Category: Politics

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Back in 2015 Republican then presidential candidate Ben Carson took some heat for his remarks about Muslims. Donald Trump has helped feed the persistent unfounded suspicions that President Obama is a secret Muslim. Some of the fine folks at Fox and other conservative pundits have an established history of what some critics regard as anti-Muslim bigotry.

As might be suspected, those accused of bigotry usually respond by claiming they are not bigots and assert they are telling the truth about Islam. There are claims that nearly all Muslims wish to impose Sharia law on America, that Islam (unlike any other faith) cannot become a part of American society, and that taqiyya allows Muslims a license to lie to achieve their goals. The assertion about taqiyya is especially useful to critics—any attempt by Muslims to refute accusations can be dismissed as falling under taqiyya.

It is not always clear if the bigotry expressed against Muslims is “sincere” bigotry or bad faith opportunism. While “honest” bigotry is bad enough, feeding the fires of hatred for gain is perhaps even worse. This sort of bigotry in politics is, obviously, nothing new.

Though I am not a Mormon, in 2011 I wrote a defense of Mitt Romney and Mormonism against accusations that Mormonism is a cult. I have also defended the claim that Mormonism is a form of Christianity. While the religious bigotry against Romney was not widespread, it was present and is like the bigotry against Muslims.

 Another example of bigotry against a religion in America is the anti-Catholicism that was rampant before Kennedy became President. Interestingly, past accusations against American Catholics are mirrored in the current accusations against American Muslims—that a Catholic politician would be controlled by an outside religious power, that a Catholic politician would impose his religious rules on America and so on. As is now evident, these accusations proved baseless and Catholics are accepted as fit for holding public office. In fact, Catholics commonly hold offices. Given the accusations against Catholicism turned out to be untrue, it seems reasonable to consider that the same accusations against Islam are also untrue.

The bigotry against Muslims has also been compared to the mass internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.  In the case of Japanese Americans, the fear was that they would serve as spies and saboteurs for Japan, despite being American citizens. The reality was, of course, that Japanese Americans served America just as loyally as German Americans and Italian Americans.

While it is possible that Islam is the one religion that cannot become part of American society, history shows that claims that seem to be bigotry generally turn out to be just that. As such, it is reasonable to regard these broad accusations against American Muslims as unfounded bigotry.

Those who were critical of Kim Davis, the county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and was jailed for being in contempt of court, often appealed to a rule of law principle. The main principle seems to be that individual belief should not be used to trump the law.

Some of those who supported Davis made the point that some state and local governments have ignored federal laws covering drugs and immigration. To be more specific, it was pointed out that some states legalized (or decriminalized) marijuana even though federal law still defined it as a controlled substance. It was also pointed out that some local governments were ignoring federal immigration law and acting on their own—such as issuing identification to illegal immigrants and providing services.

Some of Davis’ supporters even noted that some who insist that Davis follow the law tolerate or even support state and local governments that ignored the federal drug an immigration laws.

One way to respond to such assertions is to claim that Davis’ defenders were using the red herring tactic. This is when an irrelevant topic is introduced to divert attention from the original issue. The tactic is to try to “win” a dispute by drawing attention away from the original argument onto another issue. If the issue is whether Davis should have followed the law, the failure of some states and local governments to enforce federal law is irrelevant. This is like a speeder who has been pulled over and argues that she should not get a ticket because another officer did not ticket someone else for speeding. What some other officer did or did not do to some other speeder is not relevant. As such, this approach would have failed to defend Davis.

In regard to the people who said Davis should follow the law yet were seemingly fine with the federal drug and immigration laws being ignored, to assert that they were wrong about Davis because of what they think about the other laws would commit the tu quoque ad hominem. This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person’s claim is false because it is inconsistent with something else a person said. Since fallacies are arguments whose premises fail to logically support the conclusion, this tactic would not have logically defended Davis.

Those who wanted to defend Davis could, however, have made an appeal to consistency and fairness: if it is acceptable for the states and local governments to ignore federal laws without punishment, then it would seem acceptable for Kim Davis to have ignored these laws without being punished. Those not interested in defending Davis could also have made the point that consistency does require that if Davis should have been compelled to obey the law about same-sex marriage, then the same principle should have been applied in regards to the drug and immigration laws. As such, the states and local governments that did not enforce these laws should have been compelled to enforce them and any failure to do so should have resulted in legal action against the state officials who failed to do their jobs.

This line of reasoning is plausible but can be countered by attempting to show a relevant difference (or differences) between the laws. In practice most people do not use this approach—rather, they have the “principle” that the laws they like should be enforced and the laws they oppose should not be enforced. This is, obviously enough, not a legitimate legal or moral principle.  This applies to those who like same-sex marriage (and think the law should be obeyed) and those who dislike it (and think the law should be ignored). It also applies to those who like marijuana (and think the laws should be ignored) and those who dislike it (and think the laws should be obeyed).

In terms of making the relevant difference argument, there are many possible approaches depending on which difference is as relevant. Those who wished to defend Davis might have argued that her resistance to the law was based on her religious views and hence her disobedience could have been justified on the grounds of religious liberty. Of course, there are those who opposed (and still oppose) immigration laws on religious grounds and even some who opposed the laws against drugs on theological grounds. As such, if the religious liberty argument applies in one case, it can also be applied to the others that involve religious belief. But the general approach seems to be that religious liberty is for discrimination.

Those who wanted Davis to follow the law but who opposed the enforcement of certain drug and immigration laws could have argued that Davis’ violated the constitutional rights of citizens and that this was a sufficient difference to justify a difference in enforcement. The challenge is, obviously enough, working out why this difference justified not enforcing the drug and immigration laws in question.

Another option is to argue that the violation of moral rights suffices to warrant not enforcing a law and protecting rights warrants enforcing a law. The challenge is showing that the rights of the same-sex couples overrode Davis’ claim to a right to religious liberty and showing  moral rights to use certain drugs and to immigrate even when it is illegal to do so. These things can be done but go beyond the scope of this essay.

My own view is that consistency requires the enforcement of laws. If the laws are such that they should not be enforced, then they need to be repealed. I do, however, recognize the legitimacy of civil disobedience in the face of laws that a person of informed conscience regards as unjust. But, as those who developed the theory of civil disobedience were aware, there are consequences to such disobedience.

Back in 2015 Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, was the focus of national media because of her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In 2025 she appeared in the national news again because of her petition to revisit the same-sex ruling. The Supreme Court denied her petition. I wrote about Davis in 2015 and it seems reasonable to revisit the timeless issue of ad hominem attacks.

