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In reading the first chapter, I have noticed a number of logical fallacies, many of which I have pointed out here. For people who are interested, there is an excellent guide to fallacies written by Steven Downes, available at <http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/toc.htm>.

The first chapter is entitled "THE PURPOSE OF ETHICS", and begins in this wise:

All that Ethics is for -- the totality of the reason for its existence and operation -- is simply that additional tool necessary to make it possible to apply the technology of Scientology.

This is a fairly strange statement, since the word "ethics", according to my dictionary, dates back to 1400-1450, which is several hundred years before Scientology ever existed. Furthermore, while four definitions of the word are given, none of them mention Scientology.

It appears that Mr. Hubbard is redefining the term to suit his own purposes, something which should be borne in mind whenever one encounters the word, either in a Scientology publication or document, or when talking to a Scientologist.

I must also wonder: if this is the new definition of "ethics", what word (if any) is used to denote a system of moral conduct?

Man does not have that purpose for his law or his justice. He wants to squash people who are giving him trouble.

Now this is very interesting, considering that in the next chapter (entitled "THE ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY" and "THE ANTI-SCIENTOLOGIST"), he gives the attributes of an anti-social personality. The very first attribute is:

1. He or she speaks only in very broad generalities. "They say...", "Everybody thinks...", "Everyone knows", and such expressions are in continual use, particularly when imparting rumor. When asked "Who is everybody..." it normally turns out to be one source and from this source the anti-social person has manufactured what he or she pretends is the whole opinion of the whole society.

This is natural to them since to them all society is a large hostile generality, against the anti-social in particular.

Getting back to the paragraph from the first chapter, Hubbard is speaking of the human race as a generality (only he speaks of it in the singular as "Man" rather than "Everybody").

He is, however, quite correct that humankind, in general, does not have the application of the technology of Scientology in mind as the purpose for law or justice; at least in the United States, law and justice are supposed to apply to everyone equally, Scientologist or not.

That is not the case with Scientology Ethics which having the above purpose is a fabulously successful activity.

"That", in this sentence, refers to wanting to squash people who are causing trouble. It's a particularly ironic sentence, since we've just seen on ARS a rather impressive list of the people whom the Church of Scientology has sued in just ten months -- in other words, they're trying to squash those who are causing trouble for the Church.

The Church of Scientology, by Hubbard's own definition, is therefore out-ethics.

Man of course has a tremendous reaction to something called justice or what he laughingly calls justice. But Man has no understanding to back up any of his hangings that he commits himself to and in fact has no real justice because it has no end product. Its total end product, if you call it one, is punishment.

This is amusing: first Hubbard states that Man's justice has no end product; then, in the very next sentence, he contradicts himself by identifying its end product. And notice again that he speaks in a generality -- one of the symptoms of an anti-social personality and of an anti-Scientologist.

That it doesn't straighten out the community is manifest. Here and there it does some good but the crime statistic of the world is going up much more steeply than the rise of population. I have recently spoken to those in charge of law enforcement in the world's best police force and they were in a very apathetic frame of mind. They just wanted to lie down and quit. Because there is no end product to what they are doing.

Notice that he doesn't actually identify the police force; this is a fallacy of anonymous authority.

It is also an inductive fallacy; merely because his sample (one police force) felt that way, it does not necessarily follow that his sample was representative of every police force, or even of a majority of police forces.

(That's a nice sentence fragment at the end there, too...)

Worse than that, the systems of disciplinary actions which are employed on earth today are incapable of doing more than worsening an individual.

"Incapable" is an absolute, and can easily be proven to be false. Were Hubbard's statement true, every single country would have a recidivism rate of 100%. Even the US, which admittedly has a very high rate indeed, is still below 100%, and was even before the advent of Scientology; therefore, Hubbard is incorrect. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Were I to emulate Andrew Milne here, I would probably point out that the recidivism rate in the US has risen since Hubbard started Scientology; however, that would lead to a post hoc fallacy.

Now when you bring in an actual Ethics system across this line you jar a lot of people's aberrations. They REACT. And it is a very interesting fact that a far greater proportion of people in Scientology today favor a decent ethical law and favor ethics actions than have reacted against it, because they see that it will make things go right.

Notice the sample group which he uses here, and remember what he has redefined "ethics" to mean. A greater proportion of Scientologists favor laws and actions that make it possible to apply the technology of Scientology.

As an argument for support for the Scientology version of ethics, Hubbard is committing a number of inductive fallacies; probably the most glaring is the fallacy of exclusion -- including the opinions of non-Scientologists would very likely result in a completely different result.

Furthermore, he introduces prejudicial language here; notice that his claim is to support for a decent ethical law. Ignoring the redefined word, one would not be likely to find many people who state that they aren't in favor of a decent law; this is an appeal to motives rather than to actual support for his statement: yet another fallacy.

They see that it results in better training, better technical application, a better organization, and a better overall grip on the subjects that Scientology addresses and keeps the abuses of the subject minimal.

If volume upon volume containing thousands of policy letters, many superseding or contradicting other policy letters, is an example of "better organization", I'd hate to see what poor organization is!

We are factually only here helping people to help themselves to better their conditions and the conditions of life. That is our total action.

Well, I'd like to pose a question to some of the former Sea Org members, and current ones (if they're allowed to answer): How did your conditions when in the Sea Org compare with the time before you joined Scientology?

As that additional tool for making it all possible, the Ethics system of Scientology is tremendously successful.

Nice sentiment, but he has provided neither reasons nor evidence to show why the Ethics system of Scientology is tremendously successful.

Well, that's the first chapter. Responses are welcome (indeed, desired) from critics, Free Zoners and Scientologists alike, but I'd ask that any responses be made in ARS so that everyone can benefit from reading them.