggage to the platform. I had another friend with me, and what the porters had demanded was exorbitant amount – to the tune of Rs. 800 for all the luggage. Seeing the weight of luggage, I was alright with that amount, but my friend was not. So, we engaged only two porters instead of three or four that would have been required. The arrangement obviously required us to carry quite a bit of luggage ourselves – covering a distance of about 300 m. By the time we had accomplished the task we were totally exhausted, and needless to say, a few of our muscles must have got pulled. But for me, the ordeal was not over yet! My train was scheduled to depart a couple of hours after my friend's – and from a different platform! Basically, I had accompanied him from the hostel for the sake of keeping him company. Before he boarded his train, we had engaged another porter to shift my luggage to the platform where my train was to arrive. He and I had carried some luggage so that only one porter would be required. But it so turned out that my train coach was to stop at a faraway point from where we had parked my luggage. So, I had no option but to ask yet another porter to carry my luggage from the original position to the appropriate spot on the platform - this time, just to transfer the luggage form one segment of the platform to another. Weirdly, there were no trolleys at the New Delhi railway station. I suspect, it could be because of the lobbying by porters' association as that would increase their earning. But that is besides the point. The third (and the last time) I had required porter's service, I was so exhausted (and also in pain), that how much I was paying was least of my concerns! It could be pointed out that I could have better planned the whole thing, and saved some odd hundred or so rupees, but again that is besides the point. The incident brought one thing to my attention. Whatever amount one pays the porter, it is basically less than what he 'deserves'. You might ask how?

My inference follows from one assumption, i.e., “no one likes to part with the money they have”. So, if you pay amount 'x' to the porter, you've the option of not giving that money. How? By carrying your luggage yourself. Carrying luggage is a very simple job – it does not require much specialized skill. Yes, if you are alone, then you might not be able to carry the luggage yourself, as you might have to make more than one round to carry all of it. But in most cases, people hire a porter's service because they are uncomfortable doing the job themselves. It is to avoid exhaustion and pain that carrying the luggage would cause. So, if despite having the option to carry the luggage yourself, and not lose the amount x in the process, that you agree to lose it only proves that you would have not carried that much luggage for someone else to earn amount x. Now just pause for a moment and think:

For what amount of money would you be ready to carry for someone else the same luggage that you ask the porter to carry?

I believe, some of the middle class/upper middle class or upper class persons would feel offended at being asked such a question. But that is not totally besides the point. Just kindly note the contempt some might feel for the job of carrying others' luggage or for the persons doing so, so much so that this question itself would lead to perceived offense. Anyway, returning to the point. For instance, on that day I had to pay up around Rs. 300 to the porters. Would I carry that much luggage as the porters did for me for someone else for Rs. 300? No, I will not. Yet, I felt the porters had charged me pretty steeply! Is that not weird? How much would I charge to carry that much luggage? I indeed thought about it. Not less than Rs. 2000!

My current income is stipendiary. In not very distant future, I would get to earn at least Rs. 2000 per day, doing almost totally sedentary work. Would I like to earn my livelihood the way those porters do? Definitely not. Would the porter like to earn his livelihood the way I would get to do? Almost certainly yes. Which means, the work he is doing is much more difficult than what I would be doing to earn, yet he earns significantly less than what I would. And as obvious corollary, I would earn much better than him despite doing a more pleasant and less painful job. Is something not strange about this equation?

Of course, it is not difficult to figure out that this situation has come about because relatively fewer people would have gained my kind of knowledge and training as compared to the bare minimum 'skills' required to carry heavy luggage. But at least in countries like India, do all people really get the opportunity, and subsequent choice of how to earn their livelihood? So though we do largely have free job market as far as influence that demand and supply exercise on amounts paid by people in return of services is concerned, but it has got highly monopolized. It has got monopolized because acquisition of those skills that enable earning relatively easily are beyond reach of the majority of population. The porters who had carried my luggage must have never got the opportunity to acquire those skills. Their children are unlikely to get opportunity to get the education to escape out of what has almost become a vicious cycle.

The realization of this inequity of opportunities is not new for me. Apart from movies, TV programs and short stories in textbooks that had sensitized me to these harsh realities, what had brought me face-to-face with them was my stay in a hostel during my graduation. There in the mess, as helps we used to have boys – some of them could have been below the age of 14 years (which would qualify as “child labour” in India, and is illegal). That it was illegal was the least of the problems with the situation. Those who are aware of the ground realities in India would appreciate that there is no infrastructure to support such children. Their parents are usually so poor that despite government (claiming to) provide free education and mid-day meal, etc., children who do not start working are seen as liabilities by parents. It is also possible that a few of them could be orphans.

A vast majority of students (the GenNext, if you may) were so comfortable with ordering them around. Scolding them for food badly prepared by the cook. Some of the angry students would not shy from using incestual expletives (“mother fucker”, e.g.). I am not saying, ”Haww, students were so indecent as to use 'bad words'”, but what had always shocked me was the comfort and the authority with which that contempt was held. The acceptance of master-slave relationship was mutual and apparent on both sides. The idea that one set of human beings were “first class”, and another set were “second class” was so strongly ingrained in the collective psyche that I used to find the environment nauseating. I am not a very intrusive person by nature. So I hardly said anything to anyone. Yet, to some of the closer friends, I used to point out if they were to get rude in terms of ”what is his fault”? Since they were close to me, my friends would apologize to me, and correct their behavior for some time. However, what I could invariably notice was that they would do so because they would feel their behavior had not been 'proper', or because they should be 'nice' to people. In other words, even the courtesy shown (upon prompting) was an outcome of self-serving narcissism. The very fundamental idea of egalitarianism never occurred to them. It never occurred to them that the people they were putting in a mental effort to be 'nice' with, were just as much humans as them, and that they had as much right as them to live, to breath the same air as them, to just be happy! Just because they were bringing food from the kitchen for them, and carrying their plates back after they would have finished their meal does not in any way push them to a lower stratum. The work they were doing was a service, for which they were being paid. Seeing those children, some of who were only a few years younger than me (I had entered the hostel at the age of 17), I used to remain in a state of perennial guilt:

