How To Pray

The following is a brief reflection I shared with my fellow parishioners at the 8 a.m. service of our church on Sunday, July 24, 2022.

In today's reading from the gospel (Luke 11:1-13), the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray, and he tells them, "When you pray, say: "Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread," and so on. So a question I've been asking myself is: Is Jesus teaching his disciples what to pray or is he teaching them how to pray? Is he saying, "Pray this," or is he saying, "Pray like this"? Is Jesus telling his disciples to repeat what he says, word for word, or is he saying, "Pray like I'm praying" or "This is the way you can pray"? In Luke's Gospel, Jesus seems to be saying, "Pray this," but in Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus delivers his prayer to the assembled crowd at The Sermon on the Mount, he seems to be saying, "Pray like this," and depending on which version of the Bible you read, this phrase may be translated as "Pray then like this" or "Pray in this manner" or "This, then, is how you should pray."

      So I think Jesus is teaching us how to pray, rather than what to pray. I don't think he wants us to mechanically repeat some words we've memorized. I think he wants us to pray from our hearts, and to say what's in our hearts. This is in keeping with the other instructions about how to pray that he gives in The Sermon on the Mount:

"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this..." (Matthew 6:5-15)

      Of course, there are many kinds of prayer: prayers of adoration, prayers of praise, prayers of thanksgiving, prayers of penitence, prayers of oblation, prayers of petition, and prayers for intercession. But when Jesus gives the disciples his own prayer, "Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come...", I think he's saying, "When you pray, you should honor God, you should pray for the coming of God's kingdom, you should ask for God's forgiveness, and you should pray for God's grace."

      The Book of Common Prayer says, in response to the question "What is prayer?" that "Prayer is responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words."¹ Thus, prayer involves speaking and listening to God. it's a dialogue with God. It can be done silently or aloud. When we pray, we can discern what God's purpose is for us, and we can ask for grace to do God's will, and we can feel the power of the Holy Spirit working within us. True prayer isn't merely a mechanical repetition of memorized phrases, although this kind of practice may be useful in preparing us to speak directly to God and in teaching us how to pray. Rather, true prayer involves praying with all our hearts and souls, as well as minds.

FOOTNOTES 

¹The Book of Common Prayer, According to the use of The Episcopal Church (Kingsport: Kingsport Press, 1977), p. 856.

Culpable Ignorance: A Consequentialist Perspective

What is culpable ignorance? What kind of responsibility do we have to avoid being culpably ignorant?

      Let's consider some possible definitions of culpable ignorance.

      (1) It's ignorance that's within our power to avoid, and that results from a failure to comply with our epistemic duty to become informed about something (when we have such a duty). Because we have some control over whether or not we're culpably ignorant, we can be held morally responsible for being so. A distinction can thus be made between ignorance for which we're responsible (culpable ignorance) and ignorance for which we're not responsible (non-culpable ignorance).

      (2) Culpable ignorance is ignorance for which there's no excuse, and for which there are harmful or undesirable consequences that could have been avoided or anticipated. It can be argued that simply being culpably ignorant is harmless if no negative consequences result from that ignorance. (It can also be argued that ignorance of any kind is intrinsically harmful, but this seems somewhat implausible.) From a consequentialist perspective, simply not knowing something we should have known may not make us culpably ignorant unless some harmful or undesirable consequences result from that ignorance. The extent of our culpability for our ignorance may depend on the wrongness or inappropriateness of the actions that result from that ignorance, as well as the gravity and extent of their negative consequences.

      (3) Culpable ignorance is ignorance in cases where we "should have known better" or "should have realized" that relevant facts or conditions needed to be considered.

      (4) It's also ignorance where we failed to take due regard of, or pay sufficient attention to, relevant facts or conditions.

      (5) It's also the spreading or promulgation of falsehoods and misinformation, without any regard for the veracity of that information or the consequences of spreading such falsehoods and misinformation.

      Ignorance alone isn't culpable, if there's some excuse for it. The ignorance must be inexcusable rather than excusable, deliberate rather than inadvertent, or intentional rather than unintentional, if it's rightly to be held as culpable. However, if an individual refuses to reexamine or reevaluate their beliefs despite evidence that those beliefs may be mistaken or in need of better justification, then they may be held blameworthy for their refusal to reexamine or reevaluate their beliefs. Similarly, if an individual takes an action for which some knowledge of relevant facts is necessary in order to determine the action's rightness or appropriateness, and they willfully refuse to inform themselves of those relevant facts, then they may rightly be held responsible for any negative consequences of that action.

