Two weeks ago, Kenneth Wain – described by Wikipedia as a ‘major Maltese philosopher’, barraged me with abuse and insults for my analysis of the Ethics Programme offered in secondary schools which he master-minded.

Whereas I expressed no reservation on the greater part of the programme, I did register my consternation at the fact that this programme introduces fifth-formers to the notion of abortion and euthanasia, and in a “neutral fashion” to boot. I argued that, given that these are crimes under our laws, inviting teenagers to discuss them in a neutral context amounts to inviting teenagers to consider breaking the law as an ethically-acceptable option.

Despite what Wikipedia says about him, Kenneth Wain’s tongue was sharp, ready and decidedly not civil when he reacted a fortnight ago. He attacked me harshly because, among other things, I argued that Immanuel Kant, one of Wain’s favourite philosophers, embraced a pessimist worldview and therefore one would prefer that teenagers be taught Christianity’s optimist worldview rather than a programme inspired by Kantian ethics.

As a reaction, Wain paid me a number of compliments, including calling me “ignorant”. Subsequently I demonstrated that (the conservative) Hegel himself saw (the liberal) Kant as essentially pessimist. Now if the learned professor wants to wrestle with Hegel, not with the “ignorant Sammut”, I will certainly not try to dissuade him.

So, in the first part of my answer to Kenneth Wain published last week, I expressed my shock at the learned professor’s assertion that many teenagers in Malta have encountered abortion in their young lives. This is scandalous, as the only implication one can draw from the learned professor’s assertion, if it is true, is that the Police are completely useless when it comes to curtailing the criminal offence of abortion in this country.

Today, on a slightly lighter note, I would like to remind the learned professor that the liberal Kant thought that masturbation was worse than suicide! Enlightenment thinkers were deeply concerned with onanism, for they saw it as self-abuse which might endanger public order! I wonder whether this topic is included in the fifth-form Ethics programme...

Anyway, joking apart, according to Wikipedia, ‘Maltese major philosopher’ Kenneth Wain is also influenced by the late American philosopher Richard Rorty. Now I must say that, whereas I am lukewarm about Kant, I viscerally dislike Rorty and his namby-pamby ideas about sentimentalism in ethics. Rorty believed that if you teach the younger generations about sentimentalism, then they will readily accept the basic tenets of liberalism (including abortion and euthanasia). One wonders whether it is this sentimentalist balderdash that has inspired Iceland, among other countries, to aspire to a Down Syndrome-less population by ruthlessly aborting virtually all affected foetuses.

So, can one safely conclude that Kenneth Wain followed the teachings of the liberal Kant and the liberal-sentimental Rorty when he drew up the Ethics programme?

Has there been any public discussion of the philosophy behind the programme? If not, why not?

What will be the consequences of the programme? The Malta Independent reader Simon Oosterman put this comment beneath my article of last week: “discussing these matters in Maltese schools ...may only give an impetus to a movement to change the law”. Even Mr Oosterman has understood that the only possible consequence of this programme is the introduction, in a not-too-distant future, of abortion in Malta by inculcating in the mind of young people the readiness to accept the termination of life in its early stages as a sign of civilisation.

To my understanding, the learned professor and major Maltese philosopher Kenneth Wain seems not to agree that what Rorty considers the tenets of mainstream liberalism are a response to social situations.

Indeed, in politics, as in economics, it’s all a matter of demand and supply. Let us consider divorce as an example. Why has the Western family collapsed in the 20th century? Why did Italian Christian Democrat politicians feel the need to restore the family in the aftermath of the Second World War?

One probable answer is that the two world wars had utterly depleted the male population. Women had been left to take care of families while their men were fighting on the front, and many of those men never made it back home. This situation brought about the collapse of the family structure in the countries engaged in those wars. The legalisation of divorce did not bring about divorce; it was the other way round. There was a demand for divorce and the law simply caught up with society.

The demand sprang from the shortage of available men and thus the need of more women “sharing” the same man, and successive monogamy in lieu of the culturally-alien polygamy. The post-war years saw a political, or ideological, attempt to reverse this demand and the 1960s sexual revolution was a direct reaction to this attempt.

In other words, liberalism – like other ideologies – was meant to satisfy a demand, by supplying laws and consequently legalising the supply of certain services.

So the natural question is: does Malta need all the solutions and services provided by liberalism? Is there really a demand? Even on the divorce issue in Malta, one could argue that a big chunk of the electorate did not turn up to vote and another sizeable chunk voted against, indicating an unclear and unfocussed demand.

Are we witnessing the imposition of liberalism because of ideological (top-down) reasons rather than bottom-up demand?

These are all pertinent questions, when one considers that the Ethics programme essentially boils down to the indoctrination of adolescents who will probably resent thought control and will want teachers to ‘leave those kids alone’.