Timothy Hsiao [00:00:00]:

And so there is this inherent disparity in crime that needs to be controlled for. And that's where firearms come in. Right? Firearms are, as many have said, you know, the great equalizer. They let someone who is weak, somebody who's small in stature, defend themselves from someone who is stronger, is bigger and against groups of people even. And so I see the right to own a gun as just an extension of, you know, the right to fight back.

Jim Spiegel [00:00:27]:

Welcome to the Kalos Center Podcast. Welcome to another episode of the Kalos Center Podcast. Our guest today is Christian ethicist Timothy Hsiao. Tim earned his BA and MA in Philosophy at Florida State University. He served as Assistant professor of philosophy, Humanities and Criminal justice at University of Arkansas Grantham, and currently he is a research fellow at the University of Wyoming Firearms Research center. While also working in local and federal law enforcement. Tim's scholarly work covers a wide array of ethical issues, including sexual ethics, environmental ethics, and criminal justice ethics. He also publishes in popular media, and his articles have appeared in such periodicals as Public Discourse, American Thinker, and the Federalist.

Jim Spiegel [00:01:27]:

So, Tim Shao, welcome to the Kalos Center Podcast.

Timothy Hsiao [00:01:30]:

Appreciate you having me.

Jim Spiegel [00:01:31]:

So, as I mentioned, in addition to your research, all the stuff that you do in philosophy and ethics, in particular, you work in law enforcement. Tell us about that.

Timothy Hsiao [00:01:43]:

Yeah, I get a lot of questions about that, especially when other officers find out that, oh, you're also a college professor, like, that doesn't go with law enforcement. But for me, teaching ethics, doing a lot of research on applied ethics, political philosophy topics, a lot of that overlaps with the criminal justice system. And I took a natural interest in that in my classroom discussions, in my lectures and research. And so this was several years ago, I reached out to one of my colleagues at the time who was a criminal justice professor, and I, I sort of asked her what would it take for someone like me to, to get into law enforcement. Well, in Kansas and, you know, many places where you have smaller populations, there are a lot of cities that hire part time officers. And so while still teaching, I went through the police academy in the summer and I started working part time in law enforcement. So I've been doing that since 2022. Depending on the weeks, I'll do 10, 20, sometimes even 30 hours.

Timothy Hsiao [00:02:44]:

Most of it is just, you know, driving around patrol, doing traffic stops. I've actually gotten quite a bit of additional training in crisis intervention, DUI detection, and then I also contract right now for a federal agency moving inmates and illegal aliens via aircraft.

Jim Spiegel [00:03:05]:

Wow. Exciting and important work. Thank you for Your service. So let's start with the basics. When it comes to ethics, most of our listeners are not philosophers. So how would you define ethics and what accounts for your special interest in the subject?

Timothy Hsiao [00:03:24]:

The most general definition I can give of ethics is the study of right and wrong, good and bad, how we make decisions about that. And within ethics, you have various sort of subcategories or subdisciplines, so normative ethics, metaethics, and applied ethics. My specialization is in applied ethics, which is sort of, you know, moral reasoning as it pertains to specific controversial topics, topics that, you know, are often divisive, that dominate public discourse, like abortion, gun control, drug legalization. I guess what drew my interest towards that was, you know, when I was in college, I was. I went to college at Florida State University. And so the first semester in college, I took an ethics class. It was a gen ed recruitment requirement, and I really enjoyed it. But I.

Timothy Hsiao [00:04:12]:

I was also exposed to a lot of different perspectives, perspectives that, you know, growing up in sort of a Christian environment, I'd heard of before, but I never actually directly interacted with. And so as someone who had really strong convictions about certain moral and political topics, I thought, well, I should probably sort of develop my thinking in a way that lets me better communicate, you know, the. The convictions that I have to those who may disagree with me. And I was a philosophy major, and so I had to pick a specialization, and so I chose F. And there were a lot of these positions that I held which I thought, you know, could be intelligently defended. And in looking in the literature, and this was as I was progressing through my college experience, as I was looking in the literature, there was surprisingly little said in defense of many of these positions. Now, on something like abortion, right. There's been a lot of good work done by, you know, philosophers in defense of the pro life position, arguing that the unborn are people and that it's wrong to take an innocent human life.

