Breaking the Law

In the ethics classes, teenagers will be invited to reflect upon the moral bases of private property and the existence of the poor. The teacher will adhere to strict neutrality, allowing 15-year-olds to think for themselves as to whether rich people should be allowed to grow richer not just by building in ODZ, say, but also by greedily and limitlessly milking the capitalist cow. They will allow young people to freely debate whether the havenots are allowed to ransack the property of the rich when they abuse dominant market positions. Essentially, schoolchildren will be asked to ruminate on the ethics of forcing the rich to share their wealth with the poor.

Lastly, teenagers will be trained to weigh the pros and cons of the capitalist economic cycle, with its booms, crashes and crises and therefore whether the worker is ethically justified to use force to nationalise factories and take over the means of production.

All the while, the teacher will maintain a neutral stance. even if the carrying out of these ideas is punishable under the Criminal Code.

Lest I be misunderstood, this is all in jest and tongue-in-cheek. There can be no doubt that all violent action against the capitalist system is morally reprehensible and none of the above can form part of a school curriculum. How can anyone even imagine violating the sacredness of private property, the very basis of our society? Obviously, such violent immorality can never feature in school curricula! Shackled as they are by immaturity, teenage students will not be asked to debate the morality or otherwise of private property and the self-evident right of the rich to grow richer, even possibly by hiding their profits in secret offshore companies and accounts. Not only is debating private property immoral, but even the mere con- templation of the poor taking violent initiatives to share the wealth of the rich is something to which teenagers should not be exposed! It would be unheard of and despicable!

And yet... that is exactly what the ethics syllabus sets out to do!

It obviously does not attempt to desecrate the sacred tenets of the religion of private property in order to introduce the more progressive idea of communal property. It does not attempt to make youngsters contemplate breaking the law by forcefully taking property away from its rightful owners.

Instead, the syllabus promises to deal with other acts, equally punished by the Criminal Code, but considered kosher for a school curriculum: whether a human foetus has an intrinsic right to life (morality or ethics) and therefore the contemplation of terminating the foetus’ life (illegal). Suicide is also discussed.

Why is the termination of the life of a human foetus – a crime under current Maltese law – the subject matter of a school syllabus meant for teenagers?

The reason is probably that – unlike taking from the rich to give to the poor – terminating a pregnancy conforms to the dominant, neoliberal ideology and therefore can (and probably should) be contemplated in class. That it essentially introduces teenagers to the notion that criminal laws can be flouted, with the implicit blessing of the school authorities – the embodiment of ‘authority’ with which teenagers are most familiar, apart from their parents (apologies, can I use that word?) – is not even considered a problem. This is ideological brainwashing by stealth at best and outright debauchery at worst.

Lest the usual suspects accuse me of anything untoward, I declare that I am in favour of private property and its proper and just regulation and protection. In equal measure, I am in favour of the protection of the life of the foetus, for philosophical rather than religious reasons.

But I find it worrying and disturbing that state schools should teach teenagers to contemplate the ethical possibility of breaking the obtaining law.

The syllabus should be redrafted, and the discussion on the ethics/morality or otherwise of breaking the law (abortion in this case), left out.

My hunch is that this course is based on Kantian ethics. I might be wrong, of course, and would be happy to be corrected.

There are at least two things which I find problematic in Kant. In his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose, Kant asks if a natural purpose can be discovered in the idiotic course of human things.

This is Kant’s notion of humanity’s place in the world: ‘idiotic’. Should this world-view be – directly or indirectly – transmitted to young people, who are disoriented in their teenage years? Or should the Christian outlook of a divine plan for salvation be taught? Needless to say, people may change and, later in life, lose faith in that divine plan. But that is a decision they would take as mature adults, and as a reaction to optimistic teaching. Do we need to impress the idea on teenagers that the world is idiotic (even if this might actually be the case)?

Whether we like it or not, we are children of rationalist philosophy, and might consider both the Kantian view and the Christian as irrational. But why prefer the pessimistic view to the optimistic? Why talk to teenagers about suicide and terminating pregnancies?

The second thing which I find very disturbing in Kant is his essay ‘On the Common Saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice’. There he teaches that the most heinous crime is to revolt against the State. (In private, it seems he embraced different ideas, but his official stance was, more or less, the one to which I have referred.)

Clearly, Kant’s position is diametrically opposite to the Catholic tradition of resisting the secular authority in the name of a Higher Truth, the Common Good. John Paul II’s role in the demise of the Soviet Empire is an excellent recent example of this.

So, again, it’s a question of breaking the law or resisting the making of new laws.

But, more fundamentally, it is a question of abiding by the idea of the Rule of Law. That is to say, that there is a Law which is higher than ordinary law and executive power – a quintessentially Catholic idea/l.

In these times, when the Leader of the Opposition is being sued for doing his duty, teaching students about the Rule of Law and its ethical dimension, is to my mind more important than teaching them the bases of liberal ideology.

Before being liberals (or not), we are democrats. That is, we believe (or should believe) in the basic tenets of democracy, which are essentially three: 1) the non-violent transition of power, 2) State respect for the rights of the individual and 3) the Law, rather than the Will of the Powerful, should triumph.

Before teaching students to contemplate the ethical dimensions of suicide and abortion, the State should teach students the bases of democracy and the Rule of Law.

Wise parents will choose Catholic religion teaching to ethics, because they will not want the tender minds of their children burdened with life-ordeath questions but instead to internalise the basic notions of democracy.

The curriculum should also follow these lines. Let go of Kant and his debatable ideas on ethics and teach a simple version of constitutional philosophy.