      We may be culpably ignorant for not knowing something (such as the rightness or wrongness of a particular action) if (1) we should have known about that thing (or should have known that we didn't know about that thing), and (2) as a consequence of that ignorance, we (a) do what we shouldn't have done or cause others to do what they shouldn't have done, or (b) don't do what we should have done or cause others not to do what they should have done. If our actions or non-actions in such cases cause negative consequences for ourselves or others, then we may rightly be held blameworthy for those actions or non-actions.

      Holly Smith (1983) argues that the concept of culpable ignorance must be restricted to (1) cases in which an individual believed they were acting justifiably, and (2) cases in which they were not acting precipitously. Thus, culpable ignorance involves an initial "benighting act" for which the individual is culpable and in which the individual fails to improve (or positively impairs) their initial cognitive position, followed by an "unwitting wrongful act."¹

      Niels de Haan (2020) argues that culpable ignorance may in some cases be irreducibly collective (not attributable to a single individual). While it might not be fair in some cases to expect an individual to have avoided their ignorance of a particular fact, it might be fair to expect the group to which they belong to have collectively avoided its ignorance of that particular fact.² In such cases, the group, rather than the individual, is culpable (or at least the individual is culpable only insofar as they are a member of that group). de Haan notes that an individual's (or group's) culpability for not knowing something may also imply they could reasonably have been expected to take measures to remedy or avoid that ignorance.³

      Alexander F. Sarch (2014) explains that when someone is willfully ignorant of some fact (when they deliberately avoided learning whether the fact in question obtained), they may be held culpable for that ignorance. For example, in cases where a defendant is charged with a crime, and the defendant was willfully ignorant of some fact, they may, according to the "willful ignorance doctrine," be found to be culpable on the ground they were willfully ignorant of the relevant fact.⁴

       Culpable ignorance may include willful ignorance (the deliberate rejection of knowledge or the deliberate avoidance of measures to become informed about something), but not all culpable ignorance is willful, insofar as it may in some cases be due simply to a lack of diligence with regard to measures to become informed about something (in cases where there is a duty to become informed about that thing), rather than deliberate avoidance of those measures.

      Jason B. Freeman (2022) defines willful blindness as "an attempt to avoid liability for a wrongful act by intentionally failing to make reasonable inquiry when faced with the suspicion or awareness of the high likelihood of wrongdoing." He also says, "It is a deliberate attempt to keep one's "head in the sand" when faced with information or facts that create a suspicion or awareness that there is a likelihood of wrongdoing."⁵

      The Law Library of American Law and Legal Information at law.jrank.org defines culpable ignorance as "the lack of knowledge or understanding that results from the omission of ordinary care to acquire such knowledge or understanding."⁶

      What's the relation between willful ignorance and denialism? They may be closely related to or associated with each other, but they aren't the same. Willful ignorance may involve a failure to be acquainted with relevant facts, while denialism may involve an acquaintance with relevant facts, but a failure to recognize those facts as facts.  For example, denialism may involve denial of such facts as the link between HIV and AIDS, the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and the efficacy of vaccines in preventing transmissible diseases such as polio, measles, and COVID-19.

      Charles W. Mills (2007) describes "white ignorance" as a group-based cognitive phenomenon that has epistemic, moral, social, and political implications. It's based on a system of white privilege in which white racism plays a significant causal role. It's also based on white normativity, i.e. on the centering of whiteness as a constitutive norm, while the experience of blacks and other people of color is marginalized. One of its functions has been to protect those who for racial reasons have needed not to see or know about the black or brown people in their midst.⁷

      Annette Martin (2021) presents three alternative accounts of "white ignorance," as (1) a willful ignorance about racial injustice (the "willful ignorance view"), (2) an ignorance resulting from social practices that distribute faulty cognitive resources, e.g. by accepting faulty norms of reasoning about race (the "cognitivist view"), and (3) an ignorance resulting from a social process that systemically gives rise to racial injustice (the "structuralist view").⁸

      Examples of white ignorance (sometimes guised as "color blindness") include blindness to acts of racial injustice, blindness to racially discriminatory laws or policies, and blindness to structures of racial inequality.

FOOTNOTES

¹Holly Smith, "Culpable Ignorance," in The Philosopher's Annual, Vol. VI, 1983, 243-271.