Timothy Hsiao [00:05:14]:

But on other topics that are not as, I guess, big as abortion, you know, the Christian approach to factory farming or the Christian approach to gun ownership. Right. There is surprisingly very little that's been done on that. And so the work that had been done. So I'll take, you know, factory farming, eating meat, for example. Most of the work that had been done when I was surveying the research, when I was surveying the literature, about 90 to 95% of it was in favor of the animal rights position or the position that animals have serious moral consideration and therefore that most consumption of meat is immoral. And I thought, well, that doesn't seem right because one, it doesn't jive with what most people do, it doesn't jibe for a moral common sense. And second, a lot of the reasoning here just doesn't seem to hold up.

Timothy Hsiao [00:06:05]:

If you adopt a classical, you know, philosophical anthropology about what makes man and animals different, a lot of it seems to rely on assumptions or I guess, principles that can be questioned. And so the sort of beginning of my academic research, a lot of it pertained to the moral status of animals and then also to arguments against homosexual sexual. This was around the time of Obergefell and, you know, the Supreme Court decisions about same sex marriage. And so I thought, well, a lot of that's been written from a Christian perspective to homosexuality. It's been from this, you know, divine commune perspective and not much from a natural law perspective. And so that's also another area where I decided to fill in a gap in the literature. And in general, most of my academic work has been just consisting mainly of filling in gaps of the literature where there is a position that I think is defensible that jives with, you know, moral common sense most of the time, especially for, you know, Christians and one which, you know, no one really has done work on. And so whether it's gun control, drug prohibition, factory farming, I sort of have dedicated my academic career to defending or taking strong positions on moral issues that really hasn't been, there hasn't been much written on it from the Christian perspective.

Timothy Hsiao [00:07:29]:

So that's just a bit of how I got into the study of ethics.

Jim Spiegel [00:07:32]:

Yeah, very good. So we'll talk about animal rights shortly. But first I want to talk about gun control, gun rights. You've published a number of articles related to that. You believe that there is a basic moral right to bear arms, including handguns, not just a legal right. But you, you have defended the idea that there's a basic moral right to bear arms. Could you explain that?

Timothy Hsiao [00:07:59]:

Sure. So I trace everything back to the right to life, the right to stay alive, and the right to flourish. That entails the right to defend yourself from people who intend to take your life away or to interfere with your flourishing. Now the reality of this world is that, you know, crime thrives on disparity. If you're a criminal, you're going to select somebody we think you have a good chance of overpowering, of defeating, accomplishing your objective. In that sense, you know, criminals are instrumentally rational. And so there is this inherent disparity in crime that needs to be controlled for and that's where firearms come in. Right? Firearms are, as many have said, you know, the great equalizer.

Timothy Hsiao [00:08:41]:

They let someone who is weak, somebody who's small in stature, defend themselves from someone who is stronger, is bigger, and against groups of people even. And so I see the right to own a gun as just an extension of the right to fight back, which is an extension of the right to stay alive. If you have the right to life, you have the right to self defense. And if you have the right to self defense, you have a right to a reasonable means of self defense. And so I think firearm is a reasonable means of self defense. Hence I think there is a strong moral right to own various kinds of firearms for the purpose of protecting yourself.

Jim Spiegel [00:09:19]:

So what sorts of restrictions on gun ownership do you believe are reasonable? If it could be demonstrated statistically that certain restrictions actually had the net effect of saving lives, would you support those restrictions?

Timothy Hsiao [00:09:34]:

Sure. So a lot of approaches to gun ownership and gun control is sort of motivated by utilitarianism. And utilitarianism is this idea that you basically weigh the consequences, you weigh the empirical data one way. And you see, you know, is it does a policy cause more, more harm through benefits, and then if it causes more, you know, good things and bad things, you go for this one policy right. And that's a lot of how public policy decisions seem to be made. But I don't think that we should think about rights in that way. I think, you know, rights are inviolable. Rights are especially weighty, even if it would lead to a negative balance of consequences.

