Required Reading for Convicts

If you think it’s hard to get kids to read, imagine how it is when it’s convicts we’re talking about.  Even when they do actually read, it’s generally chaff like a John Grisham novel, which in my view is exactly the same as watching Boston Legal or a random sitcom.  Don’t get me wrong; I watch my own share of mindless entertainment on television – and that’s why pretty much every book I read is either nonfiction or at least a bit more substantive than the latest Dean Koontz thriller.

In prison, though, there’s one sure way to get an inmate to consume books like crazy: Throw him in the Hole.  In segregation, there’s literally nothing to do.  If you want to experience what it’s like to have your leg muscles atrophy without getting paralyzed or going into a coma, spend some time in the Hole.  But you can get books eventually, and further, every cell comes equipped with a Bible.  You’d be surprised how even all the “begats” and other mind-numbing nonsense in the Old Testament becomes an interesting read in this situation.

But honestly, is this really the best we can do to help inmates?  The Bible is long on fortune-cookie platitudes, but it doesn’t teach you how to think for yourself, how to reason, or how to look at a situation critically.  Every single one of us in here knows the difference between good behavior and bad behavior.  We don’t need the Bible to tell us what’s right and wrong; we already know.  The problem is that most of us can’t think about ourselves and our actions rationally.  The Bible – and reliance on any faith-based morality – is part of the problem in this case.

Not only that, but most inmates simply don’t give a shit about the Bible, Jesus, or Christianity.  They think it’s weak.  They think the Christian services are a haven for sissies and child molesters.  I’m not saying this to be spiteful; it’s the truth.  Do you think inmates really join Wicca and Asatru groups because they find spiritual fulfillment?  On the same token, why do you think a radical form of Islam has such popularity in prison?

So here’s what we need.  Give inmates some serious reading that’s three things: entertaining, not sissified, and exceedingly instructive in morality and reason.  Give them Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.  Seriously, put a copy in every cell in the Hole, and I swear you’ll have guys coming out of seg saying, “That book changed my lie.”  I’m told there’s an Ayn Rand Foundation, or a Center for the Advancement of Objectivism…I wonder if they could fund something like this?  Try it out in the prisons of one state.  Advance objectivism in the prison population – we need help more than anyone.

I’m not going to get mushy about how much reading that book meant to me, how much it helped this convicted murderer.  I suppose the best I can say is that Atlas Shruggedis necessary.  That’s the most descriptive word for it.  Everyone must experience this book for themselves, period.  And that way, rather than inmates walking around asking what Jesus would do, they’d be asking, “Who is John Galt?”

Prison Story, Part Thirteen

I recently came across a perfect example of a certain mindset in prison.  I was sitting down with a few guys, and one of them (a guy I’ve known for a year or more) was eating something that he’d just bought.  A few minutes later, another guy I know came up to me and said quietly of the guy eating: “If I were you I’d slap him in the face.”  He said it seriously, as if the guy had done something wrong.

I was confused, so I asked him why.  This was his dead-serious answer: “He’s eating in front of you without giving you any.”

Number one, this guy had offered some to me, and I’d said no thanks.  Number two, he’s offered to share various things with me before.  Number three - and this is the most important part – who the fuck cares whether he’s eating in front of me or not?  Certainly I didn’t.  The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.

It was implied that he was obligated to share what he has with his friends and acquaintances.  And if not, he was obligated to not eat it in front of us.  I was so surprised I could barely speak.  I wanted to say that this guy owes me nothing, that he has no duty to share and especially no duty to hide his food (as if eating it in front of me would be torture or something).

So you’re doing something wrong if you decide to consume something you own.  How selfish of you, to eat food that you’ve purchased with money you’ve earned.  This is ludicrous.  This is communism, brought on by warped jailhouse rules.  Obviously this belief is fostered by those who don’t want to earn their own money, those who think they’re owed something, those who think a friend is obligated to share what he earns.

I don’t care if the guy is my best friend in the world; I never think that he’s obligatedto give me a portion of what he has.  I find this to be morally repulsive and no indicator of friendship.  To put it in Randian terms: If it’s selfish for you to keep the food, why isn’t it also selfish for them to accept it?  Believing that your owed something is bad enough, but applying that principle to your friends is sinking to a new low.