As should be expected, opponents of same-sex marriage focused on the claim that Davis’ religious liberty was being violated. As should also be expected, her critics sought and found evidence of what seemed to be her hypocrisy: Davis has been divorced three times and is on her fourth marriage. Some bloggers, eager to attack her, claimed that she was guilty of adultery. Such attacks can be relevant to certain issues, but they are also irrelevant for other issues. It is worth sorting between the relevant and the irrelevant.

If the issue at hand is whether Davis was consistent in her professed religious values, then her actions would be relevant. After all, if a person claims to have a set of values and acts in ways that violate those values, then this provides grounds for accusations of hypocrisy or even a lack of belief in the professed values. That said, there can be many reasons why a person acts in violation of her professed values. One obvious reason is moral weakness—most people, me included, fail to live up to their principles due to our flaws and frailties. As none of us is without sin, we should not be hasty in judging the failings of others.  However, it is reasonable to consider a person’s actions when assessing whether she is acting in a manner consistent with her professed values.

If Davis was, in fact, operating on the principle that marriage licenses should not be issued to people who have violated the rules of God (presumably as presented in the bible), then she would seem to have been required to accept that she should not have been issued a marriage license (after all, there is a wealth of scriptural condemnation of adultery and divorce). If she accepted that she should have been issued her license despite her violations of religious rules, then consistency would seem to require that the same treatment be afforded to everyone—including same-sex couples. After all, adultery makes God’s top ten list while homosexuality seems to be only mentioned in a single line (and one that also marks shellfish as an abomination). So, if adulterers can get licenses, it would be difficult to justify denying same-sex couples marriage licenses on the grounds of a Christian faith.

If the issue at hand is whether Davis was right in her professed view and her past refusal to grant licenses to same-sex couples, then references to her divorce and alleged adultery are logically irrelevant. If a person claimed that Davis was wrong in her view or acted wrongly in denying licenses because she has been divorced or has (allegedly) committed adultery, then this would be a personal attack ad hominem. A personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when attacking another person’s claim or claims. This line of “reasoning” is fallacious because the attack is directed at the person making the claim and not the claim itself. The truth value of a claim is independent of the person making the claim. After all, no matter how repugnant an individual might be, they can still make true claims.

If a critic of Davis asserts that her claim about same-sex marriage was in error because of her own alleged hypocrisy, then the critic would commit an ad hominem tu quoque.  This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person’s claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions. The fact that a person makes inconsistent claims does not make any particular claim she makes false (although of any pair of inconsistent claims only one can be true—but both can be false). Also, the fact that a person’s claims are not consistent with her actions might indicate that the person is a hypocrite, but this does not prove her claims are false. As such, Davis’ behavior had no bearing on the truth of her claims or the rightness of her decision to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Dan Savage and others  made the claim that Davis was motivated by her desire to profit from the fame she garnered from her actions. Savage asserts that “But no one is stating the obvious: this isn’t about Kim Davis standing up for her supposed principles—proof of that in a moment—it’s about Kim Davis cashing in.” Given, as Savage notes, the monetary windfall received by the pizza parlor owners who refused to cater a same-sex wedding, this has some plausibility.

If the issue at hand is Davis’ sincerity and the morality of her motivations, then whether or not she is motivated by hopes of profit or sincere belief does matter. If she is opposing same-sex marriage based on her informed conscience or, at the least, on a sincerely held principle, then that is a different matter than being motivated by a desire for fame and profit. A person motivated by principle to take a moral stand is at least attempting to act rightly—whether her principle is actually good or not. Claiming to be acting from principle while being motivated by fame and fortune would be to engage in deceit.

However, if the issue were whether Davis was right about her claim regarding same-sex marriage, then her motivations would not be relevant. To think otherwise would be to fall victim to yet another ad hominem, the circumstantial ad hominem. This is a fallacy in which one attempts to attack a claim by asserting that the person making the claim is making it simply out of self-interest. In some cases, this fallacy involves substituting an attack on a person’s circumstances (such as the person’s religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.). This ad hominem is a fallacy because a person’s interests and circumstances have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made. While a person’s interests will provide them with motives to support certain claims, the claims stand or fall on their own. It is also the case that a person’s circumstances (religion, political affiliation, etc.) do not affect the truth or falsity of the claim. This is made clear by the following example: “Bill claims that 1+1 =2. But he is a Christian, so his claim is false.” Or, if someone claimed that Dan Savage was wrong simply because of his beliefs.

Thus, Davis’ behavior, beliefs, and motivations were relevant to certain issues. However, they are not relevant to the truth (or falsity) of her claims regarding same-sex marriage.

Years ago, Kim Davis, a country clerk in Kentucky, refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the grounds that doing so violates her religious beliefs. When questioned about this, she replied  acted “under God’s authority.” It was argued that it would violate her religious freedom to be compelled to follow the law and do her job. This past situation raises numerous important issues about obedience and liberty. I am reconsidering this issue because of moral questions about obeying commands from the Trump administration that an official might disagree with. As a philosopher, I endeavor to follow my principles consistently rather than having one principle for when I like what someone is doing and another when I dislike the same sort of action, such as disobeying the state.

When taking a position in situations like this, people generally do not consider the matter in terms of general principles about such things as religious liberty and obedience to the state. Rather, the focus tends to be on whether one agrees or disagrees with the very specific action. In the Davis case, it is not surprising that people who oppose same-sex marriage agreed with her decision to disobey the law and claim that she had a moral right to do so. It is also not surprising that those who favor same-sex marriage tended to think that she should have obeyed the law and that it was morally wrong for her to disobey the law of the land.

In the case of officials who have resisted the immigration policies designed by Stephen Miller, those who agree with these policies will tend to think that the state should be obeyed and these will surely include people who supported Kim Davis’s view. Those who oppose these policies, which will include people who thought Davis should have obeyed the law, will be inclined to support disobedience to these laws and policies.

The problem with this sort of approach is that it is unprincipled. Unless being in favor of disobedience one likes and opposing disobedience one dislikes is a reasonable moral position. Moral consistency requires the application of a general principle that applies to all relevantly similar cases, rather than simply going with how one feels about a particular issue.

In regard to the situation involving Davis, many of her defenders tried to present this as a religious liberty issue: Davis was wronged by the law because it compelled her to act in violation of her religious beliefs. Her right to this liberty presumably outweighs the rights of the same-sex couples who expected her to follow the law and do her job.

In the case of officials resisting immigration laws and policies, their reasoning would be based on moral grounds and that morality trumps the law and policy in this case. The matter is also complicated by the fact that the immigration “enforcement” sometimes violates the law.