As compared to them, what different have I done to deserve these opportunities in life? How are the ways of the world such that these children are seen as inferior beings as compared to me? What is their fault? How in the scheme of things of the world, they had become the lower stratum of the society, the secondary citizens? Whatever I am today or I will be in future, as compared to these kids, would always remain undeserved - however 'hard' I work towards it.

Somewhere down the line, I had happened to read Ayn Rand's (click) two novels - 'The Fountainhead' and 'Atlas shrugged'. I had become (and still am) quite impressed with the philosophy contained therein. But I realized two things about the main characters in the novels:

1. All of them might have had to struggle, but yet the society was never such that they would be deprived of basic education. Probably, the poorest of them all - Gail Waynand and Howard Roark (both found in The Fountainhead) had at least basic education [latter, in fact, had brought such circumstances upon himself that he was expelled from one of the better American architecture schools].

2. None of the major characters themselves had children. Only one of the somewhat prominent characters - Jed Starnes had children. He had died suddenly and hence had not had the opportunity to prepare his will (recalling from memory).

Despite the fact that Ayn Rand had spent her childhood in the erstwhile USSR, it seems she had not come across the kind of poverty and utter lack of opportunities to even study and gain knowledge to become 'employable' with some bargaining power - that are seen in India. The reason perhaps her characters did not have children was because she might have not wanted them to face the ethical dilemma of how much time, money and emotions to invest in the children in case they would not turn out to be with same value system as their own. The central theme of her novels, as far as I could make out was: to value people in proportion to their attributes that could be objectively adjudged as 'valuable'. Thus, children pose unique ethical predicament. On one hand parents owe them their nurture (investment of time, effort and emotions) because, children are never party to the decision of bringing them to life, i.e., children's consent as to whether they would like to live and risk being unhappy or in pain, is never sought, which makes it obligatory on parents to try to provide them with such resources that children do not regret their parents' unilateral (parents as one party) of bringing them to life. But on the other hand, objectivist philosophy would demand that one devote one's time, money and emotions in persons only in proportion to their worth as determined by their attributes. However, children either do not possess any pervasive attributes, or if those attributes make them disfavored candidates to receive nurture, then what to do? I can imagine, Rand's characters would bequeath their property and money, not to family members, but to some capable employee or colleague. But that is so unusual in our society! Perhaps to escape this dilemma Rand's major characters did not have any children! I have not read the other works of Ayn Rand, so it is possible she might have dealt with this issue elsewhere, though I find it hard to understand how she could have resolved such a complex problem (perhaps she did not have any child despite being married for over 50 years to the same person).

The reason I discussed the above concept was to explain, how the concept of inheritance is ethically flawed. And it is inheritance of parents' nurture (and the opportunities that come with it), affluence, social status, etc. that basically leads to monopolization of resources to acquire 'higher-order' skills that are required to gain greater bargaining skills in the employment market (education and vocational training). This concept of inheritance brings with it a strange condition, wherein, whether a person will die of hunger before turning five, or would struggle as a child laborer, or enjoy a middle class education and opportunities for 'upward mobility' through the social and economic strata, or would be born at the very top with the proverbial silver spoon in the mouth - are determined to a very great degree and in current Indian economic situation irreversibly so by just one factor - PURE CHANCE. In absolute terms, a child before even getting to commit any acts so as to display recognizable traits, which in turn would be required to determine 'what' the child deserves as a person ('good' v/s 'bad' things), becomes largely destined to one or the other social and economic stratum. All this happens without the humanity getting an opportunity to determine how 'deserving' the child is and of what!

The situation is so bad in India possibly because means to basic survival are much more difficult to acquire here than in the Western countries, which in turn, I feel are because of India's high fertility rate and population density.

Now, trying to apply all that I had inferred and speculated in this free-wheeling write up up till now, let us assume India's population density would have been less than what it is now:

1. The porter who carried my luggage would have had access to much better education. This because, the overall production of goods (needed for basic survival) would remain the same (most of the rural population currently is afflicted with high degree of disguised unemployment), but would be distributed among much fewer people. Hence, the porter's parents would not be worried about having their household income augmented by making their son work.

2. He might have become a teacher or a clerk or a doctor or an engineer.

3. There would have been much fewer porters at the New Delhi railway station.

4. Whoever would now be the porter at the railway station would have had much better bargaining power. Possibly, he would have earned more than Rs. 5000 a day instead of Rs. 500 that he currently might be earning.

5. His children would also get to study in schools and be at par with 'middle class' as far as opportunities for skill acquisition would be concerned.

6. Because there would be a paucity of porters, coupled with his good income, he would be respected.

Almost the same analysis as above could be applied to helps in the hostel mess. Likewise, those working at nuclear establishments would be able to realistically demand a higher pay for risking their lives and health.