To be clear:  This is not about being stingy.  I give a percentage of my income to charity.  I have no problem sharing with my friends.  It’s the sense of self-entitlement that pisses me off.  If they think I’m obligated to share with them, they’re not getting anything from me.  Ever.

And what’s funny is they think they’re the ones who are morally correct!  They espouse a view that essentially says (use a high-pitched voice here for effect): “I’m a sniveling little non-producing weasel who thinks the world owes me a living, so I’m going to either guilt-trip or strong-arm productive people out of what they’ve earned.”

No wonder they’re in prison.

Randian Prophecy

This morning my cellie and I were watching the news, and they were talking about Obama’s plan to supposedly stimulate the economy.  Which, for a Democrat like Obama, basically means throwing money at the problem and forcing private companies to conduct themselves for the “good” of society.

However many gazillions of taxpayer dollars are being given away doesn’t really matter; those colossal numbers have ceased to hold any meaning.  This time, however, apparently stipulations are being made that the companies that receive government money will be forced to buy American goods and services.  While they may sound good, the reality is that it creates a scenario where government-induced semi-monopolies can put out whatever half-assed product they want to meet a baseline and charge whatever they want. (Of course, it also means that Washington politicians are deciding who gets what contract, which is a whole other Pandora’s Box.)  Watching the news, I heard the apparent democratic solution to the problem of overcharging: price control.  Now we’ve come to price controls.

A thought immediately struck me, and I turned to my cellie, who was reading a book and listening to the news at the same time.  That book happens to be Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which I convinced him to read after extolling its virtues ad nauseam.  I said, “This shit [what we're hearing on the news] sounds exactly like what happened in Atlas Shrugged.”  My cellie laughed and said he was about to say exactly the same thing to me.

In the book, Ms. Rand laid out a surefire method for destroying an economy, toppling a great nation, and breaking the human spirit.  The horror of the scenario is that it’s insidious; it disguises itself as a noble cause, as being charitable and neighborly and devoted to helping your fellow man.  In the novel, the purveyors of this method, the looters, say exactly the same thing that Washington politicians are saying today: That this simply must be done for the good of the people.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not some alarmist claiming that what happened in Ayn Rand’s fictional world is coming to pass.  I’m not saying that there are “signs” of the scenario taking place.  But seriously, given the massive government growth over the last several years, the interventionist policies of this new administration, the entitlement debts that keep piling up, and the instant-gratification spending of our politicians, is there a favorable ending to this anywhere in sight?  Maybe I’m just missing it, but I don’t think so.

Social Welfare Gone Crazy

I got into an argument with a guy in here who has some rather socialist views.  (Not surprisingly, he’s originally from Europe.)  The question was:  Should a government force its citizens to pay for the welfare of others?  But the twist here was that these hypothetical welfare recipients refuse to work.  They’re perfectly able to go get jobs and support themselves, but they choose not to for whatever reason.  Should we be forced to pay for their basic needs (food, housing, health care, etc.)?

It quickly became a matter of morality, because this guy claimed that we should in fact be forced to pay.  He said that otherwise, it would be like standing there while someone starved to death.  No matter how many times we said, “But it’s his choice – he could go out and get a job and feed himself,” he didn’t budge.  Nope, we’re immoral greedy people because we don’t think we should have to pay for it.

In situations like this, it’s impossible not to quote Ayn Rand: “Why is it immoral to produce a value and keep it, but moral to give it away?  And if it is not moral for you to keep a value, why is it moral for others to accept it?  If you are selfless and virtuous when you give it, are they not selfish and vicious when they take it?  Does virtue consist of serving vice?”

If course this situation is obviously absurd.  But let’s look closer.  Should we pay for drug addicts?  By choosing to use drugs, aren’t they virtually the same as someone who chooses not to work?  What about people who are simply lazy?  John Stossel has interviewed homeless people who admit flat-out that there arejobs to be had – they just won’t take them.  They’d rather live on the streets and demand compensation from the government than work flipping burgers.

When I was a teenager, I worked jobs flipping burgers and making minimum wage.  I had a roommate who did the same, and between the two of us, we managed to afford an apartment in a complex that had a free gym.  It was right across the street from a community college.  We had cars, video games, and money for food, and we also had enough spare cash to get stoned or drunk several nights a week.  We could have gotten by on a lot less.  We could have walked to work, not smoked cigarettes and not partied every other night.

