The ethics of invective

It’s often said that while sticks and stones can break our bones, words can never hurt us. But it isn’t true. Were we mere animals, it would be true, but we’re not. We are rational social animals. Hence, we can be harmed, not only in ways that injure the body but also in ways that bring distress to the mind and damage our standing with our fellow human beings. These harms are typically not as grave as those involving bodily trauma, but they are real harms all the same. Indeed, mockery and the loss of one’s good name can even be felt by one who suffers them as worse than (at least some) bodily harms.

Ordinarily, of course, it is wrong to inflict bodily harm on someone. But not always. It can be permissible and sometimes even obligatory to do so–for example, in self-defense or in punishment of a crime. It is not inflicting bodily harm per se that is bad, but rather inflicting it on someone who does not deserve it. The difference between the guilty and the innocent is crucial. Bank robbers shooting at police and the police who fire back at them are inflicting the same sort of harm on each other, but they are not morally on a par. The robbers are doing something evil but the police are doing something good, namely defending themselves and others from the evildoing of the robbers.

Something analogous can be said about the harm we inflict with words. Ordinarily we should avoid this, but not always. Sometimes a person deserves such harm, and in some cases we do good by inflicting it. Thus Aquinas writes:

Just as it is lawful to strike a person, or damnify him in his belongings for the purpose of correction, so too, for the purpose of correction, may one say a mocking word to a person whom one has to correct. It is thus that our Lord called the disciples “foolish,” and the Apostle called the Galatians “senseless.” Yet, as Augustine says (De Serm. Dom. in Monte ii, 19), “seldom and only when it is very necessary should we have recourse to invectives, and then so as to urge God’s service, not our own.” (Summa Theologiae II-II.72.2)

Naturally, there are some harms we inflict through words that are never permissible. For example, calumny involves damaging someone’s reputation by spreading falsehoods about him. This is always and intrinsically wrong. But there are harmful words of other kinds that are not always and intrinsically wrong.

Two kinds in particular are especially relevant to public debate about matters of politics, philosophy, theology, and the like. There are, first of all, public insults and mockery of the kind that may decrease the honor or esteem in which another person is held. And second, there is the public dissemination of truths about another person that tend to damage his reputation. When insults and mockery of the sort in question are not deserved, they amount to what moral theologians call the sin of contumely. When such damage to a person’s reputation is not deserved, it amounts to what is called the sin of detraction.

Needless to say, the sins of contumely and detraction are extremely common in public debate–perhaps more common today than ever before, given the rise of the internet. But sometimes a person may deserve to be spoken of in ways that dishonor him or damage his reputation, and sometimes the public good may even be served by such speech. In these cases, such harmful words do not amount to contumely or detraction, any more than a policemen’s killing a bank robber who shoots at him amounts to murder.

Hence, in his treatment of detraction, Aquinas holds that “if it is for the sake of something good or necessary that someone utters words by which someone else’s reputation is diminished, then, as long as the right circumstances are preserved, this is not a sin and cannot be called detraction” (Summa Theologiae II-II.73.2, Freddoso translation). For example, “it is not detraction to reveal someone’s hidden sin by denouncing him for the sake of his improvement or by accusing him for the sake of the good of public justice.” Similarly, moral theologians John McHugh and Charles Callan note that “the public good is to be preferred to a false reputation, for the public welfare is the ground for the right to such reputation, the subject himself being unworthy of the good name he bears” (Moral Theology, Volume II, p. 243). Hence, there is nothing wrong with revealing someone’s criminal behavior to authorities or to those who might be harmed by it, or with warning consumers of fraudulent business practices.

In general, though a good person has an absolute right to a good reputation, there is no absolute right to such a reputation among those who do not deserve it. As McHugh and Callan write:

The right to a false reputation is a relative and limited right, one which ceases when the common good on which it rests no longer supports it (e.g. when it cannot be maintained without injustice). Moreover, there is no right to an extraordinary reputation, if it is based on false premises, for the common good does not require such a right, and hence it is not detraction to show that the renown of an individual for superior skill or success is built up on advertising alone or merely on uninformed rumor. (p. 225)

For example, it is not detraction to point out that a commentator well-known for his opinions about some topic (political, scientific, philosophical, theological, or whatever) in fact is not competent to speak about it and that his views have little value. Even if this damages his reputation, there is no sin of detraction, because no one has a right to a reputation for some excellence that in fact he lacks. It can even be obligatory for those who do have the relevant expertise to call attention to such a person’s incompetence, lest those who don’t know any better are misled by him.

Similarly, as Aquinas says in the first passage from the Summa quoted above, it is not always sinful, and indeed can even be necessary, to deploy insult or mockery. McHugh and Callan note that “those are not guilty of contumely who speak words that are not honorable to persons deserving of reproof” (p. 211). Naturally, people who deserve it would include those who are themselves guilty of detraction or contumely. McHugh and Callan hold that in self-defense against such verbal attacks, “it is lawful to deny the charge, or by retort to turn the tables on the assailant” (p. 216).