Timothy Hsiao [00:10:15]:

So for example, you know, my right to life is weighty in a sense that even if you could violate my right to life and harvest my organs to save five people, and in doing so you would save those five people, it would still be wrong to intentionally kill me to save five people. And so I approach rights not in this kind of balancing test approach. And so if we don't treat the right to life in this way, if it would be wrong to violate my right to life to save five people to harvest my organs, well, any rights that derive from my right to life would also seem to have that weight, including the right to self defense and the right to a reasonable means of self defense. And so just because something would result in better consequences for the general population or the general good, doesn't mean that you can trample on, you know, my individual rights to do so. And so when it comes to gun restrictions, the amount of the number of legal restrictions that I think are justified are going to be very small, I think that one restriction that you could probably justify are restrictions on dangerous possessors, individuals who have shown that they cannot use a firearm effectively or responsibly. So someone who is a domestic abuser or somebody who has a history of reckless use of a firearm. Besides that, though, you know, restrictions on firearm magazine capacity or the type of firearm or, you know, accessories like stocks or, you know, grips, I don't see those as very defensible. And so, which is not to say that there shouldn't be sort of, you know, different criteria.

Timothy Hsiao [00:11:58]:

Right. You know, it should be easier, I think, to get a handgun than it is to get a machine gun. But ultimately I do think, you know, when it comes to gun ownership. Right. If there is a need for someone to own, say, a select fire weapon, you know, let's say they live in an environment where they face threats from groups of people, I think there's a plausible case to be made for allowing in those cases, you know, someone to own a select fire weapon. So I don't think there's. You can draw any clear blanket lines on, you know, you can own a semi automatic weapon, but not a fully automatic weapon. I think a lot of it's going to depend on the kind of threats that are reasonable to, to expect.

Timothy Hsiao [00:12:38]:

And I think in the United States, you know, most dependent, I guess, depending on where you live. Right. For me, you know, I, I think a handgun is going to be enough to deal with most of that I face. Right. But also, I mean, there's also the possibility that I may encounter a group of people or a group of people might intend to break into my home. And so I think while a handgun's a good start, I also think that, you know, if I would want to own a modern sporting rifle like the ones I have behind me, I think, you know, I should have the right. Individuals should have the right to own something like an AR15 if they wanted to.

Jim Spiegel [00:13:14]:

So the principle you seem to be assuming there is that my means of defense, and specifically in the context of guns should be commensurate with the kinds of threats I might face from. From a potential attacker.

Timothy Hsiao [00:13:28]:

Yeah, exactly. If I live in the Middle east and I live in danger of group violence, gang violence on a routine basis, you know, I think it's plausible to have access to grenades or a select fire weapon or maybe even a rocket launcher.

Jim Spiegel [00:13:43]:

Okay, well, that would be consistent with that principle. That's interesting. Yeah. Because this is a objection that sometimes people make. It's a kind of rhetorical move. So, oh, you don't believe in restrictions or most restrictions. So your position would allow for people owning bazookas and flamethrowers or even nuclear weapons? Well, no, there's a principled grounds for drawing the lines there, and it has to do with the nature of likely threats. So would you describe yourself as a political libertarian?

Timothy Hsiao [00:14:14]:

So I've worked for libertarian organizations, I've published in libertarian outlets. I have a very close relationship with many of those, many people in the libertarian community at the end of the day. And I think a lot of what I am saying, you know, in my academic work jives very well with libertarian thinking. But at the end of the day, I would not call myself a libertarian. I identify more as a traditionalist conservative. You know, libertarians love my work on guns, they love my work on eating meat. They don't like my work on drug prohibition, even though I believe that my work on drug prohibition is consistent with libertarian principles. And I've attempted to explain why I think libertarians should actually defend drug prohibition because drug use, recreational drug use actually is incompatible with core libertarian commitments.

Jim Spiegel [00:15:08]:

All right, so first define libertarianism and then explain how your position on recreational drug use is nonetheless consistent with libertarianism.

Timothy Hsiao [00:15:21]:

Sure. So libertarianism is a wide camp like many other political ideologies. But I think the most general way I can give of describing it is that libertarians are committed to individual liberty and the primacy of the individual autonomy, freedom over state, control over the community. The individual is sort of the main unit of society for the libertarian. And some libertarians are committed to additional principles. I mean, you have the non aggression principle, the self ownership principle, depending on what libertarian you ask. Right. But I think most libertarians are going to be united in their commitment to individual liberty and individual liberty is going to be what really guides their approach to the public policy and the laws that we pass.