Admittedly, I squandered my life, but the opportunity was never, ever denied to me.  The opportunity was the easy part.  The hard part was my thick skull and lack of goals and responsibility.  I could have worked two jobs and went to night school, earned a degree, or learned a trade.  I could have studied the stock market and invested.

Yes, there are plenty of Americans who have it much worse than I did.  You might even make the argument that the economy was still good when I was a teenager (in the late nineties).  But this doesn’t wash completely.  There are still people out there making it today, sacrificing and busting their asses.  People working two jobs and going to night school, single parents earning degrees, poor kids earning scholarships, etc.  People who have no problem flipping burgers to pay their way toward something better.

Of course there are Americans in need of help, and I’m not saying we should deny them.  But is the opportunity really the major problem here?  Is the playing field really as uneven as pandering politicians would have us believe?  If we’re going to hold those who do well to the high moral standard of helping others, shouldn’t we hold those who do poorly to the high moral standard of helping themselves?

How Christians Insult Our Intelligence, Part I

The other day I got involved in a conversation with someone who is a staunch creationist.  He told me that “mankind is ugly” and “mankind does ugly things.”  Therefore, God is required to pull off some of the beauty and grandeur in the Universe.

I asked why.  Why immediately leap to the conclusion that a divine spark is necessary?  We mentioned the works of Shakespeare, the music of Mozart, the kindness of charitable, selfless human beings.  I asked him why he couldn’t just give credit where credit was due.  Why take away from the accomplishments of these people by saying that they required a magic spell from heaven to help them do it?

I’d say that mankind has accomplished quite a bit of greatness despite the ugly things.  Jesus didn’t reveal to us the smallpox vaccine, for example, that saved millions of lives.  No religious text gave us any insight into modern science, which allows the earth to support millions of more human beings than normal, and improve the quality of life of everyone.

One can argue all day that the inspiration for these great accomplishments came from some sort of divine nudge, but why?  Is there any evidence for it?  Why is it even necessary?  That’s like saying, “My urge to go skinny-dipping was divine inspiration from the nudist god of Neptune.”  It’s utterly meaningless without evidence.

Creationists often speak of how an impersonal universe, the theory of evolution, etc., takes away from life’s meaning, that it reduces human beings to ugly, base things struggling along in selfishness.  But here is a prime example of the opposite.  Here is a creationist deliberately lowering human beings and claiming that they aren’t capable of greatness on their own.  Indeed, the entire message of many creationists (like the followers of Abraham’s God) is that mankind is inherently flawed and God is perfect.  All morality comes from God.  Only through Him shall you gain grace and forgiveness and paradise.

Personally I think it’s rather depressing.  Why put such limitations on our capabilities?  Why have such little confidence in your fellow human beings?  Shouldn’t we strive to find greatness within ourselves, rather than concede that we can’t achieve it unless a mythological father figure grants it to us?

I think it comes down to responsibility.  Maybe if we start holding ourselves completely responsible for everything we do – both good and bad – we’ll no longer have any need of this pointless and insulting notion that human beings are in need of guidance from something greater.  Let’s have faith in ourselves rather than faith in a comforting campfire story.  Ayn Rand said “Belief in the supernatural begins as belief in the superiority of others.”  Until someone can come up with evidence, why should we assume that there is anything superior to human beings at all?

Why Faith is Just an Opinion II

I don’t understand why anyone who’s critical of faith is automatically seen as some rude, crude asshole who’s attacking the sacred beliefs of others and being heedless of their feelings.  I don’t want to insult anyone; I want to have an honest discussion about the difference between opinion and reality.  So often I talk to faithful people who want to state, “You have your belief and I have mine,” and leave it at that.

No, I’m sorry.  If you have a position, defend it.  Don’t ask the rest of us to turn off the rules of logic for your special belief simply because it’s sacred to you.  I don’t consider it disrespectful to ask tough questions of someone who’s making an assertion without any evidence.  Disrespectful would be ad hominem attacks, nasty attitudes, and hurled insults.  Disrespectful would be casual disdain or intellectual arrogance.  I’ve come to the conclusion that when people say “You’re being disrespectful my faith,” what they really mean is, “You’re asking tough, direct questions about my faith.”

Some people have faith that God is real.  Others have faith that He is not.  Some people have faith that cutting off a little girl’s clitoris pleases God.  Others have faith that it doesn’t.  Some people have faith that homosexuality is a sin.  Others have faith that it is not.