Having been influenced by Henry David Thoreau’s arguments for civil disobedience and by Thomas Aquinas, I agree that an individual should follow her informed conscience over the dictates of the state. The individual must, of course, expect to face the consequences of this civil disobedience and these consequences might include fines, being fired or even spending time in prison. Like Thoreau, I believe that a government official who finds the law too onerous should endeavor to change it and, failing that, should resign rather than obey a law they regard as unjust. As such, my general principle is that a person has the moral right to refuse to follow a law that their informed conscience regards as immoral.

In the case of Davis, if she acted in accord with her informed conscience, then she had the moral right to refuse to follow the same-sex marriage law. However, having failed to change the law, she needed to either agree to follow this law or resign.

In the case of immigration, the officials should take the same approach. However, when the law is violated by the federal government, then the state and local officials have the right to resist. They would, after all, be the ones following the law.

That said, I understand a person’s informed conscience can be in error—that is, what she thinks is right is not right. It might even be morally wrong. Because of this, I also accept the view that while a person should follow his informed conscience, the actions that follow from this might be morally wrong. If they are wrong, the person has obviously acted wrongly. But, to the degree that they followed their informed conscience, they can be justly excused in regards to their motivations. But the actions (and perhaps the consequences) would remain wrong.

Since I favor liberty in regard to marriage between consenting adults (and have written numerous essays and a book on this subject), I believe that Davis’ view about same-sex marriage was in error. Though I think she is wrong, if she acted in accord with her informed conscience and due consideration of the moral issue, then I respect her moral courage in sticking to her ethics.

In the case of how immigration has been handled under Trump, I see it as consistently immoral and probably often illegal (I’ll leave that to the lawyers). As such, I would generally see resisting the immoral and illegal actions as morally correct.

While subject to the usual range of inconsistencies, I do endeavor to apply my moral principles consistently. As such, I apply these principles to all relevantly similar cases. As such, whenever there is a conflict between an individual’s professed moral views and the law she is supposed to enforce, I ask two questions. The first is “is the person acting in accord with her informed conscience?” The second is “is the person right about the ethics of the matter?” This is rather different from approaching the matter by asking “do I agree with the person on this specific issue?”

As noted above, some of the defenders of Davis cast this as a religious liberty issue. In this case, the implied general principle would be that when an official’s religious views conflict with a law, then the person has the right to refuse to follow the law. After all, if religious liberty is invoked as a justification here, then it should work equally well in all relevantly similar cases. As such, if Davis should be allowed to ignore the law because of her religious belief, then others must be allowed the same liberty.

As might be suspected, folks that oppose same-sex marriage on religious would probably agree with this principle—at least in cases that match their opinions. However, it seems likely that many people would not be in favor of consistently applying this principle. Let us consider immigration.

The bible is reasonable clear about how foreigners should be treated. Leviticus, which is usually cited to condemn same-sex marriage, commands that “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” Exodus says “”Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt” while Deuteronomy adds to this that “And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

Given this biblical support for loving and treating foreigners well, ICE agents and immigration officials have religious support for refusing to enforce immigration laws violating their conception of love and good treatment. For example, a border patrol agent could, on religious grounds, refuse to prevent people from crossing the border. As another example, a judge could refuse to send people back to another country on the grounds of what the bible says about treating the foreigner as a native born. I suspect that if officials started invoking religious freedom to break immigration laws, there would be little or no support for their religious liberty from the folks who support religious liberty when it comes to discrimination.

As another example, consider what the bible says about usury. Exodus says, “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him.”  Ezekiel even classified charging interest as an abomination: “Lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.” If religious liberty allows an official to break or ignore laws, then judges and law enforcement personnel who accept these parts of the bible would be allowed to, for example, refuse to arrest or sentence people for failing to pay interest on loans.

This can be generalized to all relevantly similar situations involving law-breaking or law ignoring by officials who do so by appealing to religious liberty. As might be imagined, accepting a principle that religious liberty grants an official an exemption to the law would warrant the breaking or ignoring many laws. Given this consequence, accepting the general principle of allowing religious liberty to trump the law would be unwise. However, it is wise to think beyond one’s feeling about one specific case to consider the implications of accepting a general principle.

In philosophy, a classic moral debate is on the conflict between liberty and security. While this covers many issues, the main problem is determining the extent to which liberty should be sacrificed to gain security. There is also the practical question of whether the security gain is effective.

One ongoing debate focuses on tech companies being required to include electronic backdoors in certain software and hardware. A backdoor of this sort would allow government agencies (such as the police, FBI and NSA) to access files and hardware protected by encryption. This is like requiring all dwellings be equipped with a special door that could be secretly opened by the government to allow access.

The main argument in support of mandating backdoors  that governments need such access for criminal investigators, gathering military intelligence and (of course) to “fight terrorism.” The concern is that if there is not a backdoor, criminals and terrorists will be able to secure their data and prevent state agencies from undertaking surveillance or acquiring evidence.

As is so often the case with such arguments, various awful or nightmare scenarios are presented in making the case. For example, the location and shutdown codes for ticking bombs might be on an encrypted iPhone. If the NSA had a key, they could save the day. As another example, it might be claimed that a clever child pornographer could encrypt all his pornography, making it impossible to make the case against him, thus ensuring he will be free to pursue his misdeeds with impunity.

While this argument is not without merit, there are counter arguments. Many of these are grounded in views of individual liberty and privacy, the idea being that an individual has the right to have such security against the state. These arguments are appealing to both liberals (who profess to like privacy rights) and conservatives (who profess to be against the intrusions of big government when they are not in charge).

Another moral argument is grounded in the fact that the United States government has, like all governments, shown that it cannot be trusted. Imagine agents of the state were caught sneaking into the dwellings of all citizens and going through their stuff in clear violation of the law, the Constitution and basic moral rights. Then someone developed a lock that could only be opened by the person with the proper key. If the state then demanded that the lock company include a master key function to allow the state to get in whenever it wanted, the obvious response would be that the state has already shown that it cannot be trusted with such access. If the state had behaved responsibly and in accord with the laws, then it could have been trusted. But, like a guest who abused her access to a house, the state cannot and should not be trusted with a key After all, we already know what they will do.

In the case of states that are even worse in their spying on and oppression of their citizens, the moral concerns are even greater. Such backdoors would allow the North Korean, Chinese and Iranian governments to gain access to devices, while encryption could provide their citizens with some degree of protection.

Probably the strongest moral and practical argument is grounded on the technical vulnerabilities of integrated backdoors. One way that a built-in backdoor creates vulnerability is by its mere existence. To use a somewhat oversimplified analogy, if thieves knew that all safes had a built-in backdoor designed to allow access by the government, they would know what to target.