Timothy Hsiao [00:16:11]:

Now libertarians, for that reason, many libertarians favor, they, they favor drug legalization because they view drugs or drug use as an extension of individual liberty. You know, this idea of I have the right to do whatever I want to my own body as long as, as long as I don't hurt anyone else. Right. And so that's celebritarian justification for, for drug legalization that, you know, at the end of the day, while it can bleed over to some people and in those cases, you know, we should intervene, drug use is, doesn't have to be that way. It's not necessarily an other regarding action, it's a self regarding action. My response to that would be sure It's a self regarding action. But what do libertarians care most about this idea of liberty? And to make free decisions, to make genuinely autonomous decisions, you have to be in a position of sound mind. You have to be able to understand what you're choosing.

Timothy Hsiao [00:17:09]:

You have to be able to do so voluntarily. You have to be able to have a properly functioning set of cognitive faculties. And what does recreational drug use do? Well, what happens when you get high? Well, your decision making is impaired, your connection with reality is broken. You see things that aren't there. You perceive things that you start hearing things, but you might see illusions, right? You may lose touch with what's actually real. And if your cognitive faculties are distorted, then you can't really make free decisions. You can't really make informed decisions. You can't really make decisions that are grounded in truth, in fact.

Timothy Hsiao [00:17:51]:

Right. And so for the libertarian, I think, you know, if you care about liberty, right, you should care about that organ, you know, your brain, your cognitive faculties that helps you make free and autonomous decisions. And in fact, somebody who's under the influence of drugs, right, In a sense, you could say they're a slave to that drug. You could say that they're no longer free. Their decision making behavior, I mean, just, you know, ask anyone, you know, who has been drunk before, right? Drunk people do stupid things and you know, we see them all the time. You know, if you, if you watch police body cam videos, which I like to do, right. Drunk people do really dumb things, things that they regret when they're sober. Right.

Timothy Hsiao [00:18:30]:

And so sobriety is an essential condition of free, genuinely free decision making. If you don't have sobriety, you don't, you can't make free decisions. You're in fact a slave to something else, whether it's your feelings, another drug or whatever. Right. And so I think libertarians, if they take liberty seriously, should oppose drug legalization because drug legalization undercuts the foundations for free decision making. So that's my libertarian argument against drug legalization.

Jim Spiegel [00:19:00]:

Yeah, I love that. I think it's ingenious. In fact, before I encountered your article, which I've used in ethics classes I've taught before, just that angle of approach, that whole rationale had never occurred to me. We all want in a free society, it's in everybody's best interest to have a sober electorate, right. That the, that the, that the populace were voting on various public propositions and different officials for elected offices need to be sober minded and cognitively alert as possible. So I think that's a Great argument. Now, what would you say to this question? I don't know if it's an objection, but it would press you for consistency. Do you believe that smoking tobacco should likewise be illegal?

Timothy Hsiao [00:19:46]:

Yes, I do believe it should be illegal, but not for the same reason as just recreational drug use in general. So it's possible to. I don't smoke. So. So I'm speaking off what I've seen. Right.

Jim Spiegel [00:20:00]:

It's possible your response could be like mine. When people ask me if I smoke, not many people ask me. If someone asked me, do you smoke? I say yes, but only when I'm on fire.

Timothy Hsiao [00:20:09]:

There you go. So. So the way I approach tobacco is similar, but not the same as I would approach something like marijuana. My argument against tobacco is that just it's inherently damaging. I think that tobacco, there's no good use for it, there's no good purpose for smoking, that would outweigh the negative harms to your, to your body. And so I think there's a case to be made for outlawing tobacco. It'd be a different case than say, banning marijuana or any other psychoactive substance. I don't believe tobacco is psychoactive.

Timothy Hsiao [00:20:42]:

And so the argument for that would be sort of a different argument. The argument that I give. And so some people bring up this argument that, you know, if you think that recreational drugs should be illegal, then any other substance that causes harm by that extension should also be illegal. And so you'd have this over criminalization objection, which, that's a common objection to anti drug arguments. But it doesn't apply to my argument because what's doing the work in my argument against drug legalization is the fact that those drugs are psychoactive. They impair your cognition. And that's really the focus of my argument there. Now you may have reasons to restrict or not restrict drugs or substances that are not psychoactive.