All of these people can’t be right, because there are contradictions there.  So obviously, reality is not determined by someone’s faith.  Either God exists or He doesn’t.  Your faithe in the matter doesn’t change this.  No matter how strongly you feel about God’s presence, you’re not going to alter objective reality.  If it is a fact that your child committed a horrible crime, then no matter howmuch you love them, no matter how much you want to believe them, no matter how much you just know with all your heart that they’re innocent – it’s not going to change anything, is it?

This is why evidence works.  This is why the method of reason is the best one we have for arriving at the truth.  Faith is manifestly and demonstrably useless for discovering the truth.  Faith is a subjective opinion that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the objective truth.

Then, of course, there are people who say, “Well, maybe everything is subjective.  How do you know that using reason is a way to the truth?  It’s just one version of the truth, and my faith gives me another.  Truth is dependent on how each person sess it.”

When people say things like that, I refer them to Ayn Rand: “Those who tell you that a man is unable to perceive a reality undistorted by his senses, mean that they are unwilling to perceive a reality undistorted by their feelings.”

Again, feelings do not change reality.  Just because you click your heels and hope with all your heart that your opinion is the truth does not make it so.  Personally, I find the idea of an existential universe inspiring – but that’s simply my opinion.  My yearning for such a universe says absolutely nothing about whether it is truly that way or not.

So, how do we know that using reason is a way to the truth?  If you can’t answer that, then try stating a contradiction such as “My empty bank account actually contains a million dollars” and attempt to spend it.  Try saying, “I don’t exist” without admitting that you do simply because you used that personal pronoun.  Try believing that gravity is just the subjective opinion of some scientists, and jump off a building.  Try doing anything without using the method of reason and see how far you get out of bed in the morning.

Why Prisoners Need Richard Dawkins

I remember a particular point Dawkins made in his book The God Delusion that struck a chord with me, for obvious reasons.  He was discussing the correlation between religion, skepticism, and crime, in part to answer the ridiculous creationist claim that people are more prone to commit crimes if they’re atheists.  Dawkins suggested the opposite: that he would be surprised if there were very many atheists in prison at all.

(I think he was also making a point about education.  That is, since prisoners are in general woefully uneducated, it would be difficult for many of them to be informed atheists anyway.  Prostrating oneself before a higher power and having faith doesn’t require any education; learning about actual evidence in the natural world does.)

I think Dawkins is right.  As an insider, I can state two things with some amount of certitude.  The first is that there are plenty of religious felons in prison.  The second is that there are very few atheists.  Further, there are very few atheists who have devoted any efforts to actually pondering and studying the idea.  This is a shame, because I’ve found that those who make such an effort tend to be more adept at using their brains than is usual for prisoners.  I’m not saying that religious prisoners are unintelligent.  There are guys with an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible, but then there are also guys with an encyclopedic knowledge of football.  Neither one is going to teach us how to think critically and use the tool of reason.  For prisoners, this should be priority number one for improving ourselves.

One thing standing in the way is the fatuous notion that religion is the answer.  Some prisoners do become better people through embracing religion, and I have no quarrel with that.  For this purpose, I think the destination is more important than the path.  But my main problem is the idea that religion seems to be required.

Despite the title of this article, I’m not saying that prisoners need to share Richard Dawkins’s views to be productive individuals who can function in society.  This isn’t about “converting” prisoners to an ideology; it’s about teaching them to think rationally.  It is not even imperative that they agree with Dawkins.  For the purpose of this argument, the content of his books is not as important as the method he uses and the language and skill with which he presents his arguments.  If convicted felons can learn to sue the powerful tool they have inside their heads, if they can learn to approach their problems, trials, and decisions with rationality rather than tradition or uninformed reaction, they’ll have the foundation they require.  Reading Dawkins is a good place to start.

One sign of hope:  The library here purchase The God Delusion last year, and ever since that time, it hasn’t been able to stay on the shelves.  It’s being borrowed and read as quickly as it’s returned.  Perhaps this will lead to prisoners putting down the Bible and reading something by Carl Sagan or Ayn Rand.  Perhaps they’ll listen to visionaries of the civil rights movement rather than prison chaplains.  Perhaps they can learn to see that the path to morality is reason, not obedience to mythology.