Those who manage to read this post till the end might be wondering, what is the big deal?! Meaning, everyone knows that India's large population (density) is a liability. Apart from delineating the inferences I could draw from mundane experiences, and discussing broadly their ramifications in the field of ethics (something that we understand intuitively, but never get into the details of), one of the goals was to show how India's large population density is has implications in areas as seemingly unrelated as nature of interpersonal relationships. It is not difficult to understand that with such acute differences in rights and opportunities that arise with economic disparities, friction amongst various classes is imminent. The incentive to move to the higher strata is much stronger. The idea of social hierarchy is so very deeply ingrained in our collective psyche that we never realize that it represents something very wrong! E.g., an educated (and higher earning) boss would be entitled to humiliate a comparably educated subordinate only because we love hierarchies! So, likewise the disincentive to stay in one's socioeconomic strata is also very strong. No wonder, the worst target of these prevailing factors is ethics. Everything becomes fair in love and war. And everything becomes love and war. Upward mobilization is what counts.

To summarize:

1. Less desirable jobs should be high paying.

2. India's overwhelming population density and accompanying poverty and paucity of material resources leads children into child labor. This pushes basic education and skill acquisition beyond reach of many children.

3. These children even after growing up remain poor bargainers when it comes to compensation for the extremely physically challenging and monotonous work they do (despite the fact that I proved above that they automatically deserve much more than what they get - from the porter's example).

4. People with only very basic skills are held in contempt because of their poverty and abundance of such persons. As a consequence, sharp socioeconomic stratification emerges.

5. The sharpness of this stratification leads to abandoning of ethicality in one conducts in favor of practices that can earn one money. E.g., this leads to ills like nepotism, corruption and other crimes.

6. Children of deprived parents enter the same cycle as above and produce more children, who in turn enter the same cycle.

7. This cycle can be broken! Not so much by providing more universal schooling, but by decreasing the population density, for which fertility rates will have to come down, for which in turn better education and awareness need to be created! Ah, so it might not be that easy to break the cycle, after all.

My pessimism in this regard had been broken only once by Atanu Dey in his blog post - There’s only so Much that Needs to Get Done (click).

A small note: Given India's energy crisis, I find nuclear energy a very good means of energy production. I find the fears instilled by some environmental pressure groups to be exaggerated greatly. The solution lies not in shunning nuclear energy as an option altogether, but to improve the levels of professionalism across the populations and vocations. Directly or indirectly the high cost of energy (whether required to run automobiles and locomotives or to light our houses) is a strong contributing factor to India's being behind in manufacturing sector, and also for high inflation. Latter further perpetuates the vicious cycle of poverty.

Possible conflict of interest: Area of my work is going to involve nuclear technology. But which also means, I am better aware of the risks posed by radiation exposure vis-a-vis other losses that not using this technology would entail.

Hypothesis of God's Existence is Inadmissible if God Behaves Randomly

Many people with who I interact online know know me to be atheist, but ironically, I have said very little about the basis of that atheism here.

Atheism (lack of belief that God exists) depends on definition of (attributes assigned to) God. Deism & 'Randomly behaving God' are not falsifiable. But one of the prerequisites to admit any proposition as possibly true is, it has to be falsifiable. For instance, if I say, "there exists a force between 2 balls such that it is directly proportional to the product of their masses, & inversely proportional to the square of distance between them", & call it theory of 'mystical gravity', then such a statement is NOT falsifiable as I have not specified the direction of force. Such a statement cannot be disproved by actual or thought experiments. If we conduct an experiment with Newton's original theory as hypothesis, then it is falsifiable. How? If you place two balls in a frictionless environment, the (UNIQUE) prediction is that they will be attracted with predicted force & will accelarate (with predicted value) TOWARDS EACH OTHER for ALL combinations of mass & distance. If any of these do NOT occur (say, balls move away from each other), then Newton's theory would be proved wrong. But the mystical theory cannot be falsified (as it gives MULTIPLE predictions), because irrespective of how the two balls move in each others' presence, I can always say, "see, force is predicted, but we do not know which component of force is acting in which direction"! Thus, one would have to acknowledge existence of a (directionless) 'mystical force of gravitation' independent of how balls behave.

Analogy from mathematics: any REAL function must yield a unique value 'y' (dependent variable) for any given value of 'x' (independent variable). Why? As we want to derive a "law" that would be able to PREDICT the outcome ('y') each time we are given a defined situation 'x' (e.g., distance between two particles of constant mass). Now, most of the definitions of God are such that they do not give a unique result ("God's ways cannot be known" or "God only knows") for any given situation. So, any reasoning based on such a God's involvement would be like an unreal function.

Most of the concepts of God are like
mystical theory of gravitation. You can claim God exists (like mystical gravity), but cannot predict how God will behave (undefined direction of force).

What I love about Ram Gopal Varma

This is not the manner in which I had planned to write about him, but Ram Gopal Varma's (click) style of movie making had always impressed me. No, I have not watched Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag (click), and doing so might not change my views about his abilities. Because even if I were ever to watch and dislike it, it does not negate all that I had passionately cherished in his cinema and held dear to me. Also, there are too many prominent movies associated with him that I have not watched, yet - Satya (click), Darna mana hai (click), Sarkar Raj (click), Rann (click), etc.

The way he knows human psychology, which is absolutely essential for playing with our minds is simply awe-inspiring. And when I say psychology, I do not mean that concerning easily discernible gross events or emotions, but more so, how we respond to visuals and sounds. Behind some of the most chilling and provocative sounds, camera positions, lighting and facial expressions is a very astute mind that knows how the human mind reacts, given a particular stimulus.

Here, I will mention a few small things from his movies that have always stayed with me.

1. Vaastu shastra (click).

On the whole, the beauty of this movie was that it had presented the stories in gaps. Meaning, for many episodes, just the beginning and the ending were shown, and their spookiness lay in the viewer imaginingg how exactly the gap must have got filled, and this had required a proactive viewer and not a passive one.