One counter-argument is that the backdoor would not be that sort of vulnerability—that is, it would not be like a weaker secret door into a safe. Rather, it would be like the government having its own combination that would work on all safes. The vault itself would be as strong as ever; it is just that the agents of the state would be free to enter the safe when they are allowed to legally do so (or when they feel like doing so).

The obvious moral and practical concern here is that the government’s combination (continue with the analogy) could be stolen and used to allow criminals or enemies easy access. The security of all safes would be only as good as the security the government used to protect this combination (or combinations—perhaps one for each manufacturer). As such, the security of every user depends on the state’s ability to secure its means of access to hardware and software.

One obvious problem is that governments, such as the United States, have shown that they are not very good at providing such security. From a moral standpoint, it would seem to be wrong to expect people to trust the state with such access, given the fact that the state has shown that it cannot be depended on in such matters. Imagine you have a friend who is very sloppy about securing his credit card numbers, keys, PINs and such—in fact, you know that his information is routinely stolen. Then imagine that this friend insists that he must have your credit card numbers, PINs and such and that he will “keep them safe.” Given his own track record, you have no reason to trust this friend nor any obligation to put yourself at risk, regardless of how much he claims that he needs the information.

One obvious counter to this analogy is that this irresponsible friend is not a good analogue to the state. The state has compulsive power that the friend lacks, so the state can use its power to force you to hand over this information.

The counter to this is that the mere fact that the state has compulsive force does not mean that it is thus responsible—which is the key concern in regards to both the ethics of the matter and the practical aspect of the matter. That is, the burden of proof would seem to rest on those that claim there is a moral obligation to provide a clearly irresponsible party with such access.

It might then be argued that the state could improve its security and responsibility, and thus merit being trusted with such access. While this does have some appeal, there is the obvious fact that if hackers and governments knew that the keys to the backdoors existed, they would take pains to acquire them and would, almost certainly, succeed. I can even picture the sort of headlines that would appear: “U.S. Government Hacked: Backdoor Codes Now on Sale on the Dark Web” or “Hackers Linked to China Hack Backdoor Keys; All Updated Apple and Android Devices Vulnerable!” As such, the state would not seem to have a moral right to insist on having such backdoors, given that the keys will inevitably be stolen.

At this point, the stock opening argument could be brought up again: the state needs backdoor access to fight crime and terrorism. There are two easy and obvious replies to this sort of argument.

The first is based on an examination of past spying, such as that done under the auspices of the Patriot Act. The evidence seems to show that this spying was completely ineffective in regard to fighting terrorism. There is no reason to think that expanded backdoor access would change this.

The second is a utilitarian argument (which can be cast as a practical or moral argument) in which the likely harm done by having backdoor access must be weighed against the likely advantages of having such access. The consensus among those who are experts in security is that the vulnerability created by backdoors vastly exceeds the alleged gain to protecting people from criminals and terrorists.

Somewhat ironically, what is alleged to be a critical tool for fighting crime (and terrorism) would simply make cybercrime much easier by building vulnerabilities right into software and devices.

In light of the above discussion, baked-in backdoors are morally wrong on many grounds (privacy violations, creation of needless vulnerability, etc.) and lack a practical justification. As such, they should not be required by the state.

In June 2015 the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of the legality of same-sex marriage. Many states had already legalized it and most Americans thought it should be legal. As such, the ruling was consistent both with the constitution and with the democratic ideal of majority rule. There are, of course, those who objected to the ruling and are even now working to undo it.

Some claim that the court acted contrary to democratic rule by engaging in judicial activism. Not surprisingly, some of those who made this claim had no complaints when the court ruled in ways they liked, despite the general principles being the same (that is, the court ruling in ways contrary to what voters had decided).  I do see the appeal of principled and consistent arguments against the Supreme Court engaging in activism and overruling what the voters have decided. But I rarely see such arguments as most people follow the principle that they like what they like. However, my concern here is with another avenue of dissent against the decision, namely that this ruling infringes on religious liberty.

The argument from religious liberty is an interesting one. On intriguing aspect is that the argument is made in terms of religious liberty rather than the older tactic of openly attacking gay people for alleged moral wickedness. This change of tactic seems to show a recognition that most Americans accept or at least tolerate their fellow gay Americans. As such, this tactic acknowledges a changed world. This change also represents clever rhetoric: the intent is not to deny some people their rights, but to protect religious liberty. Protecting liberty sells better than denying rights. While protecting liberty is commendable, the obvious question is whether the legalization of same-sex marriage infringes on religious liberty.

In general, there are two ways to infringe on liberty. The first is by forbiddance. That is, preventing a person from exercising their freedom. For example, the liberty of free expression can be infringed by preventing a person from freely expressing their ideas. For example, the state might impose penalties for people who criticize the leader.

The second is by force. This is compelling for people to act against their will. For example, having a law that requires people to dress in a certain way when they do not wish to do so. As another example, having a law that would compel people to praise the great leader. Since some people consider entitlements to fall under liberties, another way a person could have liberty infringed upon is to be denied her entitlements. For example, the liberty of education in the United States entitles children to a public education. Hence, taking away public education would be an imposition on that right.

It is important to note that not all cases of forbidding or forcing are violations of liberties. This is because there are legitimate grounds for limiting liberties, such as the principle of harm. For example, it is not a violation of a person’s liberty to prevent him from texting death threats to his ex-wife. As another example, it is not a violation of a person’s liberty to require her to have a license to drive a car.

Given this discussion, for the legalization of same-sex marriage to impose on religious liberty would require that it wrongfully forbids religious people from engaging in religious activities, wrongfully forces religious people to engage in behavior contrary to their religion or wrongfully denies religious people entitlements connected to their religion.

The third one is the easiest and quickest to address: there does not seem to be any way that the legalization of same-sex marriage denies religious people entitlements connected to their religion. While I might not have considered all the possibilities, I will move on to the first two.

On the face of it, the legalization of same-sex marriage does not seem to wrongfully forbid religious people from engaging in religious activities. To give some obvious examples, it does not forbid people from praying, attending religious services or saying religious things.

While some people have presented slippery slope “arguments” that this legalization will lead to such forbiddances, there is nothing in the ruling that indicates this or even mentions anything remotely like it. As with all such arguments, the burden of proof rests on those who claim that there will be this inevitable or likely slide. While inter-faith and inter-racial marriage are different matters, allowing these to occur was also supposed to lead to terrible things. None of these happened, which leads one to suspect that the doomsayers will be proven wrong yet again. As this is being written in 2025, none of the dire predictions came true. But perhaps we just need to wait another decade or ten.

But, of course, if a rational case can be made linking the legalization of same-sex marriage to real violations of religious liberty, then it would be reasonable to be worried. However, the linkage is based on psychological fear rather than logical support.