What You Earn is Whatever You Can Get

I got into a discussion with someone a while back who was very earnest about the wage gap in this country and the plight of middle-class Americans.  His point was that a blue-collar worker toils at physical labor all day long for his entire life.  He does it knowing he’ll never be rich or live comfortably.  He does it to support a family.  He works hard, much harder than many people who make a lot more money and don’t deserve it (like actors and rock stars, for example). 

It was a matter of proportion.  He was arguing that a blue-collar laborer should be making more since he’s busting his ass, providing a useful service, and probably doing it for a nobler purpose.  Conversely, the entertainer is a millionaire only because of the whim of some fans, and doesn’t really work hard comparatively.  It wasn’t fair, he said, that people make so much money for frivolous reasons.

I shocked him by disagreeing.  I told him that I think that rich actors and rock stars earn every penny of their money. (How they might squander it later on is a separate issue).  I told him that I don’t think a man’s sweat and physical toil are the measure of what he earns.

Predictably, of course, he accused me of being a “rich white kid.”  Though it’s irrelevant to the point, I had to dispel that assumption by telling him that I grew up in trailer parks and low-income housing with a single parent, eating hot dogs and Hamburger Helper.  When I turned fourteen and got a job, I was never given a single thing again; not even clothes or school supplies.

People who think like this guy are always certain that some should be “earning” more money, and some are “making” more money than they’re earning.  But they’re not talking about what is earned here – they’re talking about what they think these people deserve.  They’re basing their opinion about what a person earns on how much they need.  A blue-collar laborer has a family to feed and barely makes ends meet – he might not even be able to pay for his kids to go to college.  Therefore, he should be earning more.

I was called callous and heartless when I told him that “deserve” is not the same thing as “earn.”

What you “earn” is simply this: the amount of money people are willing to pay for your good or service.  That’s it.  That’s the only rational way to determine it.  How else can the amount someone has earned be measured objectively?  You may think a blue-collar laborer deserves more for his service (and maybe he does), but stop and think for one moment what it would mean to legislate it:  It means you would have to force someone else to pay more for that service than they are otherwise willing to pay.  How is that fair?

What do you think would happen if people were awarded money based on what they need, rather than what they earn?  It’s called communism, and it’s horrible not simply because it’s a bogeyman word, but because it doesn’t work.  No one would have any reason to produce any good, provide any service, or work at all.  Think about it:  The harder you work, the more that’s taken away from you and given to others.  You are punished for achieving, and rewarded when you do nothing.  Guess which one people choose.

How much a person needs is not an indicator of how much they’ve earned.  This does not in any way suggest that we should ignore those in need.   It does, however, suggest that we should not take from those who earn – even if it’s to give to those who need.

Why We Should Stop Whining About the Oil Companies

It was inevitable.  Some of the rich oil executives testified before Congress, and immediately the smirking, self-righteous, moralizing looters appeared all over the airwaves: “Those rich bastards are fleecing us.  They’re greedy pigs trying to fill their bank accounts.  They don’t care about anything but money.  They’re making obscene profits while we suffer.”

Most unbelievable was this one: “They’re making too much money.”

No, most unbelievable is the fact that there are many Americans out there who wouldn’t understand my shock and disgust at such a statement.  “What are you saying?” they’d ask.  “They are making too much money.”

What does that even mean?  How do you make too much money?  Who is going to dictate how much is too much?  Who’s going to decide that it’s wrong to make more than a certain dollar amount in a year?  If you’re making money, you’re earning it, and the phrase “earning too much” is an oxymoron.

Big Oil makes about ten cents of profit for every dollar they sell.  That’s not bad, but it’s by no means excessive, even by the sniveling standards of those who are jealous of other peoples’ success.  Big Oil makes so much money not because their profit margins are huge, but because their sales are huge.  Software companies like Microsoft make something like forty cents profit for every dollar.  How about turning your attention to them now?

Of course, we don’t need software like we need oil.  People have to drive to work.  But people also need to eat, and no one’s complaining about the high food prices.  No one’s forcing you to consume like you do.  There are choices you can make.  Fuel-efficient cards are cheap and, well, efficient.  If Americans started conserving a little bit every day, the oil companies would be forced to drop their prices.  If Americans started buying diesel vehicles, prices would also go down.  Christ, car-pooling is a better solution than asking the government to step in.  But rather than making choices about how to handle this issue, they want the government to come and burp them and make all the bad things go away – the same government who has done exactly zero to give us energy independence.  What makes you think they can do any better with regulation?