1.a. The opening titles. The way the opening titles had floated in free space in a dark background had made me aware of their meanness and an inescapable imminence.

1.b. The conviction of the young boy - Rohan in talking of Manish and Jyoti. His confidence in talking of them was frightening. Not for a single instance did he plead with his parents to assuage their disbelief or ridicule. His confidence was unnerving for me as a viewer. This confidence coupled with background awareness a few 'wrong' things happening in that house, in light of his parents' utter ignorance of all those things had instilled a perverse curiosity in me to know what was to happen ahead.

1.c. The manner in which the tennis ball kills the maid. Well, to be specific it was not how the maid was killed that had got impressed upon my mind, but how the ball travels back as if having a life of its own, then in the end it climbs up the cupboard and nearly comes to rest making me think the scene had "ended", when the camera frame shifts ever so slightly to the right, and shows us Manish grabbing the ball with his hand. This last thing was a most unexpected surprise. There was nothing jerky in the way the entire scene was captured, and yet the manner in which the body of Manish emerges from the right edge of the frame and his stark whiteness in contrast with the background gives the viewer that totally unexpected moment. His facial expression is not one of happiness or anger or sadness, but of unshakeable resolve - again alluding to some kind of inevitability accounted for by nothing else but his unadulterated resolve.

1.d. The ladder leading to the top of the Banyan tree. This is the prime example of the dealing in gaps that I had talked of. The camera pans upwards and a nonchalant Rohan is seen sitting cozily very high up. While movies like Exorcist would have tried to make the scene scary by showing him climb up in some unnatural manner, this movie does no such thing. All the viewer gets to see is the "end" of the scene without showing how he climbed up. Also, the way the tree house at the top looks, it has a certain alien feel to it, one of belonging not to "us" but something else. This effect was probably achieved by sheer height and also a camera angle that made the top of the ladder converge like the apex of a very long isosceles triangle.

One of the bugging elements of the movie was the sinister kid laughter. It was rather interfering with the viewer experience than adding to it. Some of the slow undulations of the camera, which had given the scenes a 'floating-in-the-ship' kind of feel were also irritating.

You can read a very detailed review of this movie at Army of Monkeys (click), which I have not read yet. ;)

One thing I would want to say about watching horror movies is that they cannot be enjoyed if one goes with a confrontational attitude akin to I dare the movie maker to be able to scare me. Rather, to completely enjoy such movies requires a proactive viewer who would try to anticipate at each step what would happen ahead, so that getting surprised would be made possible!

2. Sarkar. The thing in the movie that had affected me the most was the dull thud of dumbell at the beginnig of the movie when the alleged rapist had been killed. The dullness was again one of those devices that had scared me because of my ability to empathize. The first thing that had come to my mind was - "I would not like to be there, hit like that"! It was that effective. Some other manner of killing like liters of blood splattering all around or something involving fast, jerky motion would dazzle or excite the viewer, but not necessarily frighten.

Towards the end, the unshakable expression on Rashid's face despite his inevitable death was something that had made me uncomfortable. Here was a man, who in the context of the movie was a villain, a wrongdoer, a failure, and yet, he dies the same way he had lived, without remorse. He faces the process of death just like any other average event in his life - trying to live through his death. Though the turn of events in the movie had not given me the time to think about all these, somewhere subconsciously the scene had sown a doubt, which serves as a chink in conviction with which we lead our lives - why do we do what we do in our lives? To what end? It all ends, anyway.

3. Music in Ram Gopal Varma-movies. Though the credit for the music in his movies should most directly got to the respective composers, still it is him who had introduced in Bollywood, music with piercing quality to it. One of the all time favorite songs of mine is "Mast" (click to hear) sung by Sunidhi Chauhan (click) and composed by Sandeep Chowta (click). The manner in which the opening words like uske siva kuchh yaad nahin... start with with a subdued hushed tone, and yet end in hui, hui main mast represents the most planned yet unstoppable dissipation of energy. Again the quality that comes fore is of unstopability. "Mast" at the end of the line hits the listener with an impact.

Another song that really resonates with me is Ganda hai par dhandha hai yeh... from Company (click). It has an element of tease. The point after Sandeep Chowta utters (ganda hai) "yeh", when I would expect a drum beat, there is none! It leaves me wanting for more; the dissipation does not happen this once.

Why I mention these pieces of music is because they gel so well with his overall style of movie making. Also, I do not know why, but somehow it is certain people's vision that enables others to deliver the best stored up in them, like potential energy. For instance, Sandeep Chowta has not been able to deliver such powerful music working with someone else. Vivek Oberoi (click) has never acted as well as with Varma. Abhishek Bachchan has not been able to make his screen presence felt the way he could in Varma's movies. It took a Varma to bring out the amazing actor hidden in Urmila Matondkar (click), who otherwise would have only got dismissed as a skin revealing bimbo. This also made me realize how Ismail Darbar (click) has been able to do his best only working with Sanjay Leela Bhansali (click). So, I believe these movie directors and producers indeed have a role in extracting the best from the people they work with. So even if a lot in his movies is not his doing, he should get the credit for firstly having a desire to work with talented people, then ability to recognize that talent, and then eventually actually associating with them.

Anyway, I could be accused of reading, seeing or hearing too much where there is really nothing. But well, I could perceive those things, and I do not rule out the possibility of my deluding myself only to be able to recognize an icon.

Also, there had been a few curious coincidences. Despite my liking some of his movies very much, I had not known much about him. But then some time later I came to understand that he is an atheist, and further later (just a year back) that he is a fan of Ayn Rand (click) - another person I greatly admire.