It also seems that the legalization of same-sex marriage does not force religious people to wrongfully engage in behavior contrary to their religion. While it is legal for same-sex couples to marry, this does not compel people to become gay and then gay-marry someone else who is (now) gay. Religious people are not compelled to like, approve of or even feel tolerant of same-sex marriage. They are free to dislike, disapprove, and condemn it. They are free to try to amend the Constitution to forbid same-sex marriage.

It might be argued that religious people are compelled to allow other people to engage in behavior that is against their professed religious beliefs, and this is a violation of religious freedom. An easy and obvious reply is that allowing other people to engage in behavior that is against one’s religion is not a violation of one’s religious liberty. This is because religious liberty is not supposed to be the liberty to impose one’s religion on others, but the liberty to practice one’s religion.

For example, the fact that I am at liberty to eat pork and lobster is not a violation of the religious liberty of Jews and Muslims. The fact that some women can go out in public with their faces exposed is not a violation of the religious liberty of some Muslims. The fact that people can have religions other than Christianity is not a violation of the religious liberty of Christians. As such, the fact that same-sex couples can legally marry does not violate the religious liberty of anyone.

It might be objected that it will eventually violate the religious liberty of some people. Some argued that religious institutions will be compelled to perform same-sex weddings (as they might be compelled to perform inter-racial or inter-faith marriages). This, I would agree, would be a violation of their religious liberty and liberty of conscience. Private, non-commercial organizations have every right to discriminate and exclude as that is part of their right of freedom of non-association. Fortunately, the legalization of same-sex marriage does not compel such organizations to perform these marriages. If it did, I would certainly oppose that violation of religious liberty.

It might also be objected that people in government positions would be required to issue same-sex marriage licenses, perform the legal act of marrying a same-sex couple, or recognize the marriage of a same-sex couple. People at the IRS would even be compelled to process the tax forms of same-sex couples.

The conflict between conscience and authority is nothing new and philosophers have long addressed this matter. Thoreau, for example, argued that people should follow their conscience and disobey what they regard as unjust laws.

This does have considerable appeal, and I agree that morality trumps law in terms of what a person should do. I should do what is right, even if the law requires that I do evil. This view is a necessary condition for accepting that laws can be unjust or immoral, which I accept. Because of this, I agree that a person whose conscience forbids her from accepting same-sex marriage has the moral right to refuse to follow the law. That said, the person should resign from her post in protest rather than simply refusing to follow the law. As an official of the state, the person has an obligation to perform their job and must choose between keeping that job and following their conscience. That said, I am certainly open to moral arguments for people refusing to follow the law while also refusing to quit. One could, for example, advance a utilitarian argument for such  action. Naturally, a person also has the right to try to change what they think is an immoral law.

I have the same view about people who see interracial marriage as immoral: they should follow the dictates of their conscience and not take a job that would require them to, for example, issue marriage licenses. However, their right to their liberty of conscience does not override the rights of other citizens to marry. That is, their liberty does not morally warrant denying the liberty of others.

It could be argued that same-sex marriage should be opposed because it is objectively morally wrong and this would apply to officials. This line of reason has appeal because what is objectively wrong should be opposed, even if it is the law. For example, when slavery was legal in the United States it should have been opposed by everyone, even officials.  But, arguing against same-sex marriage on moral grounds is a different from arguing against it on the grounds that it allegedly violates religious liberty.

It could be argued that the legalization of same-sex marriage violates the religious liberty of people in businesses such as baking wedding cakes, planning weddings, photographing weddings and selling wedding flowers.

The legalization of same-sex marriage does not, by itself, forbid businesses from refusing to do business involving a same-sex marriage. Legal protection against that sort of discrimination is another, albeit related, matter. This sort of discrimination has also been defended on the grounds of freedom of expression, which I have addressed at length in other essays.

In regard to religious liberty, a business owner certainly has the right to not sell certain products or provide certain services that go against her religion. For example, a Jewish restaurant owner has the liberty to not serve pork. A devout Christian who owns a bookstore has the liberty to not stock the scriptures of other faiths or books praising same-sex marriage. An atheist t-shirt seller has the liberty to not stock any shirts displaying religious symbols. These are all matters of religious liberty.

I would also argue that religious liberty allows business owners to refuse to create certain products or perform certain services. For example, a Muslim free-lance cartoonist has the right to refuse to draw cartoons of Muhammad. As another example, an atheist baker has the moral right to refuse to create a cake with a cross and quotes from scripture.

That said, religious liberty does not seem to grant a business owner the right to discriminate based on her religion. For example, a Muslim who owns a car dealership has no right to refuse to sell cars to women (or women who refuse to fully cover themselves). As another example, a militant homosexual who owns a bakery has no right to refuse to sell cakes to straight people.

Thus, the legalization of same-sex marriage does not violate religious liberty, at least from a moral perspective.

The United States has libertarian and anarchist threads, which is appropriate for a nation that espouses individual liberty and expresses distrust of the state. While there are many versions of libertarianism ranging across the political spectrum, I will focus on the key idea that the government should impose minimal limits on individual liberty and that there should be little, if any, state regulation of business. These principles were laid out clearly by American anarchist Henry David Thoreau in his claims that the best government governs least (or not at all) and that government only advances business by getting out of its way.

I must admit that I find this libertarian-anarchist approach appealing. Like many politically minded young folks, I experimented with a variety of political theories in college. I found Marxism unappealing because, as a metaphysical dualist, I must reject materialism. Also, I was aware of the brutally oppressive and murderous nature of many “Marxist” states, and they were in direct opposition to both my ethics and my view of liberty. Fascism was certainly right out, for reasons that are obvious to anyone who is not evil.

Since, like many young folks, I thought I knew everything and did not want anyone to tell me what to do, I picked anarchism as my theory of choice. Since I am morally opposed to murdering people, even for a just cause, I sided with the non-murderous anarchists such as Thoreau. I eventually outgrew anarchism, but I still have many fond memories of my halcyon days of naïve political views. As such, I do really like libertarian-anarchism and really wanted it to be viable. But I liking something does not entail that it is viable or a good idea.

Put in general terms, a libertarian system would have a minimal state with extremely limited government impositions on personal liberty. The same minimalism would also extend to the realm of business; they would operate with little or no state control. Since such a system seems to maximize liberty and freedom, they can seem initially very appealing. After all, freedom and liberty are good and more of a good thing is better than less. Except when it is not.