²Niels de Haan, "Collective Culpable Ignorance," in Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 10, Issue 2, 2021, p. 99.

³Ibid., p. 100.

⁴Alexander F. Sarch, "Willful ignorance, Culpability, and the Criminal Law," in St. John's Law Review, No. 4, Vol. 88, 2014, 1022-1101.

⁵Jason B. Freeman, "Willful Blindness and Corporate Liability," 2022, online at Freeman Law, https://freemanlaw.com/willful-blindness-and-corporate-liability/.

⁶Law Library of American Law and Legal Information, "Culpable," 2022, online at https://law.jrank.org/pages/5914/Culpable.html

⁷Charles W. Mills, "White Ignorance," in Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana (Albany, State University of New York Press, 2007, pp. 13-28.

⁸Annette Martin, "What is White Ignorance?" in The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 71, Issue 4, October 2021, 864-885.

2021 Under Armour Charles Street 12

The Under Armour Charles Street 12 is a 12-mile road race down Charles Street through the center of Baltimore. This year it was held on Saturday, September 4th, at 7:30 am. The weather was a bit chilly at starting time, about 63 degrees, but by about 9 am, it was warm and sunny, almost 80 degrees. 

      The race started at the Shops at Kenilworth in Towson, going west along Kenilworth Drive to Charles Street, and then south down Charles Street to the Inner Harbor, continuing down Light Street to Key Highway, and then onto the Key Highway Extension to TidePoint, finishing in front of Under Armour's Headquarters at Locust Point.

      The course had a fairly difficult uphill in the first mile, then another  uphill at miles two and three, but from there it was mostly downhill until the last three miles, which were mostly flat.

      The overall men's winner was Ryan Fan, age 24, from Baltimore, MD, who finished with a time of 1:07:15.0, for a pace of 5:36 per mile. The overall women's winner was Suzie Jakes, age 36, from White Hall, MD, who had a time of 1:09:48.3, for a pace of 5:49 per mile, in fourth place overall among 952 runners (473 male and 479 female).
      I finished with a time of 1:44:33.8, for a pace of 8:43 per mile, which was 2nd of 34 in my age group (60-69), and 284th out of 952 overall. I was very pleased. I had just been hoping to break 2 hours. The downhills really helped me. The men's winner in my division, Hank Reiser, from Edgewater, MD, finished in a time of 1:43:37.8, for a pace of 8:38 per mile.

Moralism

Moralism may be defined in a variety of ways. It may be a tendency to see all things in moral terms and to believe that all (or almost all) things have moral dimensions. It may also be a tendency to believe that all (or almost all) actions have (or should have) moral motivations, and that they serve (or should serve) moral purposes. It may also be an obsessiveness or zealousness about the application of moral principles to the empirical (natural, or social) world. It may also be a habit of moralizing or making moral judgments about other people's behavior.
     Moralism may also be an absolutism or dogmatism about moral principles or standards, as opposed to a relativism or skepticism. It may be both descriptivist and prescriptivist in its scope and application. It may also be cognitivist in asserting that there are moral facts and that moral knowledge is possible.

      A moralist may be someone who tends to make or express moral judgments in or through their speech or writing. They may be someone who tends to look for moral meanings and moral explanations for things, and to make moral inferences or draw moral conclusions from them.

      To be moralistic may also be to be focused on morality, to the point of seeing things only for what they say about some other person's or group's morality and ignoring any other non-moral meanings those things may have.

      A moralizer may be a person who says "I told you so" or who scolds you for not having listened to their advice. They may be someone who subjects others to public ridicule or shame for having acted wrongly. They may also be someone who likes to gossip, and who makes veiled (or not so veiled) allegations through insinuation or innuendo about others' behavior.

      On the other hand, someone who consciously avoids making moral judgments about things (or who avoids moralizing or being moralistic) may do so as an expression of the view that not all things can be explained in moral terms, and that moralizing may be inappropriate in some situations. They may be someone who recognizes that there may be deeper explanations for some things than those provided by conventional notions of morality.

      While scientism may hold that all (meaningful) questions are ultimately scientific questions, moralism may hold that all (meaningful) questions are ultimately moral questions. While scientism may hold that all questions can be answered scientifically, moralism may hold that all questions can be answered morally.

      In Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice meets a Duchess who tells her there's a moral lesson to be learned from everything; we have only to discover what that moral lesson is. The Duchess may thus be a moralizer.  "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it," she says. One of these morals is: "Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves."¹ (In other words, if we truly attend to the meaning of something, then we'll most likely find some way of expressing that meaning.)