Ram Gopal Varma is in show business. His skill lies in employing a "technique" to generate an "effect". To digress a bit, this dichotomy between insipid technique used to generate a scintillating effect was something I had become sensitized to while making PowerPoint presentations for the first time. Same effect on screen could be achieved by elegant simplicity, or through crass background technique while editing the slides. I would like to share with you a novel that heavily relies on this passion for use of techniques to yield effects - The Vanished Man (click) by Jeffery Deaver (click). So what I admire about Ram Gopal Varma is his proficiency with two strata of techniques. One, of converting mundane resources like outdoors, sounds, raw actors, camera, ideas (raw materials for "technique") into visuals, sounds, facial expressions and plot-surprises (tier 1 "effect"). Two, the very same visuals, sounds, facial expressions and plot-surprise in turn serve as raw materials for the emotions generated in the viewer (tier 2 "effect"). And he is a master of both tiers of technique. He has perfected this art, I do not believe, which would have been possible without immense passion and a basic level of intelligence.

But years and experiences have also sensitized me to the same technique-effect concept put to use by famous people. I have my doubts whether the public image he has is the "true" him, or his attempt to provoke people into hating him and talking about him, or to profess love for him only to stand out.

But there is sufficient intelligence in his words that convinces me that whatever he does, he knows very well what it is, and that he also understands the motives behind his actions. Sometimes I also wonder if the insolent attitude he reserves for most people is his method to filter out those who cannot see form from substance, or in other words, those who miss the subtle but significant and go after the conspicuous but merely a distraction. Or again, I might be wrong in thinking he thinks so much about others!

But the fact remains, I continue to be intrigued by him, and admire him in equal measures.

You can read his blog here - RGV BLOG (click), going through which was basically the precipitating factor in my writing about him.

You can read some of his quotes here (click).

Free will

I am republishing this post, as a form or blog-recycling - an idea I caught on from Wise Donkey's blog (click). Coincidentally, tomorrow happens to also be the anniversary of my blog, and the time this post was published for the first time. I have edited the post a bit. This was the first post I had actually published on this blog. :)

Following is a blog I had originally posted at yahoo 360:

I was replying to one of the offbeat queries on rxpgonline.com, and the reply turned out so long that I thought, better I convert it into a blog. But again, I am surprised that this world has been a crucible of such great minds at work (thinking being the work of a mind), that ultimately, however much I try, it is not possible to think a thought that has not been thought before! So, many of the opinions that I had developed on my own, I learned, are already established schools in philosophy!

I will not post the query because of reasons related to copyright issues, but the gist of it was "if we decide anything really on our own volition, or are we predetermined to make those decisions".

Here's my response:

-------------

Let me refine what you have called thoughts and emotions. Fortunately, we as medicos are in better positions to understand that both thoughts and emotions arise out of neurotransmission across synapses through very complex neural networks. What is important here, though is not the complexity of networks, but that the process that gives rise to thoughts and emotions is as simplistic  and physical as action potential giving rise to or inhibiting action potential elsewhere (synaptic inhibition or facilitation).

The feeling we get while we make a choice is that it is "I" who is deciding to do a particular thing, and not opt an alternative choice, and had I wanted, I "could" have made the other choice. The question is: do we really make choices that were not determined by past events? To make this question clear, I would have to give an example:

Think of someone breaking a frame in a game of pool. There are 10 balls that are struck with the cue ball, and immediately at the moment of impact all of them scatter away. To the untrained human eye, this is quite a chaotic event, but everyone would agree that with our modern technology, if the force, spin and direction of the cue ball, the masses of other balls, the properties of the reflecting walls, and the properties of the surface of the pool table would be known, we can definitely predict with amazing degree of accuracy where each ball on the table would end up after a finite amount of time. So in that sense the fate of each ball was predetermined by their mutual positions, the speed and direction with which the cue ball would impact them (force), the properties of the various surfaces and the time of impact. So, if the pool table were a closed system (where no external force could act), we would be the best astrologers! We could foretell everything that the pool balls would ever want to "know" about their future! And, add to it the fact that it is you who would be hitting at those cue balls. So in that sense, you are the one who is determining the fates of those balls. But, the way you are determining their fate is very "physical". If I were to tell you that try to change the course of the balls only by power of your mind (without actually touching them or using a physical force), and you would know that it would be impossible, unless  and of course you are a firm believer of psychokinesis (click).

Now let us shift the same pool table to within our brain, and think of all the vesicles holding neurotransmitter molecules as those balls. Our emotions, thoughts, memories, all are a result of which neurons "fire" at what time. So, if real free will were to exist, we should be able to "control" (unknowingly) the particular neurons so as to make them release a particular neurotransmitter at a particular point in time in a particular quantity. The issue is can we really do all that with our "will", which is nothing, but again, a result of activity of the same neurons containing the said neurotransmitters? Well, I am not sure of the answer. Though, going by the physics of it, the answer seems like "no". No, we cannot make the molecules of neurotransmitters behave the way we want them to. So, each time you are deciding between a yellow dress or a white one, and even if you decide after full five minutes of pondering that you want the yellow one, it could be only because the neuron that was to trigger your decision fired at that moment (after five minutes), because of pre-set conditions, and not because of your thought-processes. So, this sounds very gloomy, indeed, that everything we do is predetermined, and more importantly, out of our control. But, when I gave the example of pool balls, I was talking of classical physics, which holds true only at a very gross level. If somehow, instead of 10 pool balls, 10 neutrons (and not neurons) were to be placed in a frame, and then hit with a "cue neutron", we will not be able to predict the trajectories of any of the neutrons, forget all the ten neutrons together. There are too many issues. Firstly, quantum physics does not allow any particle to be absolutely still - it has to oscillate with what is called a finite amount of "zero point energy" (the minimum energy that a particle has to possess, which equals hv/2, h=Planck's constant, and v is the frequency of oscillation of the particle). Secondly, the the Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, does not allow precise knowledge of positions of the particles and their momentum at the same time. But, what happens in real life is that the "amount of uncertainty" remains constant even with a large assembly of particles, but since the assemblies these particles become are so large that any uncertainty gets buffered by the practical and acceptable approximations of their momentum and position. So, the uncertainty principle somehow does not apply to the day-to-day "bulky" objects and situations. Hence our neurotransmitter molecules, and even more so, the vesicles that hold them, are on the borderline of being big and small enough to obey the uncertainty principle. Their courses and positions are somewhat predictable and yet, somehow unpredictable.

