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Most anti-fox-hunting activists think that it should be banned because it is cruel. Yet are not fishing and
shooting also cruel? Is a hook through the head or a bullet in the gut so much kinder than a hound at the
p. 90throat? What is the difference between fox-hunting and shooting that means that the former is
impermissible but the latter to be defended at all costs?
By supporting shooting and fishing, Mr. Blair tacitly agrees that cruelty to animals is not a sufficient
ground for criminalization. But then, whatis his objection to fox-hunting?
Fox-hunting certainly differs from fishing and shooting in some respects. For example, it is practiced
primarily by wealthy non-Labour voters on horseback and is hated by left-wing members of the Labour
party who often feel Mr. Blair does too little for them. But these don’t seem relevant to the question of
whether or not something should be illegal. Unless he articulates his position more clearly, giving a
principle of jurisprudence that shows why fox-hunting should be illegal but not fishing or shooting, then it
will appear that Mr. Blair’s position on blood sports, besides being moderate, is arbitrary and
inconsistent.
No, some will say, it is simply pragmatic. Pragmatism is a rightly vaunted quality in politicians but it does
not require inconsistency. Suppose that Mr. Blair is not as inconsistent as it appears and really seeks a
ban on all blood sports. He knows, however, that he cannot now get a ban on fishing and shooting,
because they are too popular. Yet, he might get a ban on foxhunting, providing he promises to protect
fishing and shooting. This, then, is what he should do, because some progress is made—foxes will be
saved from the indignity of being killed by hounds (now they will be shot)—while none is made by
insisting on an unachievable ban on all blood sports.
Nowhere in this pragmatism is there any inconsistency. The position on blood sports is consistent and
the legislative comp. 91promise perfectly sensible under the circumstances. Inconsistency arises only
when Mr. Blair claims, not that he is willing to protect shooting and fishing as part of a bargain, but that
he believes there is no ground for their criminalization. It is the attempt to conceal the pragmatism, if that
is what was going on, that gives rise to the inconsistency. Of course, it may be pragmatic to conceal your
pragmatism; that is a matter on which I must defer to experts, such as Mr. Blair. But if so, the price of
pragmatic pragmatism is deception and incoherence, which seems too high.
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Weird Ideas
Despite the decline of organized religion, weird ideas remain popular in the West. What do I mean by
“weird,” you may ask. But even as you ask you will know the kind of thing I have in mind. All that
new-age stuff: reincarnation, astrology, numerology, homeopathy, and the like. It’s all weird.
Weird but true, the defenders of some slice of this fruitcake will tell you: they have evidence. Consider
reincarnation. The evidence offered up is certain people’s knowledge of the past that, it is argued, could
only be acquired by memory of experiences in a previous life. During a session of hypnosis aimed at
putting her in touch with her former self, Jill remembers that Julius Caesar had a heart-shaped mole on his
left buttock. Then a quick check of the historical sources and, lo! The conqueror of Egypt did indeed
possess the alleged beauty spot. Yet Jill had never studied the matter, never seen the historical sources in
question. Honest. So, you see, sheis the reincarnation of Cleopatra.
p. 92The defenders of reincarnation are frustrated by the way this kind of evidence is dismissed by the
scientific establishment. They are so wedded to their dogma, to their so-called scientific method, that they
cannot see the truth before them.
In fact, rejecting the conclusion that reincarnation explains Jill’s uncanny knowledge of Caesar’s beauty
spot is a simple matter of consistency. Reincarnation is inconsistent with much of what most scientists
currently believe about the mind. It assumes, for example, that the mind (or, at least, the memory)
survives bodily death, goes through a period of disembodied existence, and later reinhabits a new body.
But we have good reason to believe that the mind depends on the functioning of the brain, so that it
cannot survive bodily death. To accept reincarnation is to reject the view that the mind depends on the
brain.
Of course, this ideacould be mistaken. But the evidence for it is formidable. Anecdotes about what
people claim to remember under hypnosis, on the contrary, make poor evidence. They can be explained
in many ways that do not require us to abandon our well-supported theories about the relationship
between the mind and the brain. It is always more likely that Jill is lying about not having prior knowledge
of Julius Caesar’s beauty spot, or that the hypnotist suggested it to her, or even that it was a lucky guess,
than that modern neuropsychology is wrong and Jill really is the reincarnation of Cleopatra.
Weird ideas are not intrinsically weird. They are weird because they are inconsistent with established
views of the laws of nature. When you accept them, you reject the established view, or at least part of it.
This is not something to be done lightly, because the established view has a mountain of evidence to
support it. Those who reject it, by believing in reincarnation, astralp. 93travel, or astrology, take a bold
step. For the step to be rational, the evidence for their favored theory must be stronger than the evidence
for the established view that it contradicts. Yet, it is rarely more than a collection of anecdotes about
people with unlikely knowledge or who recover from a flu in double-quick time.
Besides being intellectually frivolous, advocates of weird ideas also often contradict themselves—by
continuing to believe in the laws of nature that their weird idea contradicts. Consider homeopathy.
This is the idea that a disease can be treated by administering doses of a substance that, in a healthy
person, would cause the disease. Because large doses of these substances cause unwanted side effects,
the dose is made minute by a process of repeated dilution. Alas, the dilution of homeopathic medicines is
so great that the resulting liquid is simply water, with not a trace of the originally added substance.
Homeopathologists acknowledge this fact but insist that the prior addition of the active agent and
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process of dilution give it curative powers lacked by water without this history. They thereby contradict a
principle that I have never heard anyone seriously call into question, and which I am sure that even a
homeopath would not directly deny, namely, that objects with the same properties have the same causal
powers, regardless of how they came to have those properties. For example, if Jack and Jill both weigh
140 pounds, then by standing on properly functioning scales each will cause it to register “140 pounds.”
It makes no difference if Jack has recently gained weight and Jill lost weight. The same goes for anything
else, including samples of water. It makes no difference what used to be in the water. Ifp. 94both
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