It might be wondered how more liberty and freedom is not always better than less. Two stock answers are both appealing and plausible. One was laid out by Thomas Hobbes. In discussing the state of nature (which is a form of anarchism as there is no state) he notes that total liberty (the right to everything) amounts to no right at all. This is because everyone is free to do anything, and everyone has the right to claim (and take) anything. This leads to his infamous war of all against all, making life “nasty, brutish and short.” Like too much oxygen, too much liberty can be fatal. Hobbes’ proposed solution is the social contract and the sovereign.

A second answer was present by J.S. Mill. In his discussion of liberty, he argued that liberty requires limitations on liberty. While this might seem like a paradox or a slogan from Big Brother, Mill is quite right in a straightforward way. For example, your right to free expression requires limiting my right to silence you. As another example, your right to life requires limits on my right to kill. As such, liberty does require restrictions on liberty. Mill does not limit the limiting of liberty to the state as society can impose such limits as well.

Given the plausibility of the arguments of Hobbes and Mill, it seems reasonable to accept that there must be limits on liberty for there to be liberty. Libertarians, who usually fall short of being true anarchists, do accept this. However, they do want the broadest possible liberties and the least possible restrictions on business. At least for themselves.

In theory, this would appear to show that the theory provides the basis for a viable political system. After all, if libertarianism is the view that the state should impose the minimal restrictions needed to have a viable society, then it would be (by definition) a viable system. However, there is the matter of libertarianism in practice and the question of what counts as a viable political system.

Looked at in a minimal sense, a viable political system would seem to be one that can maintain its borders and internal order. Meeting these two minimal objectives seem possible for a libertarian state, at least for a while. That said, the standards for a viable state might be taken to be higher, such as the state being able to (as per Locke) protect rights and provide for the good of the people. It can (and has) been argued that such a state would need to be more robust than the libertarian state. It can also be argued that a true Libertarian state would either devolve into chaos or be forced into abandoning libertarianism.

In any case, the viability of libertarian state would seem to depend on two main factors. The first is the ethics of the individuals composing the state. The second is the relative power of the individuals. This is because the state is supposed to be minimal, so limits on behavior must be imposed largely by other factors.

In regards to ethics, good people can often be relied on to self-regulate their behavior to the degree they are moral and have self-control. To the degree that the population is moral the state does not need to impose limitations on behavior, since the citizens will generally not behave in ways that require imposing the compulsive power of the state. As such, liberty would seem to require a degree of morality on the part of the citizens that is inversely proportional to the limitations imposed by the state. Put roughly, good people do not need to be coerced by the state into being good. As such, a libertarian state can be viable to the degree that people are morally good. While some thinkers (such as Mencius) have faith in the basic decency of people, many (such as Hobbes) regard humans as lacking in what others would call goodness. Hence, the usual arguments about how the moral failings of humans require the existence of the coercive state.

In regards to the second factor, having liberty without an external coercive force maintaining it would require that the citizens be comparable in political, social and economic power. If some people have greater power, they can easily use it to impose on their fellow citizens. While the freedom to act with few (or no) limits is wonderful for those with greater power, it is not good for those who have less power. In such a system, the powerful are free to do as they will, while the weaker people are denied their liberties. While such a system might be libertarian in name, freedom and liberty would belong to the powerful and the weaker would be denied. That is, it would be despotism or tyranny. Which is, one suspects, what some self-proclaimed libertarians want.

 If people are comparable in power or can form social, political and economic groups that are comparable in power, then liberty for all would be possible as individuals and groups would be able to resist the encroachments of others. Unions, for example, could be formed to offset the power of corporations. Not surprisingly, stable societies build such balances of power to avoid the slide into despotism and then to chaos. Stable societies also have governments that endeavor to protect the liberties of everyone by placing limits on how much people can inflict their liberties on others. As noted above, people can also be restrained by their ethics. If people and groups varied in power, yet abided by the limits of ethical behavior, then things could still go well for even the weak.

Interestingly, a balance of power might be disastrous. Hobbes argued that it is because people are equal in power that the state of nature is a state of war. This rests on his view that people are hedonistic egoists which means that they are selfish and do not care about other people.

Obviously enough, in the actual world people and groups vary greatly in power. Not surprisingly, many advocates of libertarianism enjoy considerable political and economic power. They would do very well in a system that removed many limitations on behavior since they would be freer to do as they wished and the weaker people and groups would be unable to stop them.

At this point, one might insist on a third factor that is beloved by the Adam Smith crowd: rational self-interest. The usual claim is that people would limit their behavior because of the consequences arising from their actions. For example, a business that served contaminated meat would soon find itself out of business because the survivors would stop buying the meat and spread the word. As another example, an employer who used his power to compel his workers to work long hours in dangerous conditions for low pay would find that no one would be willing to work for him and would be forced to improve things to retain workers. As a third example, people would not commit misdeeds because they would be condemned or punished by vigilante justice. The invisible hand would sort things out, even if people are not good and even if there is a great disparity in power.

The easy and obvious reply is that history shows that this never works as claimed. If there is a disparity in power, that power will be used to prevent negative consequences. For example, those who have economic power can use that power to coerce people into working for low pay and can also use that power to try to keep them from organizing to create a power that can resist this economic power. This is why, obviously enough, rich business owners usually oppose unions.

Interestingly, most people get that rational self-interest does not suffice to keep people from acting badly in the case of crimes such as murder, theft, extortion, assault and rape.

However, there is the view that rational self-interest will somehow work to keep people from acting badly in other areas. This, as Hobbes would say, arises from an insufficient understanding of humans. Or is a deceit on the part of people who have the power to do wrong and get away with it.

While I did like the idea of libertarianism, a viable libertarian society would require people who are predominantly ethical (and thus self-regulating) or a careful balance of power. Or, alternatively, a world in which people are rational and act from self-interest in ways that would maintain social order. This is clearly not our world, so libertarianism is not a viable system as I have defined it. To be fair and balanced, there are other definitions of viable systems and libertarianism could be viable under some of them.

The murder of nine people in the Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina in 2015 ignited an intense discussion of race and violence. While there was near-universal condemnation of the murders, some argue it was part of a broader problem of racism in America. This claim is supported by reference to the well-known history of systematic violence against blacks in America as well as consideration of contemporary data. Interestingly, some people respond to this approach by asserting that more blacks are killed by blacks than by whites. Some even seem obligated to claim that more whites are killed by blacks than blacks are killed by whites.

While these points are often “thrown out there” without being forged into a coherent argument, presumably the intent of such claims is to disprove or at least diminish the significance of claims about violence against blacks by whites. To be fair, there might be other reasons for bringing up such claims. Perhaps someone wants to broaden the discussion to all violence out of a genuine concern for the well-being of all people.

In cases in which the claims about the number of blacks killed by blacks are brought forth in response to incidents such as the church shooting, this tactic appears to be a specific form of a red herring. This occurs when an irrelevant topic is presented to divert attention from the original issue. The idea is to “win” an argument by leading attention to another topic.