But, what is the implication of this knowledge of uncertainty principle to our discussion? What it implies is that at least the course of the neurotransmitter vesicles in our brains cannot be determined with complete accuracy, and hence, cannot be predicted. And, so the decisions that a person makes are not completely predictable. But, the issue of being "able" to alter the course of or effect the emptying of a particular vesicle in a particular neuron at a given time without a physical force though, remains as it is.

Of course, I know it is very difficult to even digest the possibility: that the emotions that we feel to be so real, or the feeling of "choosing", which is another name for freedom/liberty, could all be illusory. One of the possibilities of why we feel this illusion could be a specialized center in the brain that "witnesses" all the activities in the neurons. And these activities get registered as thoughts. We witness a live broadcast of our own thoughts (which are not exactly out of volition, but determined by the pre-set conditions), and we get a feeling that we are somehow effecting those thoughts, possibly because the time lag between the moment when a thought "arises" and it is "registered" could be very short.

So, I would recommend that one try while buying a dress, bargaining the price pointing out:

“It’s not me who wants to buy the dress, it’s just the neurons; I’m compelled by their preset conditions,. I cannot help it. So could you please give me a discount, at least if not give it away for free?” 

But, I would warn here that the shopkeeper’s response need not be that philosophical!!!

PS: A very pertinent discussion had also occurred at my other blog, here (click). Also, I request the reader to go through all the comments as they had been quite illuminating.

"Don't know, yet" is the first step to gaining further knowledge

Possibly, the simplest-worded summary of how traditional religions and naturalism have treated mysteries and new knowledge differently - in particular, to be found in the last paragraph. It is a very short post and will take only around 5 min to read.

Search Judaism - A Critique: Part Two (II) - (Click)

How Morality is Indispensable to a Social Life

This post had started as a response to one of the comments by Darshan, whose ideas and blog-posts (click) I really enjoy and also recommend to other readers who appreciate critical thinking. The reasons I am publishing this response as a separate blog post are: because the response is too long; I would not like other readers to miss out on ideas earned after hard sessions of thinking, and lastly, because I any way wanted to discuss these issues some times on my blog. It just so happens that now this post will serve as an appropriate launching pad. So ultimately, obviously, this post does not merely remain a response to Darshan's comments, but is a post with his ideas as the backdrop.

Obviously, since this post is fundamentally a reaction rather than an essay, I am not giving a much elaborate background. Darshan's comment (click) was as follows:

"This might sound irrelevant to you.

First of all, I do not believe in the established concept of morality, which is perfectly human-centered. In my concept of morality stealing, lying, money, robbery and society, these are so petty issues that are not even visible to me. There are much much bigger issues facing existence!

In fact this entire affair is something which does not affect me. It is so HUMAN-SPECIFIC!!! As far as any such thing is concerned, I find myself in the game again. So whatever decisions I take by whim in the game, is neither right nor wrong.

I might save the one who stole in this case, for example; Or I might sometime also think that one human less is good for the planet ;) Depends on the mood I am in at the moment!"

Now I urge readers to exercise restrain in drawing any untoward conclusions about how Darshan as a person is. This discussion between him and me is at an ideological-philosophical level, and his comment must not be construed to think that he reaches decisions in his life exactly in the same fashion as might seem from the comment. In my interactions I have found him to be very agreeable and rational and not at all inclined to hurt someone deliberately. The only reason I am quoting this comment here is to put forth the context in which my post had materialized. As to what he means by a "game" would become clear from his post called - How to attain bliss without being in Himalayas? (click).

I am quoting the lines that I feel are pertinent, but yet I encourage the reader to go through the actual post for two reasons - that there should be no "loss in translation" in my quoting something selectively, and also because the post is a well thought out one and well written.

"...Now consider your life as a game. You are the main protagonist in this game. There are innumerable stages in this game like childhood, schooling, adulthood, love, work, marriage, divorce, riches, poverty etc. Through all the stages in the game there are things like making friends and enemies; pain and pleasures; love and hatred. You earn points when you make friends. Lose points when you make enemies. Earned love, earned points. Lost love, lost points. Consider points as a measure of happiness. That’s how a game works. Human life has endless possibilities of occurrences. All the things which happen in your favor add to your points and those occurrences against you reduce the points. When you succeed through the tasks you jump up in happiness with “Whoa!” and “Wow!” and when you lose you throw the joystick with “Oh fuck!” and “Shit!”"...

..."But after all, it’s a game, not the real life. What you experience in the “game world” is left behind when you are done playing the game and return in your “real world”. Happenings of the “game world” can not affect your behavior in the “real world”, unless you are so obsessed with the game that you have lost your mind and the realization that the two worlds are different."