Timothy Hsiao [00:21:22]:

Right. But I narrowly tailor my argument to psychoactive substances to precisely avoid, you know, the objection that it would lead to over criminalization. So I think there is something to be said for banning tobacco and perhaps, you know, other things that are dangerous. It would be a different argument than the argument that I offer against the legalization of recreational drugs, which is based on their psychoactive and their impairing effect on decision making.

Jim Spiegel [00:21:49]:

Okay, very good. Some have also argued, and maybe you would augment your argument in this way, that because of all of the diseases, heart disease, lung disease, cancers that tobacco causes, that has the net effect of raising insurance rates for everybody. Right. Think about medical insurance and how much money is spent in the medical industry treating these sorts of diseases that are a consequence of tobacco use. You could make a more indirect argument based on the harm principle for making tobacco usage illegal. Do you think that works?

Timothy Hsiao [00:22:28]:

Yeah, I'm sympathetic to that kind of argument. There's an article by J. Angelo Corlette where he basically makes a similar argument where he says, you know, a lot of, a lot of illicit substances have negative externalities and they impose costs on other people. Even if, you know, you could have individual cases of somebody using in their own home and not in that moment affecting anyone, there is still going to be some kind of negative externality, whether it's in lost productivity or something else. Right. And so you can make that harm argument in general. I think harm arguments can be viable, but I'm, I'm skeptical of harm arguments just whether it's for, you know, one thing or another, just because it's hard to screen off that over criminalization objection. So I like to narrowly tailor.

Timothy Hsiao [00:23:18]:

And you know, libertarians aren't going to be a fan of harm arguments in general. So I, I try to make my arguments as broad basis as possible. And that's also just a general trend in my work. I try to, in some cases you get, you kind of have to appeal to things that are controversial, like a Rawlsian sense. But I try to make my arguments as appealing to, as broadly accessible as possible, such that it's really hard to find something that you could disagree with from any political spectrum. And so harm arguments, I think, are arguments that a lot of people find have weight, but libertarians don't. And so I try to shy away from harm arguments in general because the moment you bring up harm, you know, alarm bells go off in libertarian.

Jim Spiegel [00:24:02]:

Okay, so let's turn our attention to the whole animal rights issue. A standard argument for not just animal rights, but the immorality of eating meat is that the whole factory farming or industrial farming system for which we get most of our meat is inherently cruel or inhumane. But you challenge this. What's your reasoning on this?

Timothy Hsiao [00:24:26]:

Yeah, so there is a very influential kind of reasoning in animal rights circles. And I, and I use the term animal rights just to refer broadly to people who think animals have serious moral status. Because I think, you know, someone listening to this might quibble and say, well, you know, I don't believe animals have rights. I believe they have serious moral status, like someone like Peter Singer, for example. But for, for simplicity's sake, I'm going to lump those categories together. Someone in that category would say, that they endorse this minimalist argument whereby, you know, animals can feel painful and all you need for moral status is the ability to feel pain. If you feel pain, that means you matter in some way. And if you matter in some way, right, you have moral status and, you know, the pleasure you get from eating meat does not outweigh the moral status that, you know, animals, whether lower animals, higher animals or human beings have.

Timothy Hsiao [00:25:19]:

And so there's this argument that I encountered early on in, you know, my undergraduate years. I thought it was a really powerful argument. Right. All you need in the argument is that the ability to feel pain is a condition for having serious moral standing. And if you grant that, then a lot of what the animal rights camp, you know, makes sense. And so my response has been actually to challenge that premise. I think that the ability to feel pain can definitely enhance the welfare conditions of someone who already has moral status. But I don't think that the ability to feel pain, sentience.

Timothy Hsiao [00:25:57]:

I don't think that property in itself confers any kind of meaningful moral status. And here's why. The ability to feel pain is just a welfare condition. It's just one way in which, you know, a being can flourish or have its life go well or ill. It doesn't really add anything to, you know, it doesn't really show how that has moral consideration determine what counts as relevant to having moral status. You need to look at the concept of moral status to begin with. Right. What does it mean to have moral standing or standing as part of the moral community? Well, reflect on the concept of morality.