This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

 

  1. Topic A is under discussion.
  2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when it is not).
  3. Topic A is abandoned.

 

In the case of the church shooting, the pattern would be as follows:

 

  1. The topic of racist violence against blacks is being discussed, specifically the church shooting.
  2. The topic of blacks killing other blacks is brought up.
  3. The topic of racist violence against blacks is abandoned in favor of focusing on blacks killing other blacks.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is flawed because changing the topic of discussion is not an argument against a claim. In the specific case at hand, switching the topic to black-on-black violence does nothing to address the topic of racist violence against blacks.

While the red herring label would certainly suffice for these cases, it is certainly appealing to craft a more specific version for cases in which something bad is “countered” by bringing up another bad. The obvious name for this fallacy is the “two bads fallacy.” This is a fallacy in which a second bad thing is presented in response to a bad thing with the intent of distracting attention from the first bad thing (or with the intent of diminishing the badness of the first bad thing).

This reasoning has the following pattern:

 

  1. Bad thing A is under discussion.
  2. Bad thing B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to A (when it is not).
  3. Bad thing A is ignored, or the badness of A is claimed to be diminished or refuted.

 

In the case of the church shooting, the pattern would be as follows:

 

  1. The murder of nine people in the AME church, which is bad, is being discussed.
  2. The claim that blacks killing other blacks, which is bad, is brought up.
  3. The badness of the murder of the nine people is ignored, or its badness is claimed to be diminished or refuted.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the fact that something else is bad does not entail that another bad thing has its badness lessened or refuted. After all, even if there are worse things than something, this does not entail that it is not bad. In cases in which there is not an emotional or ideological factor, the poorness of this reasoning is usually evident:

 

Sam: “I broke my arm, which is bad.”

Bill: “Well, some people have two broken arms and two broken legs.”

Joe: “Yeah, so much for your broken arm being bad. You are just fine. Get back to work.”

 

What seems to lend this sort of “reasoning” some legitimacy is that comparing two things that are bad is relevant to determining relative badness. If a person is arguing about how bad something is, it is certainly reasonable to consider it in the context of other bad things. For example, the following would not be fallacious reasoning:

 

Sam: “I broke my arm, which is bad.”

Bill: “Some people have two broken arms and two broken legs.”

Joe: “That is worse than one broken arm.”

Sam: “Indeed it is.”

Joe: “But having a broken arm must still suck.”

Sam: “Indeed it does.”

 

Because of this, it is important to distinguish between cases of the fallacy (X is bad, but Y is also bad, so X is not bad) and cases in which a legitimate comparison is being made (X is bad, but Y is worse, so X is less bad than Y, but still bad).

After the 2015 attack on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, commentators hastened to weave a narrative. Some, such as the folks at Fox News, Lindsay Graham and Rick Santorum, endeavored to present it as an assault on religious liberty. This did fit the narrative that Christians are being persecuted in a country whose population and holders of power are predominantly Christian. While the attack did take place in a church, it was a specific church with a history connected to the struggle against slavery and racism in America. If the intended target was just a church, presumably any church would have sufficed. Naturally, it could be claimed that it just so happened that this church was selected and it had nothing to do with its history.

But the killer’s own words made his motivation clear. He said that he acted because blacks were “raping our women” and “taking over our country.” As far as is known, he made no remarks about being motivated by hate of religion in general or Christianity in particular. Those who investigated his background found evidence of racism, but no evidence of a hatred of Christianity Given this evidence, it seems reasonable to accept that he was there to kill black people and not to kill Christians.

Some commentators also claimed the killer suffered from mental illness, despite a lack of evidence. This, as many have noted, is a go-to explanation when a white person engages in a mass shooting or political violence. However, people with mental illness (which is an incredibly broad and diverse population) are far more often victims of violence.

It is tempting to believe that a person who could murder nine people in a church must be mentally ill. After all, one might argue, no sane person would commit such a heinous deed. One reply is that if mental illness is a necessary condition for committing wicked deeds, then such illness must be very common in the human population. Accepting this explanation would, on the face of it, seem to require accepting that all violent criminals are mentally ill. It might even entail that almost anyone who engages in violence would be mentally ill.

One could accept that there is no evil, merely mental illness. This is an option that some accept and some even realize and embrace the implications of this view. Accepting this view does require its consistent application: if a white man who murders nine people must be mentally ill, then an ISIS terrorist who beheads a person must also be mentally ill rather than evil. As might be suspected, the narrative of mental illness is not, in practice, consistently applied.

 This view does have problems. Accepting this view would seem to deny the existence of evil (or at least the sort involved with violent acts) in favor of people being mentally ill. This would also be to deny people moral agency, making humans things rather than people. However, the fact that something might appear undesirable does not make it untrue. Perhaps the world is, after all, brutalized by the mad rather than evil.

An unsurprising narrative, put forth by Charles L. Cotton of the NRA, is that the Reverend Clementa Pickney was to blame for the deaths because he was also a state legislator “And he voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.” While it is true that Rev. Pickney voted against a 2011 bill to allow guns to be brought into churches and day care centers, it is not true that Rev. Pickney is responsible for the deaths. The reasoning in Cotton’s claim is that if Rev. Pickney had not voted against the bill, then an armed “good guy” might have been in the church and might have been able to stop the shooter. From a moral and causal standpoint, this is quite a stretch. The moral responsibility falls on the killer. The blame can be extended beyond the killer, but the moral and causal analysis would certainly place blame on such factors as the influence of racism, the easy availability of weapons, and so on. If Cotton’s approach is accepted and broad counterfactual “what if” scenarios are considered, then the blame would spread far and wide. For example, if he had been called out on his racism and corrected, then he might not have committed the murders. As another example, if the state had taken a firm stand against racism by removing the Confederate flag and boldly denouncing the evils of slavery while acknowledging its legacy, perhaps the churchgoers would not have been murdered.

One could insist that the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun and that it is not possible to address social problems except through superior firepower. However, this seems untrue.

One intriguing narrative, put forth by Jeb Bush who was once the governor of my adopted state of Florida, is the idea of an unknown (or even unknowable) motivation. Speaking after the alleged killer’s expressed motivations were known (he has apparently asserted that he wanted to start a race war), Bush claimed  he did not “know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.” While philosophers do recognize the problem of other minds in particular and epistemic skepticism in general, it seems unlikely that Bush embraced philosophical skepticism. While it is true that one can never know the mind or heart of another with certainty, the evidence shows it was racism. To claim that it is unknown, one might think, is to deny what is obvious in the hopes of denying the broader reality of racism in America. It can be replied that there is no such broader reality of racism in America, which leads to the last narrative I will consider.

