Dear FT editor,
I've thoroughly enjoyed my first year of FT, reading many thoughtful and fascinating articles. Although I normally agree with much of what I find, for some reason, I found myself scribbling critical comments in the margins of several pieces in the November issue.
Damon Linker (Going to Pot?) acknowledges some increasingly good arguments for legalizing marijuana, but says we should keep the ban in place based on its spiritual danger to citizens (by providing unearned satisfaction, leading to unproductiveness). While this issue is not a top priority for me (as a nonuser it wouldn't affect me directly, although lower crime rates from decriminalization would indirectly), I question the government's authority to outlaw peaceful behaviors it thinks are bad for the soul or lead to unproductiveness. Imagine the list of behaviors the Nazis or Soviets would have placed in this category. Not only do we have the "who watches the watchers" issue here, but also citizens being viewed as tools of the state which must be kept productive. Much damage has been caused in our society by governments exceeding their constitutionally authorized limits, and it seems to me that Linker proposes a continuation of this. Remember that whatever power we cede to the government (in the interest of protecting our values) can and will eventually be used against those values.
Gilbert Meilander (Capital and Other Punishments) makes the interesting observation that the death penalty is least problematic in a genuinely religious society, which seems correct to me. On the way, however, he seems to support several troubling ideas: that there is a distinction between public and private killing (i.e. that what is morally wrong for individuals can be morally right for a government), that views of government as God-ordained and subject to the consent of the governed are somehow mutually exclusive and that the latter view is pernicious. I believe the proper and healthy view of government acknowledges that all of its legitimate power comes from God through its citizens, who severally delegate certain limited aspects of their God-given authority to it. In this view, government is subject not only to exactly the same moral restrictions as individuals, but also to additional scope-limiting restrictions which do not apply to individuals.
Finally, Benjamin Wiker (Darwin and the Descent of Morality) tries to make the case that the classical liberal "natural right" theory of John Locke is inimical to Aquinas' natural law theory and has "led to the world of Pinker and Dawkins." I would counter that the real culprit is atheism and that there is no necessary link between it and either natural right theory or evolution. In fact, the American founders saw Locke's ideas as illuminating how God-granted inalienable rights can effectively limit state power. While the theory of evolution has many weaknesses (which are increasingly being publicized), it can and must be distinguished from the philosophy/religion of atheistic materialism which is the true cause of so much error, confusion and evil.
Keep up the great work!
Steven P. Sawyer