      Alfred Archer (2017) explains that moralism involves an inflated sense of the extent to which moral criticism is appropriate.² Thus, moral criticism of individuals who've performed actions that are morally indifferent may be inappropriate, as may be criticism of individuals who haven't performed actions that are supererogatory. So also may criticism of individuals who've acted wrongly be inappropriate, if there are exculpatory circumstances.³ 

      Craig Taylor (2012) notes that when we accuse others of moralizing, we ourselves may be moralizing. When we accuse others of moralism, we ourselves may be guilty of moralism. So we must do more than merely point a moral finger at those who point a moral finger at others.⁴

      According to Taylor, a defect of moralism is that it may involve a failure to recognize or acknowledge the full humanity of those who are criticized, as well as their nature as morally accountable beings.⁵ Another defect of moralism is that it may involve a distorted conception of morality, insofar as it means taking some things as a moral matter when they actually are not.⁶ 

     Phillip Rieff, in Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (1959), describes Freud as a moralist, in the sense that Freud divides the self into three psychic agencies, the id (or instinct), the ego (or reason), and the superego (or conscience), thereby assigning control over the id to the ego, and control over the ego to the superego. Each of these three psychic agencies has moral dimensions and can be described in moral terms.

      According to Noël Carroll (1966), radical moralism in the evaluation of art is the theory that the purpose of art is to express moral values. Radical moralism holds that the aesthetic value of an artwork depends on the moral values it expresses. The moral virtues of an artwork are always aesthetic virtues, and the moral defects of an artwork are always aesthetic defects. Moderate moralism. on the other hand, holds that the aesthetic value of an artwork may partly depend on the moral values it expresses. The moral virtues of an artwork may sometimes be aesthetic virtues, and the moral defects of an artwork may sometimes be aesthetic defects; however, not all moral virtues of an artwork are necessarily aesthetic virtues, and not all moral defects of an artwork are necessarily aesthetic defects.⁷

      Other theories of moral and aesthetic criticism, as described by Carroll, include radical autonomism, which holds that moral values and aesthetic values are totally autonomous and separate, and moderate autonomism, which holds that moral values and aesthetic values are autonomous and separate, but that artworks may be evaluated for their moral as well as aesthetic virtues or defects.⁸

FOOTNOTES

¹Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass [1865] (New York: Bantam Books, 1981), p. 68.

²Alfred Archer, "The Problem with Moralism," in Ratio (July 2017), p. 1, online at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318288004_The_problem_with_moralism

³Ibid. p. 3

⁴Craig Taylor, Moralism: A Study of a Vice (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2012), p. 11.

⁵Ibid., p. 34.

⁶Ibid., p. 58.

⁷Noël Carroll, "Moderate Moralism versus Moderate Autonomism," in The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 38 (Oct 1998), p. 419.

⁸Noël Carroll, "Moderate Moralism," in The British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 36, No. 3 (July 1996), p. 230.

OTHER REFERENCES

Phillip Rieff, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1959).

Baltimore 10 Miler, 2021

The Baltimore 10 Miler was held Saturday, June 5th, 2021. This year, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the race organizers were unable to obtain a permit from Baltimore City, and the race was held in Hunt Valley, about 15 minutes north of Baltimore. 

      The weather was warm and sunny, about 70 degrees at 7 am, and 80 degrees by 9 am. The course route was hilly, with a few fairly steep uphills and downhills.

      The overall men's winner, Jeremy Ardanuy, age 28, who won the race two years ago, finished in a time of 56:05, with a pace of 5:37 per mile. The overall women's winner, Robyn Mildren, age 30, finished in a time of 59:39, with a pace of 5:58 per mile. Natalie Atabek, age 29, who won the women's division two years ago, finished second in a time of 1:03:52, with a pace of 6:27 per mile.

      My son Douglas and I ran together the whole race, finishing in a time of 1:31:06, with a pace of 9:07 per mile. I finished 4th out of 21 runners in my age group, 364th out of 1465 runners overall. Doug finished 48th out of 128 runners in his age group, but he'd only been training for a few weeks due to his work schedule. I thought I actually ran better than I did two years ago, when I had a time of 1:19:09, but the hills along the course were probably a factor in my slower time. The men's winner in my division, Tom Heid, finished in a time of 1:25:15, with a pace of 8:31 per mile.

Doug and I crossing the finish line.