Has America stooped to putting a limit on success?  Try as hard as you want, run a profitable business, but as soon as you start to get too rich and too successful, watch out.  The mewling little babies whose only accomplishment in life is to legislate away the success of others to fill their pockets are coming for you.  You produce, they take.  You work for yourself, and they tell you that it’s immoral.  You enjoy the money you’ve earned, and they tell you that it’s your “social duty” to give it to others so they can enjoy it instead.

And then there’s Bill O’Reilly’s plan:  Any time an oil company decides to raise its prices, it must submit a written reason why to Congress.  Hey O’Reilly, suppose the reason is: “Because I want to make more profit.”  What then?  Will Big Oil have to provide a “good” reason to Congress for raising their prices?  Will they be disallowed from raising their prices without government permission?  Where do we cross the line into nationalizing the oil industry?

Here’s a simple solution:  Let’s make pricing a collaborative effort between the people who own the company and the people who want to buy the product.  Yeah, how about we pass legislation that oil companies can only charge what their customers decide they can reasonably afford?  How about every customer just goes into a store, picks out what they want, and leaves on the counter whatever amount they think is a fair price?  Doesn’t that sound wonderful?  Doesn’t that sound fair?  It won’t even be communism – we can just call it the “honor system.”

Why the Bible Can’t Help Prisoners II

Why does everyone seem to think that the way to get convicted felons to stop committing felonies is to point out that the Bible says it’s wrong?  Who needs the Bible for that?  Honestly, is there any adult of sound mind who doesn’t know that victimizing another human being is a bad thing to do?  Are we really supposed to be awed by a rule like “Thou shalt not steal?”  Is that supposed to be some great revelation?

Do you want to know why men like me commit crimes?  It’s not for lack of knowledge.  We all know the ten commandments.  Trust me:  Every single one of my peers in this place knows that the felony he committed to get here was wrong, bad, against the rules.  When a man robs, he knows it’s against the rules.  When a man robs, he knows it’s against the rules; he simply thinks that his desire for his victim’s money is more important than the rule.  The problem is not that felons don’t know the rules; the problem is that they don’t care about breaking them.

the problem is that this version of “morality” is defined by obedience to those rules.  For many felons, it’s difficult to care about being disobedient.  Rather than seeing crimes as immoral and unjust (as they should), they see them as ways of being rebellious and defiant.  It’s easy to be rebellious and defiant against the rules – every prisoner can give you a thousand smiling excuses and justifications for breaking the law.

You can’t be moral through obedience; you can’t be a good man because you think it’s required of you; you can’t become a better person because you think someone will punish you if you don’t.  Morality is about choice.  Why can’t an animal be held to a moral standard?  Why can’t you label a lion a murderer for eating someone’s baby?  Because the lion has no choice.  Human beings do.  If you corrupt that choice with punishments and rewards (especially momentous ones like eternal damnation and eternal life), it’s no longer morality.  It becomes brown-nosing, at best.

As Ayn Rand said, “…a ‘moral commandment’ is a contradiction in terms.  The moral is the chose, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed.  The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.”

Convicted felons need a better sense of morality; no argument there.  But the Bible doesn’t ask for morality; it asks for obedience.  The Bible presents a set of rules, and then promises a reward if you follow those rules and a punishment if you don’t.  Is this really what Christians have defaulted to calling morality?  Abdicating all moral responsibility and choice and leaving it up to someone else?  Asking an authority figure to define morality for you makes a mockery of morality.  If this authority figure is the Almighty, it’s even worse because you’re then following the philosophy of Might Makes Right.

Morality must not be encapsulated by regulations that one must follow.  Of course it’s safe to say that a law against murder is a moral law, but even a robot can follow a law.  Yet a robot, like a lion, can’t be called moral or immoral.  Morality has to be defined by why.  That is, not only that murder is wrong, but why it is wrong.  The measure of a man’s morality is not how vehemently he adheres to a rule, but by the choices he makes and why he makes them.  And for that to take place, he must possess a faculty of choice that is unsullied by obedience, fear, and incentive.

If your child does something wrong, which would you prefer?  A child who is forced by threats of authority to apologize, or a child who comes to understand why it was wrong and makes the choice to apologize on his own?  Now let me put it this way:  If an ex-con moves in next door to you, which one of those two types would you rather have.