Timothy Hsiao [00:26:33]:

Right. Morality is about right and wrong making moral decisions. It's about reasoning in a certain way. And so moral beings are beings that have the capacity to make judgments about right and wrong and to act on those judgments. If something can't do that, then it doesn't count as a moral being. Now, being able to feel pain definitely enhances the life of a being that's able to make those moral decisions. And so, you know, sentience does sort of add. Enhance, I guess you could say the welfare of a, Of a moral being.

Timothy Hsiao [00:27:07]:

But sentience in itself is just a welfare condition. And so animals obviously can feel pain. That's. I've had some people accuse me of saying that. Well, you're saying animals can't feel pain. No, I don't believe that. I think animals do feel painful. I do think they can.

Timothy Hsiao [00:27:23]:

You know, the evidence for that is just, you know, obvious. I'm not a, I'm not a Cartesian, but I don't think that ability to feel pain confers moral standing. And so I think factory farming is not inherently wrong because it doesn't violate the moral status. We don't hold animals accountable for killing each other. We don't hold animals accountable for predation. We don't hold animals accountable for the things they do because they can't. They don't know any better. Right.

Timothy Hsiao [00:27:50]:

Which is not to say that animals aren't capable of very complex kinds of mental activity. It's just that that kind of mental activity is not the kind of mental activity relevant to moral decision making. So as far as factory farming is concerned, it can be wrong for contingent reasons. Right. Maybe you have a particular setup in which the people who partake in it are corrupted. Right. That's definitely a possibility. And you know, there are many facilities in the world where I'm sure it's not.

Timothy Hsiao [00:28:22]:

Probably factory farming is not carried out in a way that reflects, you know, human dignity when it comes to, you know, taking care of nature and such. But I don't think factory farming is inherently cruel. I don't think it's inherently cruel to confine animals in small cages. I don't think it's inherently cruel to basically manufacture these operations on an industrial basis. It can be wrong contingently. But you know, if done properly, I think factory farming is great. Factory farming feeds a lot of people. Factory farming is a great source of food, which I can see now many vegans and vegetarians, you know, just raging at me over the screen.

Timothy Hsiao [00:29:03]:

But that's a position that I've taken and I think it's a defensible one.

Jim Spiegel [00:29:08]:

So given your criteria for moral standing, couldn't one argue like this an objection that, you know, it really proves too much. And in particular, let's think about how that applies to say a human fetus four, five, six months in or even in the third trimester. There's no reasoning. This is a being that is not conscious. There's no self motivated activity, much less a capacity for moral thought. So how do you get around the implication that your argument here actually lays the foundation for a strongly pro choice position on the abortion issue?

Timothy Hsiao [00:29:45]:

Sure. That's going to be the most common objection and it's known. I don't like the name for this, but it's the name that I guess has been adopted in the literature. It's called the argument for marginal cases. Right. The argument is that, well, if you think that reasoning and such is required for moral standing, well, there are so called marginal humans that don't have those Abilities and so would be excluded under your criteria. And my response would be to say that while there are no marginal humans, I don't like that term because it seems to suggest like a gradation. The way that I've articulated this in my research is that the moral status depends on an underlying capacity to think, right? Moral status attaches to beings and, and beings, you know, exercise powers.

Timothy Hsiao [00:30:34]:

And so what matters to moral status is whether you're a certain kind of being with the power or capacity, disposition, ability, whatever you want to use to exercise a certain kind of ability. Now, just because you're not exercising a certain power doesn't mean you don't have that power to begin with. It's just not being used, right? When I'm sleeping, if I'm knocked out cold, if I'm in a, if I'm in a temporary coma, right? I'm not in the moment reasoning, but I retain my moral status because I am a certain kind of substance that has that power inherent within me. Now, when it comes to say, a fetus or an embryo, that power of reasoning is there from the repeat, the physical sort of hardware to express that power is not active yet, it's not developed yet. But it doesn't mean that power is not there. I mean, the very reason why a fetus or embryo develops in the law like way that they do is because those powers are sort of guiding its development towards a manifestation. If those powers weren't there or those capacities weren't there, then it would be inexplicable why human development occurs in the way that it does. And so I think that human beings from the earliest moment of that human being's existence, which is conception.