Also, my response is not an attempt to contradict or disregard Darshan's personal views, which I do not share, but do not even disagree with. This is because, in some areas of life, what views we hold are just our personal preferences, possibly based on factors like nurture, genetics, life-experiences, personality, etc., and however hard we try, we cannot justify them on a rational basis. This in turn happens because, the fundamental axioms in life like "what is the purpose of my life?" or "what is the purpose behind the existence of the human race or the Universe?", etc. cannot be answered in fashion, which we all would agree with. It is how we (especially, in the given case, Darshan and I) answer these questions differently, that have led to the differences in our opinion, and at the outset I wish to clarify that I do not consider either Darshan or my answers to either of the above questions as more correct or less correct, because there is no established or agreed upon standard to gauge their "correctness" against. My frank confession that my views are more of preferences, rather than absolute "correct" manner of looking at the issues would, I hope, be amply visible in my response, which is as follows:

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Darshan,

There is no rational reason I could convince you to be more emotionally engaged with humanity and its affairs, or for me to justify my being engaged thus, but what you said was alarming! This is not to offend you, but nor to downplay what I felt reading what you wrote.

It is to your credit, you have made me think something slightly more deeply, making me reach this philosophical conclusion that yet again that there is nothing really very rational that can make me urge one to choose to be moral.

Morality (click) stems from human concepts of 'ownership' and 'rights' (as in adhikaar). So yes, morality becomes operational only when one accepts a certain framework of these human conceptions of 'ownership' and 'right'. Integrally attached with both the concepts is another human conception of "deserving", which is the most nebulous, and hence, difficult to define. And that is why we all differ in what one "deserves" - usually, we are most predisposed to feel what we 'enjoy', we deserve, and what we do not enjoy, we do not deserve. Which is what introduces the subjectivity and consequent liberal bias in assessing our own motives and actions. And, so it becomes imperative to decide upon certain mutually agreed upon criteria to delineate what is deserved by whom.

I yet again concede, I have no rational reason to assert that this framework should be applied only to humans, and why other sentient living beings (especially, mammals that are so similar to how humans are) should be excluded. Partly because, animals cannot talk back to us, as to what they want. No, this is not an excuse to be cruel to them, but the psychological reason why this "we" (humans) v/s "them" (non-humans) kind of communalism (click) operates in our minds.

My feeling greater solidarity for humans as compared to other species, or "nonliving" parts of the "nature", can be considered a form of communalism, and hence is unjustified. The best possible justification (or rather, my double standards), you could find is here:

Ball of Karma (click). Do read comment #16 onwards if you are short of time, otherwise, I believe the entire debate is entertaining, if not enlightening!

...somehow humans take precedence in deciding upon moral issues. If someone asks me why?, I would say it is a very sophisticated form of herd-mentality. That I feel greater solidarity for those who resemble me than those who do not (this line of argument is extremely risk-fraught when it comes to interhuman interactions, I know!). And animals have never really cared for us humans, or for each other (sounds stupid, but is a valid argument because only sometime back we were talking of putting animals on same pedestal as humans). They have killed us humans for their food or to protect their shelter. So we can do the same to fulfill our ‘needs’.

‘Needs’ is another contentious term. Is the desire to live a fulfilling, happy life a ‘need’? Is the desire to see one of our relatives not die of AIDS/cancer/malaria – a need? Is the desire to not suffer from painful rheumatoid arthritis and debilitating kidney disorders and diabetes – a need? Is the desire to not suffer from irritating common cold – a need?

Please see, in all the 3 examples, there is a gradual downscaling of threat to human life. While very few would disagree that we would be alright with killing of a few thousand animals, if the outcome (cure) for the said disease is able to save millions of human lives. The problem comes when discussing animal experiments for treatment of ’simpler’ disorders, which are not immediately life-threatening. But then the question would arise - what ‘level’ of threat to human life do we use to justify animal experiments?

So well, at least practicality dictates that we must not infringe on others' (humans') "rights", for instance, right to live, because then they can also attempt to do the same, and we all might suffer pain or death. Of course, I myself have stated on your blog that it would not be "bad" in 'absolute' terms if the entire human species or the Earth itself are wiped out, but in a 'subjective' sense, I want to live, and I am afraid of death! Possibly, this fear is an outcome of natural selection through genetic mutations, but then the fact remains, I am responsive and subservient to such a fear. I am also responsive and subservient to desire to feel happy [differences between 'happiness' and 'contentment' are hazy; I will have to think a lot about them]. Provisionally, I can define happiness as a mental state I would like to remain in, and not lose. So, talking of the original post that led you here, while everyone prioritizes the (self-assigned) purposes of life differently, directly or indirectly human happiness does figure somewhere at the top of everyone's 'agenda' for life. No other human-assigned purpose would be able to stake that claim - not, living for the country; nor, living for poor; nor, living for endangered species; nor, living for a single (as in, everyone devoting life to a common) religion; nor, living to set exemplary behavior. And even if someone defines something else as the purpose of their life, say, attaining salvation, they do it in belief that salvation will bring them happiness (as defined above).

But since, we humans have to co-exist in space and time, and share the same resources amongst us in our attempts to achieve our purposes (whatever they be), we have to distribute them in most pragmatic fashion possible - such that such distribution minimizes conflicts (which will cause pain, which majority of people want to avoid) and satisfy maximum number of people's desire to be happy (the way they feel it could be fulfilled). And as I said before, it is the limitation in resources and unavoidable interpersonal interactions that make us define every person's rights, authority and what they do or do not deserve.

