You hear it all the time: “You shouldn’t impose your beliefs on others.”
Many pop-culture figures tout this “hands-off” approach to persuading others to believe what you believe as “true equality.” Perhaps “hands off” isn’t quite accurate; it’s more like “minds off.” Let’s just all stop thinking about how other people conduct their lives, mind our own, and we’ll live happily ever after.
How should we respond to this “minds off” approach?
Let’s begin by offering a couple of responses to the absolute itself, and then we’ll address the specific reasons some personalities give to justify their view.
A double standard
The most obvious response is that those who assert the absolute “Thou shalt not impose” live by a double standard. We could ask them, “Are you expecting us to abide by this absolute?” If they’re consistent with their desire to uphold the absolute, they have to respond yes. But that means we should accept what they believe: that we shouldn’t impose our views on others.
But their moral exhortation is itself an imposition of belief. For these advocates to say that we all should live by their absolute is to do the very thing they say we ought to avoid: impose a belief and try to get others to accept it. This view amounts to an imposition of the absolute to not impose. The double standard is plain to see.
Another problem with this absolute is that it’s normally invoked only when it comes to things such as religious beliefs or morals. It’s rarely if ever held up as a standard for living when it comes to science. Imagine a student saying to his physics professor, “Look, Prof, you have your views on physics, and that’s fine. But keep them to yourself. Don’t impose them on me.”
Surely, advocates of this absolute wouldn’t want it to be applied here. But if it doesn’t bind us regarding scientific beliefs, which involve claims about reality, then why does it bind when we’re dealing with religious and moral beliefs, which also involve claims about reality? These claims are that there is a Creator whom we must worship, that there are objective goods determined by the human nature we share, and that our sexed bodies are charged with purpose and meaning such that to violate that meaning and purpose is do violence against the human person.
To say without a principled reason that the absolute binds in one category of beliefs but not in another is to endorse an arbitrary standard.
Conforming to reality
All these examples of the “thou shalt not impose” absolute imply at least one of two theses: either a) there is no objective truth for anyone to know or objective good for anyone to pursue, or b) there is objective truth to be known and objective goods to be pursued, it’s just that we can’t know them.
Think about it. If someone did think that their belief was true, then they would believe that their belief conformed to reality, since truth is the conformity of the mind to what is real (see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I:16:2). And if they thought what they believed was real, and someone didn’t know that reality, then they would be inclined to share that reality with another.
We all intuitively recognize that we need to conform our lives to what’s real. So, if someone thinks that they shouldn’t share their beliefs with another, then it would seem that they think their belief has nothing to do with reality, either because there is no reality that we all must conform to or because they think their belief is just that—a belief, regardless of whether that belief conforms to what’s real or not, even if there is such a thing.
Pop-culture wisdom
Melissa McCarthy, actor: “True equality is when we’re no longer asking what true equality is. It’s when we don’t think about it, we don’t think about color, sex, or gender, who’s doing what. I think it’s when everybody just worries about themselves.”
Sam Harris, atheist: Asked if he could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, Harris chose religion: “I would not hesitate to get rid of religion. I think more people are dying as a result of our religious myths than as a result of any other ideology.”
Allen Clifton, author: “If everyone kept their beliefs private [as they should]…and didn’t judge others who believed differently, can you imagine how much more peaceful the world would be?…How many murders, wars, acts of terror, or any number of other heinous acts have been committed in human history in the name of religion?”
Donovon Jenson, blogger: “The more we try to force others to share our values, the more disjointed and broken our bonds become…The harder you try to make someone else conform, the more damaged the relationship will be.”
A self-defeating claim
Let’s move on to the specific reasons given above to justify the absolute. We’ll take Sam Harris and Allen Clifton’s reason first: they argue our lives would be more peaceful, free of gratuitous violence, if only we kept our beliefs to ourselves.
Of course, this reason falls prey to the contradiction of imposing the absolute to not impose. But it’s subject to another problem: it’s self-defeating when imposed without violence.
I assume Harris and Clifton are generally civil human beings and that their civility carries over when they “impose” their belief that we should keep to ourselves and not try to persuade others. But if they can “impose” their belief—that we shouldn’t impose our beliefs—without it leading to violence, then their reason for embracing this absolute—that trying to get others to believe what you believe leads to violence—is falsified.
It does not follow
Harris and Clifton’s way of thinking is also problematic because it commits a non sequitur (Latin, “It does not follow”), a logical fallacy in which the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise. We can intuit that something’s awry with this reasoning by comparing it with something else that leads to violent conflict. For example, we could ask Harris and Clifton, “If we should give up sharing our beliefs with others because doing so often leads to violent conflict, then shouldn’t we also give up on the idea of acquiring our own land, since such activity has often led to violent conflict?”