The final narrative under consideration is that such an attack is an “isolated incident” conducted by a “lone wolf.” When a killer is a white man, this is another go-to explanation used by the right.  This narrative allows that the “lone wolf” can be motivated by racism. However, it denies the existence of a broader context of racism in America, such as the Confederate flag that flew proudly on public land near the capital of South Carolina. Instead, the shooter is cast as an isolated hater, acting solely from his own motives and ideology. This approach allows one to avoid the absurdity of denying the shooter was motivated by racism while being able to deny that racism is a broader problem. One obvious problem with the “isolated incident” explanation is that incidents of violence against African Americans is more systematic than isolated, as anyone who knows American history will attest. In regard to the “lone wolf” explanation, while it is true that the alleged shooter seems to have acted alone, he did not create the ideology that motivated the attack. While acting alone, he was a member of a large pack and that pack is still in the wild.

It can be replied that the alleged shooter was, by definition, a lone wolf (since he acted alone) and that the incident was isolated because there has not been a systematic series of attacks across the country in recent years. The lone wolf claim has some appeal since the shooter acted alone. However, when other terrorists attempt attacks in the United States, the narrative is that each act is part of a larger whole and not an isolated incident. In fact, some extend the blame to religion and ethnic background of the terrorist or criminal, blaming all of Islam, all migrants, or all Arabs for an attack.

In the past, I have argued that the acts of terrorists should not confer blame on their professed religion or ethnicity. However, I do accept that the terrorist groups (such as ISIS) that a terrorist belongs to get some of the blame for the acts of its members. Groups that try to radicalize people and motivate them to commit acts of terror deserve some blame for these acts. Being consistent, I certainly will not claim that all or even many white people are racists or terrorists just because the alleged shooter is white. That would be absurd, especially since I am a white guy. However, I some of the responsibility rests with the racist community that helped motivate the shooter to engage in his act of terror.

Way back in 2015 the internet exploded over Rachel Dolezal, the former leader of Spokane’s NAACP chapter. Ms. Dolezal had claimed to be African-American, Native American and white. She also claimed that her father is black. Reporters at KXLY-TV, however, looked up her birth certificate and determined that her legal parents are both white. Her parents asserted that she is white.

While the specifics of her case were certainly interesting to many, my concern is with more general issues about race and identity. While this situation was the best-known case of a white person trying to pass as black, passing as another “race” has long been a common practice in the United States, although this has usually been people trying to pass as white. Since being accepted as white enables a person to avoid many disadvantages, it is clear why people would attempt to pass as white. Since being accepted as black generally does not confer advantages in the United States, it is not surprising that Dolezal drew so much attention. These matters raise some interesting questions and issues about race.

Borrowing language from metaphysics, one approach to race could be called race realism. This is not being realistic about race in the common use of the term “realistic.” Rather, it is accepting that race is a real feature of reality. That is, the metaphysics of the world includes categories of race. As such, a person could be objectively black or white (or a mix). Naturally, even if there are real categories of race, people could be wrong about them.

One alternative is race nominalism. This is the idea that racial categories are social constructs and do not line up with an underlying metaphysical and physical reality. This is because there is no underlying metaphysical and physical reality that objectively grounds racial categories. In this case, a person might engage in self-identification in regard to race and this might or might not be accepted by others. A person might also have others place them into a race category, which they might or might not accept.

Throughout history, some people have struggled to find an objective basis for categories of race. Before genetics, people had to use appearance and ancestry. The ancestry was, obviously, needed because people did not always look like the race category that some people wanted them to be in. One example of this is the “one drop” rule once popular in some parts of the United States: one drop of black blood made a person black, regardless of their appearance.

The discovery of genes provided some people with a new foundation for race categories as they believed that there would be a genetic basis for their racism. The idea was that just as a human can be distinguished from a cat by genes, humans could be divided into races by their genetic make-up. While humans show genetic variations that are often linked to the geographical migration and origin of their many ancestors, race genes were not found. That is, humans (not surprisingly) are all humans with some minor genetic variations. The variations are not sufficient to objectively ground race categories.

In general, the people who quested for objective foundations for race categories were (or are) racists. These searches typically involved trying to find evidence of the alleged superiority of one’s race and the inferiority of other races. That said, a person could look for foundations for race without being a racist. They could be engaged in a scientific or philosophical inquiry rather than seeking to justify social practices and behaviors.

Given the failure to find a real foundation for race categories, it makes sense to embrace race nominalism. On this view, the categories of race exist only in the mind, they designate  how people think about the world rather than how reality is carved up. Even if it is accepted that race is a social construct, there is still the matter of the rules of construction: how the categories are created and how people are placed in them

One approach, which is similar to that sometimes taken for gender, is that people can self-identify. That is, a person can declare their race and this is sufficient to be in that category. If race categories are essentially made up, this does have a certain appeal. If race is a fiction, then anyone can be the author of her own fiction.

While there are some who do accept this view, the outrage over Ms. Dolezal showed that most people reject the idea of self-identification at least when a white person endeavors to self-identify as black. Interestingly, some of those who condemned her did defend the historical passing as white by some black people. The defense is appealing since blacks endeavoring to pass as white were doing so to escape oppression and this can be justified as a form of self-defense. In the case of Ms. Dolezal, the presumption seemed to be that the self-identification was both insincere and aimed at personal gain. Regardless of her true motivation, insincere self-identification aimed at personal gain seems to be wrong on the grounds that it is a malign deception. Some might, of course, regard all attempts at passing to gain an advantage as being immoral.

Another approach is that of the social consensus. The idea is that a person’s membership in a race category depends on the acceptance of others. This could be a matter of majority acceptance (one is, for example, black if most people accept one as black) or acceptance by a specific group or social authority. The obvious problem is working out what group or authority has the right to decide membership in race categories. On the one hand, this very notion seems linked to racism: one probably thinks of white supremacists and Nazis setting race categories. On the other hand, groups also seem to want to serve as the authority for their race category. Consistency might indicate that this would also be racist.

The group or authority that decides membership in race categories might make use of a race credential system to provide a basis for their decisions. That is, they might make use of appearance and ancestry. So, Ms. Dolezal would not be black because she looks white and has white parents. The concern with this sort of approach is that it was also used by racists, such as the KKK and Nazis, to divide people by race. A more philosophical concern is the basis for using appearance and ancestry as the foundation for race categories, for what justifies their use?

This discussion does show an obvious concern with policing race categories as it seems like doing so uses the tools of racism and would thus seem to be at least a bit racist. However, arguments could be advanced as to why the policing of race categories is morally acceptable and not racist.