Just as you pointed out, these concepts are merely human constructs, and hence not binding on you, and I agree. But if all actions were to depend on what one's "mood" is, for instance, what will prevent one from slapping a random person in a bus or raping a random woman in a secluded place? I am sure you must have not done either of the two things, but the questions is what prevented you or will prevent you if you feel like doing it? Or will nothing be able to stop you from doing so once you feel the urge?

So personally, I do think a lot about these (morals, ethics, justice, etc.) issues, precisely because I do find myself deeply engaged in human affairs. Though I have the option of not doing so, by two possible mechanisms - living in some secluded area totally by myself, and hence doing away with all sort of morality OR by committing suicide. I am afraid of both the options, as I pointed out in my response in the Conflusions-post (click), and moreover I have am enjoying my current mode of living; abiding to moral principles is hardly a challenge for me. So, I choose to live by the standards set by the society (morality) because I am living amidst society. Living amidst society is always following our agreeing to an unwritten contract, and that contract is what morality is. If one chooses to disregard these contracts, they instantly lose the right to live a life dependent on fellow human beings. And hence, either such people have to be removed from society because of their incompatibility in coexisting with others (death sentence) or punished (conviction by courts) or of course, the third option - that they live in some secluded place without interacting with any other human being (exile). But then, that they breach certain clauses (rules and regulations) of the contract with the knowledge that --> doing so invites the consequences they had agreed to --> by way of choosing to live in a manner they would depend on others --> they automatically become deserving of the punishment they had agreed to in the first place by breaching the the terms of the contract. For instance, a person committing rape in India becomes deserving of punishment as defined in the section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (click), because he had consented to be punished the moment he rapes a woman while being a part of India (Indian citizenship). This was all law and justice.

You might but ask, what if someone does not want to enter this contract of interpersonal interactions? Why force someone to enter interpersonal interactions? But the problem is no human being at birth is independent. The moment one accepts nurture from one's parents, and wears clothes made by another human being, or eats food prepared with another human's labor, they inadvertently put their seal on the contract of the society called morality. And hence for these "reasons" I do not think it is possible to escape consideration of moral issues.

[With this my response to Darshan practically ends; what follows is the ideas built opon what I just presented]

But of course, the next question could be who gets to decide these set of rules? And more importantly, what are the bases of such rules? It is here, the (supposedly) most widely agreed upon principle of maximizing human happiness and minimizing human pain that comes to fore. We all humans might not always agree as to what constitutes legal, ethical, moral "etiquetted", etc., but if we define some "minimum possible standards", we will at least have a rational framework to work within. These could also be termed as "moral axioms", as in they have no other underlying bases, except that (assuming and hoping) highest number of people in the World agree upon them. I will enlist the most significant moral axioms here:

1. Every human is equal and has same rights at birth.

2. Every human at birth has an equal right to live.

3. Fulfilling the desire to be happy is one of the fundamental goals, and every human at birth has equal right to be happy.

4. Fulfilling the desire to avoid pain is one of the fundamental goals, and every human at birth has equal right to avoid pain.

5. Everyone should try to reach decisions on any issue such that, as far as possible, none of the above principles are violated.

I believe, a large part of what we instinctively think of as moral or immoral (and also, legal, ethical, honorable - or not so) can be accounted for by above principles. Of course, I am no expert in philosophy of ethics, morality and law, but at least this serves as a good starting point. I also believe, if some societal impositions or government-sanctioned laws do not fit into the above framework, then they make a good case for a closer scrutiny. For instance, what in the above framework would make consensual homosexuality immoral/unethical/illegal? Or for that matter, euthanasia? Slightly more contentious would be issues like abortion. Likewise, issue of death penalty would be most contentious. The "at birth"-part finds repeated mention to allow for some other concepts like "deserving" and unequal "ownership" (say, owing to one's hard work) to apply, which could lead to subsequent inequality. Additionally for instance, if the established law punishes a convict, the punishment might go against their rights to live, be happy and to avoid pain. But to ensure practical functionality of the entire framework, we have to also admit the possibility some people will not honor point number 5, and hence this dishonor makes them eligible for predetermined punishment. And of course, a very touchy issue of what is a "right" as against what is an "opportunity" has not been addressed here. For example in our contemporary society, despite having same rights, do children respectively born to poor and rich parents get equal opportunity to healthy diet and good education? How do we tackle such moral issues? I would be discussing these issues also in one of my subsequent posts, but then they cannot be covered in limited space.

So to end this post, I just want to point out that the instinctive ideas of moral, ethical, and appropriateness of government-sanctioned laws, etc., are very difficult to scrutinize on a firmly rational bases, but the point is they can be! And at least, we have to make an attempt to do so. If we stop looking for "reasons" to regard something as moral v/s immoral, we would be entertaining moral arbitrariness (and hence, "relativism") as an acceptable criterion. Once that happens, it is only downhill course for the collective human happiness from that point. And also that reason cannot be "someone said so" (scripture-directed morality), because what would be valid reason would not be that someone said so, but the reason as to why someone said what they said. As long as we are living in the human society, it becomes binding upon us to think over moral issues. The moment we lose our commitment to morality, we lose our right to live amidst with other human beings.

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One recommendation:

Read this extremely well-explained and argued blog-post by Professor McCormick - Open the Floodgates (click), where he demonstrates why exclusively faith cannot be used to believe in the existence of God without committing intellectual dishonesty.

One request:

Kindly visit a copy of this blog I have prepared at Wordpress (click). This is just an experiment. I may or may not shift to Wordpress. Currently, it is unlikely that I switch over to Wordpress because it does not allow customization of CSS of blog-templates. Of course, the only attractive feature of Wordpress over Blogger is their comment-system, which might eventually win me over if I get into an 'aggressive' mode of blogging. ;)