The conclusion “We shouldn’t persuade others to adopt our beliefs” no more follows from the premise “Persuading others to adopt our beliefs leads to violence” than the conclusion “We should not acquire our own land” follows from the premise “Such activity often leads to violent conflict.” Kings and countries have fought and still fight over disputed land.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue private property. Similarly, just because individuals sometimes fight in the name of their beliefs, it doesn’t follow that we should rid our world of persuading others to adopt our beliefs.
Not only can we intuit that Harris and Clifton’s way of thinking is fallacious, but we also can provide reasons why it is so. But before we do that, we need to set the stage by exposing an assumption that they make: namely, all violence is bad and there’s no room for a distinction between just and unjust violence. Harris and Clifton speak only of violence in general and don’t specify instances of violence that could be analyzed as just.
For instance, let’s suppose all across America Ku Klux Klan members are slaughtering blacks because they are inferior beings who need to be eradicated. Those in charge of the common good of our country—namely, law enforcement leaders—could inflict violence to stop such atrocities and do so in the name of justice.
Their motivation is that the murdering Klansmen need to be stopped and punished because blacks are equal in dignity and moral value as all other human beings. And inasmuch as these leaders inflict such violence, it would be justified.
With this distinction between just and unjust violence in hand, we can see why Harris and Clifton’s argument is a non sequitur. Their premise is “Persuading others to adopt our beliefs leads to violence.” Recall their conclusion: “We shouldn’t persuade others to adopt our beliefs.”
Violence and alienation
If the enacted violence is justified, as in the examples above, it doesn’t follow that persuading others to adopt our beliefs is a bad thing. If the enacted violence isn’t unjust, it still wouldn’t follow that we should always avoid trying to persuade others to adopt our beliefs. Very few people who believe in persuading others to adopt their beliefs would do so by violence. So we’d need only embrace the absolute “Those who would use violence to persuade others to adopt their beliefs ought not do so.”
Moreover, the unjust violence that the persuasion involved could be a perversion of the desire to persuade. For example, as mentioned above, the authorities could use violence to stop the atrocities being perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan. But suppose they cross the boundaries of reason and start attacking the Klansmen’s innocent family members. And they do so to impress on the Klansmen that what the Klansmen are doing is wrong. The authorities’ violent activity would be motivated by a desire to persuade—to “impose”—but it would be a perversion of that desire, a wrong application of a desire that is legitimate and hence not a reason to reject the idea of persuasion itself.
The other reason given above for why we shouldn’t persuade others to adopt our beliefs—this one by Jenson—is that it will destroy our relationships with others. But this stance is also self-defeating. In the very act of telling us that we shouldn’t persuade others to adopt our beliefs, he’s trying to persuade us to adopt his belief: that we shouldn’t persuade others to adopt our beliefs.
But notice that in his attempt to persuade us, no relationships have been broken. We didn’t even have a relationship with Jenson; and even if we consider our respect for him as a writer some type of relationship, no damage has been inflicted on us. Since Jenson’s attempt to persuade us to adopt his belief didn’t lead to damaged relationships, it follows that his justification fails for embracing the absolute “Thou shalt not impose.”
Another problem with Jenson’s thinking is that it assumes all attempts to persuade break relationships. That might be the case in some instances, but it’s not the case for all. It’s definitely not the case in this instance of him trying to persuade us to adopt his belief.
Furthermore, many people have persuaded other people to adopt their beliefs, and it didn’t damage their relationship. In fact, just the opposite often happens. All the apologists who work at Catholic Answers can speak from experience here. Countless relationships that have been enhanced as a result of people converting to Catholicism due to persuasive efforts of Catholics. So, it’s simply not true that all attempts to persuade someone to adopt our beliefs damages relationships. This being the case, Jenson’s reason is not persuasive enough to adopt the “Thou shalt not impose” absolute.
Made for the truth
When it comes to modern absolutes such as the one we’ve been discussing in this article, it all depends on how you define your terms. As we saw, impose is taken to mean persuade. Given this meaning of the term within this context, we can’t accept the absolute “Thou shalt not impose.” The reason is, truth matters. It matters because the truth helps perfect our human nature and is thus essential to authentic human happiness.
Consider that as human beings—rational animals—we’re made for the truth. Our intellects are naturally ordered to know truth. Inasmuch as truth is a natural end of our intellects, truth helps perfect of our intellects, since whatever is a natural end of a thing’s power is perfective of that power (see St. Thomas Aquinas, De Vertiate, 21.1; Summa Theologiae I-II:56:3 ad 2; 57:2).
Now, the perfection of our intellects constitutes our very own perfection. There can be no perfection of a power without some degree of perfection for the thing to which the power belongs. Since our perfection as a human being is constitutive of our happiness, and truth contributes to that perfection, it follows that truth, and the knowledge thereof, is necessary for authentic human happiness.
This being the case, it’s clear that to persuade others of the truth is something we ought to do. To say that we shouldn’t persuade another to assent to truth is to say people shouldn’t acquire a good that works to perfect their nature. And to say that is to wish people unhappiness.
Where’s the love in that? The irony is that it’s willed violence, the very thing that many “Thou shall not impose” advocates preach we should avoid.