Timothy Hsiao [00:31:54]:

Human beings from the earliest moment of their existence have serious moral standing because they have this inherent power to reason by inherent power. You know, some people make the argument that, well, you know, are you going to treat a child as, you know, an adult because they're a potential adult? That's not quite my argument. My argument is not. But when I talk about potential or a capacity, I'm talking about power that's really actually there to begin with. It's just not expressed, it's not manifested. The sort of physical hardware needed for that to occur has not developed, but it doesn't mean it's not there. And so I think because moral status attaches to beings, you have to look at the kind of being something is, and power is attached to beings, right? And so we don't look at the actual manifestation of a power or a capacity or an ability or whatever it is, we look at what kind of thing one is. And all human beings are of a substance that's rational.

Timothy Hsiao [00:32:54]:

But no animal is like that, right? No, no chimpanzee, no, no dolphin. You don't see animals, no matter how much you teach them, how much they develop. You don't see animals writing books. You don't see animals, you know, putting out poetry. You don't see civilization. Right. You don't see the kind of conceptual reasoning needed to articulate, you know, concepts like truth and falsity or good and bad, or right and wrong. That's just not present in the animal world.

Timothy Hsiao [00:33:23]:

But human beings have it, even if they can't manifest it at that moment. So that would be my response to the so called marginal cases argument.

Jim Spiegel [00:33:32]:

Yeah, very good. So would you ground the right to life, the human right to life, in what you've just been talking about, these ultimate capacities or in something else?

Timothy Hsiao [00:33:44]:

So, yeah, I think proximately, right, your right to life. I think rights require rights, presuppose responsibility. So I think we have the right to life because we have the responsibility to flourish. And I think that responsibility comes from our being rational creatures. Now, ultimately, as a Christian, I think all of that goes back to the way we're created in the image of God. But proximately, right, our rights go back to the kind of being we are, and the kind of being we are, it goes back to the way we're created in God's image as being rational agents.

Jim Spiegel [00:34:16]:

So would you say that all of this, when it comes down to human rights and duties, ultimately the proper moral foundation is a theological one and specifically the nature of God.

Timothy Hsiao [00:34:27]:

Yeah, and, and something that I think is, is missing in a lot of contemporary rights discourse, this idea of responsibilities, especially among libertarians, rights are sort of a shield. That's one, one metaphor that's been given for they protect us as we go about our flourishing. But the reason we have rights is because we're built in a certain way to understand, you know, truth, to understand falsity, to understand good and bad, right and wrong, to act in certain ways that unfold what we are meant to do. And so I think, you know, this idea of rights goes back to responsibilities. And these responsibilities reflect the way we are created in the image of God, to sort of, you know, go out in the world, to subdue it, to be stewards of the world and to exercise, you know, the capacities that we, that we've been given. So ultimately it goes back to a theological foundation where, you know, we bear God's image and we are to act in ways that reflect that image. That's why we. Rights are just not.

Timothy Hsiao [00:35:28]:

They're not like a, you know, just a free thing we get that comes with no strings attached. Rights are. And this is also another area where I would depart from a lot of libertarian thinking. You know, I don't think you have a right to do wrong. Rights protect us as we flourish. Rights don't protect us to do whatever we want. Rights are essential condition. Rights exist because we're meant to do certain things and we have to be protected as we do those things.

Timothy Hsiao [00:35:55]:

So all of this goes back ultimately to a theological foundation that I think is unescapable.

Jim Spiegel [00:36:01]:

Right. Even though so many people in our culture, including thought leaders, you know, major scholars in ethics and political philosophy and so on, will talk so freely regarding human rights and help themselves to these concepts and ideas when, if they really are properly theologically grounded, if they ultimately are bestowed upon us by our Creator in whose image were made, than to just glibly appeal to human rights without acknowledging that theological foundation. It's borrowed capital, isn't it? So thinking about that, your Christian theology and how it informs what you do, do you think of yourself as having a divine calling to be the sort of professional Christian ethicist that you are?