It is true that in some cases it can be virtuous simply to remain humbly silent in the face of detraction or contumely. But this is not always necessary or advisable. McHugh and Callan write:

One should repel contumely when there are good and sufficient reasons for this course, and hence Our Lord… refuted those who decried Him as a blasphemer, or glutton, or demoniac, or political disturber…

The good of the offender, in order that his boldness be subdued and that he be deterred from such injuries in the future, is a sufficient reason. Hence the words of Proverbs (xxvi. 5) that one should answer a fool, lest he think himself wise.

The good of others is another reason, in order that they be not demoralized by the vilification of one whom they have looked up to as an example and guide, especially if silence will appear to be a sign of weakness or carelessness or guilt. Hence, St. Gregory says that preachers should answer detractors, lest the Word of God be without fruit.

The good of self is a third reason for replying to contumely, for to enjoy the respect and esteem of others helps many a good person to act worthily of the opinion in which he is held, and it restrains many a sinner from descending to worse things than those of which he is guilty. (pp. 215-16)

It is no surprise, then, that Scripture and Church history are full of saints who deployed verbal attacks when engaging with their enemies. Elijah mocked the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:27). St. John the Baptist called the Pharisees and Sadducees a “brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7). Christ Himself condemned the scribes and Pharisees as “whitewashed tombs” whose false outward piety disguised an inner “filthiness” (Matthew 23:27). St. Paul pilloried Elymas the magician as a “son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy” (Acts 13:10). St. Jerome was well-known for his invective. St. Thomas More criticized Martin Luther with vituperation so extreme that some of it could not be quoted in a family publication. And so on.

Of course, by no means does this entail that “anything goes.” Again, calumny is absolutely ruled out, no matter who the target is. And even when deployed against wrongdoers, verbal attacks that are excessive or motivated by a vengeful spirit rather than defense of the good would amount to detraction or contumely and thus be sinful. The point, though, is that it would be a mistake to suppose that those who fight invective with invective are necessarily no better than those they are responding to. That would be like supposing that police who return fire at bank robbers are no better than the bank robbers. It ignores the crucial distinctions between the guilty and the innocent, and between the aggressor and the defender.

It can be especially appropriate to employ insulting and otherwise harsh language when dealing with those who both promote bad ideas and are themselves gratuitously abusive in their dealings with others. And that is not merely because they deserve such tit-for-tat. It is because a softer approach is often simply ineffective in countering their errors. Sometimes a bully will not be stopped by anything but a punch in the nose. And when the bullying takes the form of invective, the punch in the nose should take the same form.

Consider the New Atheist movement, now pretty much dead but once very influential. As I showed in my book The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, the arguments of New Atheist writers like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris were laughably sophomoric. But they were presented with supreme self-confidence, and dripped with condescension and contempt for the religious thinkers who were their targets. Hence, though the New Atheism’s intellectual content was extremely thin, its polemical style gave it a rhetorical force that could be intimidating to many.

When responding to such polemics, it is insufficient politely to point out fallacies and errors of fact. For it isn’t the intellectual quality of the arguments that is doing the main work in the first place, but rather the aggressive and self-assured tone. To leave that unrebutted is to leave the façade largely intact. No matter how carefully you explain why an argument is no good, many readers will still retain the impression that if it is presented with such arrogant self-confidence, it must have something going for it. A weak case can convince many simply on the strength of the unearned prestige of the person presenting it. Hence that prestige must be lowered by deploying against it the same sort of rhetoric that created it.

Note that this does not involve any ad hominem fallacy. An ad hominem fallacy involves attacking a person instead of attacking some claim or argument the person made, while at the same time pretending that one has thereby refuted the claim or argument itself. That is not what I am talking about. Of course, one must, first and foremost, refute the claims and arguments themselves. What I am saying is that in addition to doing that, one must sometimes attack the credibility of the person, when that credibility is illusory but will lead his listeners wrongly to take his views seriously. (I say more here about what an ad hominem fallacy is and what it is not.)

Hence, my approach in The Last Superstition was to deploy against the New Atheists superior intellectual firepower coupled with equal and opposite rhetorical force. I have over the years dealt with various other sophists, blowhards, and bullies in the same fashion. I make no apologies for that, because such treatment is justifiable in light of the principles I’ve been setting out here. But by no means do I, or would I, take this approach with others with whom I disagree. Mostly, it’s uncalled for and unnecessary.

Occasionally, I’m nevertheless accused of being too frequently aggressive in style. That this is not true is something for which there is some objective evidence. Of the fourteen books I’ve written, co-written, or edited, exactly one is written in the polemical style in question–namely, The Last Superstition. Of the over 250 articles I’ve published (academic and popular articles, book reviews and the like), only about 15% are in that style. I’ve also written well over 1500 blog posts, and while it would take more time than I’m willing to spend to determine the percentage of polemical articles among them, I’d wager that it’s about the same.

In any event, usually the people who fling the accusation are themselves routinely vituperative, or are fans of some vituperative writer to whom I’ve responded in kind. Though the “sticks and stones” cliché isn’t true, another well-known saying certainly is: Those who like to dish it out often can’t take it.

(Editor’s note: This essay originally appeared on Dr. Feser’s blog in a slightly different form and is reprinted here with the author’s kind permission.)