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ISIS’s war on civilization is motivated by law

ISIS’s war on civilization is motivated by law

Adam J. MacLeod

That our President has not demonstrated any serious understanding of the threat that ISIS poses to Western civilization is obvious to all but his most partisan supporters, i.e. nearly the entire news media, entertainment industry, and academic establishment — and now even they are beginning to notice his lack of leadership. Yet some on the left remain blinded by partisanship. In The Atlantic, for example, Peter Beinart condescendingly offers a "primer to Marco Rubio" under the headline, "ISIS is Not Waging a War Against Western Civilization." Amazingly, The Atlantic ran the essay even after the Paris attacks.

Beinart and the President would do well to read this article by Beinart's Atlantic colleague, Graeme Wood, titled, "What ISIS Really Wants," published last March. The article is far from perfect. Wood implausibly confuses Sunni legal doctrines with the Judeo-Christian scriptures, and misses other obvious differences between the world's major religions. But his understanding of ISIS is grounded in research and in the statements and assessments of ISIS members, whom he allows to speak in their own voices.

Assisted suicide and the corruption of lawyers
Blogs

Assisted suicide and the corruption of lawyers

Adam J. MacLeod

The NewBostonPost recently ran a fine editorial by John Peteet, a medical doctor who expressed concern about the proposal to legalize assisted suicide in the commonwealth. His concern is warranted. Substantial evidence has now accumulated to show that legalizing assisted suicide corrupts the medical profession (see, for example, this, this, and this). This is all quite predictable given what we know from moral philosophy about the nature of human choice and action. As I have explained elsewhere:

It is the choosing of death, acting with a purpose that death will result, that is morally problematic. Death is not something to be chosen, least of all by doctors. A physician who adopts the death of her patient as the purpose for her action has become a different kind of physician. Indeed, she has become a different kind of person. She has become a person who chooses death over life.

A person who purposely chooses to cause death, who makes death a reason for his actions, is not oriented toward the good. This is because choosing has a creative, self-making significance. To adopt by free choice a reason for one's action is to make that reason part of one's projects and commitments. By choosing life, one becomes a person oriented toward life. By choosing death, one becomes a person oriented toward death.
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