Timothy Hsiao [00:36:50]:

It's a good question. I think that ultimately, you know, everything that occurs is under the control of God. Nothing happens without God either allowing it or ordaining it to be so. And where I'm at right now, I do think that with all the work that I've done, with all the, I guess, sort of attention that I've received, I think that this is a, you know, part of why I've been put on this earth. I also do other things. I'm at law enforcement. I'm a father, I'm a husband. I think those are also other vocations and callings that I have.

Timothy Hsiao [00:37:23]:

You know, I think that God made everyone to use their minds, right? And this is just me using my mind in service of the gospel. It's me using my mind in service of the truth. And, you know, each person has a different calling. But I think, you know, based on the sort of circumstances that have occurred in my life, I think that the work that I've done, the positions that I've held, I think, you know, it's not without a coincidence, right? I mean, I. I can point to many different things that have occurred throughout my time in academia that I look back on. It's always looking back. Right. You know, I look back and I'm like, this is something that I just can't explain away as a coincidence.

Timothy Hsiao [00:38:05]:

You know, how I got into academia, how I was able to get a job in academia despite the fact that I just, I defended very unpopular positions. And I'm sure, as you know, you know, the job market for philosophers is abysmal. I was able to get a good position without too much difficulty. So, you know, I think a lot of the what I've done has been sort of, you know, put before me for. For a reason. Now where I'm at right now, I'm not. I'm sort of halfway in academia and halfway in law enforcement. So I'm really curious to see what exactly my path is right now in the future, what's Lord has planned for me.

Timothy Hsiao [00:38:42]:

But I don't think it's to stop doing philosophy completely. I'm still writing, I still have some ideas I want to get out there. But, you know, I'll go wherever the Lord leads me.

Jim Spiegel [00:38:53]:

That's great. Yeah. And you say, looking back in retrospect, things do become a lot clearer. And I've noticed in my own life, and I predict you will notice the same, if you haven't already, just how what seemed to be detours or pointless dead ends, temporary dead ends, and just strange developments in terms of your professional career eventually coalesce into a very clear divine purpose and plan that can be rather surprising and encouraging. So you are a unique bird to be operating in both of those areas. I. I think it's inspiring you. You might, you might be the only one in the country, one of the very few that, that are doing that.

Jim Spiegel [00:39:46]:

But I would not be surprised if it culminates in something that is very significant that where you end up leveraging your. Your backgrounds in both areas in very significant ways. So keep an eye out for that. It would be just the sort of thing that providence does. So the question I like to conclude all of our conversations with is this. And it's the ultimate question for philosophers that actually even the philosophers get tagged with being concerned with this. It concerns everybody. And that is your conception of the ultimate meaning of life.

Jim Spiegel [00:40:21]:

What is your view of the ultimate meaning of life? And how is your work a manifestation of your view on your life's purpose?

Timothy Hsiao [00:40:28]:

Sure. So as a Christian, I take the scriptures very seriously. I take my Christian convictions very seriously. And although most of my work has been trying, has focused on articulating positions consistent with Christianity in a way that doesn't appeal to explicitly theological motives. At the end of the day, everyone is under the jurisdiction of God. Everyone is made in God's image. Everyone is sort of accountable to God in the end. And so there's no getting out of, you know, the divinely appointed purpose of why we exist.

Timothy Hsiao [00:41:05]:

And I think that ultimately is, you know, God makes everyone so that we may come to know him, we may come to understand who he is, you know, what he has done and that, you know, God wishes that everyone comes to salvation. Right? And so I think, you know, for everyone comes back to this idea of God wants us to know who he is and to follow him, to love him and to worship him. You know, we know another person. And so I think it's within everyone's blueprint that come to know, come to knowledge of God and saving knowledge of God too. And if not, then, you know, there is accountability for that in the end. But as someone who believes that everyone's made in the image of God, that's what we're made for. You, me, and even, you know, everyone else in the world who doesn't believe.

Jim Spiegel [00:41:50]:

Thank you. That's good. Well, Tim, I appreciate you all the work that you're doing. Thank you for spending this time with us and keep it up, my friend.

Timothy Hsiao [00:41:59]:

Thanks. Appreciate you having me.

Jim Spiegel [00:42:01]:

Thank you for listening to the Kalos center podcast. We gave you our thoughts, now let us know what you think. Email us at Podcastalos Center.