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Month: August 2019

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The Amazon Fires: Responsibility, Obligation, and the Limitations of the State

satellite image of amazon fires

This article has a set of discussion questions tailored for classroom use. Click here to download them. To see a full list of articles with discussion questions and other resources, visit our “Educational Resources” page.

President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil refused to accept proposed aid from members of the G7 for the Amazon fires, in part because of a personal feud with President Emmanuel Macron of France about the respective leaders’ wives. Yet the Amazon rainforest continues to burn. Another concern of the Brazilian government is the implication that accepting foreign aid has for the country’s sovereignty. President Bolsonaro alleged that the French president “disguises his intentions behind the idea of an ‘alliance’ of the G7 countries to ‘save’ the Amazon, as if we were a colony or a no-man’s land.” But should President Bolsonaro’s refusal for aid continue and the burning of the Amazon continue, what is the next step? Who, if anyone, has an obligation to put out the fires? When is it justified to defy national sovereignty?

To violate a country’s sovereignty is a dramatic move; the cause would have to be of great importance. In 1999, the then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan defined the modern state as “instruments at the service of their people.” Failure of the state to deliver services to its people would warrant external aid. The UN Charter states that member states should refrain from “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” 

But the definition of the modern state and Purposes of the UN speak only to human concerns; nowhere is there an acknowledgement of environmental concerns. Even though conventions have been devised, the impasse regarding aid for the fires reveals a hole in the recommendations of international organizations. Even the recommendations about natural disasters do not apply given that the fires were apparently ignited by farmers clearing land for agriculture.

While the United Nations is not an authority on ethics in international relations, its charter is a useful touchstone given that its prescriptions often advise the international community’s response to global events. The burning of the Amazon, however, presents a non-standard case. Violating national sovereignty is often justified by protecting the lives of humans. But how should the international community respond to threats to non-human life?

Celebrities, NGOs, and political leaders alike have called the Amazon “the lungs of the world” given the amount of oxygen it produces. For that reason alone, it would appear that this fire is directly affecting the livelihood of humanity; thus, falling under the umbrella of justifications of acceptable international intervention. But some individuals have cast doubt on the claims about the rainforest’s contribution to the planet’s oxygen. 

“The Amazon produces about 6 percent of the oxygen currently being made by photosynthetic organisms alive on the planet today,” writes Peter Brannen. “[F]rom a broader Earth-system perspective, in which the biosphere not only creates but also consumes free oxygen, the Amazon’s contribution to our planet’s unusual abundance of the stuff is more or less zero.” Speaking to Forbes, Dr. Dan Nepstad of the Earth Innovation Institute called the popular descriptor of lungs “bullshit”, saying that the Amazon uses as much oxygen as it produces through respiration. The significance of the photosynthetic production of air and the Amazon’s instrumental value may be exaggerated. 

Even so, the Amazon basin contains incredible biodiversity, housing a staggering 10% of the known species on Earth despite occupying only 1% of the planet’s surface area. The rainforest is the largest of its kind in the world. The river that slices through the rainforest is the longest in the world. By any measure, the Amazon is a natural wonder, irrespective of its relationship with humans. And some argue that it possesses its own intrinsic value. 

Writing on one view of the intrinsic value of nature, Professor Ronald Sandler states: “[N]atural entities, including species and some ecosystems, have intrinsic value in virtue of their independence from human design and control and their connection to human-independent evolutionary processes.” Proponents of this view would argue that the Amazon ought to be protected not because of its value to us–be that in the form of oxygen or bewonderment–but because it has value without us.

Suppose then that the Amazon has intrinsic value and is, thus, worthy of protecting: is anyone obligated to protect it when the government in which it is in is failing to do so? Some may reference the dictum that those with the means to help are obligated to help. But the ethical expectations for individuals may not seamlessly apply to the ethical obligations of organizations. The discussion becomes more complex when considering non-state actors, such as NGOs, which do not operate under the same responsibilities.

NGOs whose cause it is to protect and encourage the biodiversity of different natural environments may see the perceived inaction of the Brazilian government as moral permission to intervene and provide aid. In some cases, non-governmental intervention occurs without any controversy, such as when an NGO delivers assistance to a developing country that is unable to provide clean water to its people. These organizations are likely in a better position to avoid the claims of sovereignty violation that have hampered the acceptance of foreign state aid simply because they are not pursuing a national state agenda. 

Yet while NGOs are able to help, there are some disadvantages to having them do so. They lack the democratic accountability of a state actor; they are not responsible for anything but pursuing their cause. Because of that they could feasibly maintain a presence in the country past the point that it is necessary and undermine the government’s ability to act. 

States, however, do not suffer from the same disadvantages and are constrained by international norms.  But if they are indeed “instruments at the service of their people,” states would appear to be obligated only to serving their people. It is not clear that states have the obligation to intervene in the destruction of a natural environment in another country. Furthermore, it is not clear if it would even be permissible to do so. International agreement on the notion that nature has intrinsic value may prove elusive, leaving the question of who should put out the fires unanswered, even if everyone agrees the fires should be put out. Perhaps the burning of the Amazon illustrates the growing obsolescence of our modern definition of the state.

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Animals as Entertainment: Some Notes on Animal Bullying

photograph of dolphin balancing ball at zoo

Cats are scared of cucumbers.

If you haven’t seen the viral videos of pet owners sneaking up behind their feline companions and quietly placing a green vegetable just out of sight, you might be surprised to learn this fact. Nonetheless, it remains true that something about the unexpected presence of a long, emerald gourd activates a fear response in the cognitive systems of most cats. It may be that the visual similarities of such produce to predators like snakes primes the cat’s automatic reactions to flee from what it perceives as danger. To many cat-owners, and many more cat-video-watchers, these reactions are amusing (hence their popularity), but I have quite intentionally avoided providing links to any examples of such behavior, for the simple reason that I do not wish to support the mistreatment of animals, however small.

All things considered, needlessly scaring a pet is a minute example of the ways in which human and nonhuman animal interaction goes badly for the latter group; everything from hunting, to habitat destruction, to factory farming could be trotted out as an example of a far more serious case of animal mistreatment. Nevertheless, the relatively mundane instances of abuse, precisely because they are so common, are worth considering.

Take, for example, the recent report that as many as three-fourths of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums allow for or promote at least one form of patron experience demonstrably contrary to the best interests of the nonhuman animals involved. According to the international nonprofit organization World Animal Protection, examples range from allowing park-goers to take “wildlife selfies,” to pet or ride various large creatures, or to watch performances of nonhuman animals in demeaning, circus-like settings. In many cases, years of harmful training are required to prevent the animals in question from endangering the park-goers, including harsh methods to establish dominance over strong-willed creatures. Although zoos and aquariums are often heralded as important players in conservation efforts, insofar as they educate the general public about the value of nonhuman life, if they do so at the expense of the well-being of the animals most directly under their care, then questions of hypocrisy arise.

In a similar vein, wild creatures in America’s national parks are frequently cornered by well-intentioned nature-lovers in ways that inevitably lead to dangerous situations for humans and nonhumans alike. This year, bison attacks in Yellowstone and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota were captured on video – in one, a nine-year-old girl was launched into the air by a bison after a crowd of four or five dozen park visitors surrounded the animal for over 20 minutes. Although park regulations require guests to remain at least 25 yards from all wildlife, the average bison’s calm appearance gives many people the impression that it’s safe to approach. In reality, bison tend to conserve their energy until it is most needed, moving in quick, short bursts of intense speed. As Emily Perrine, a Swiss psychologist, explains, “We interpret this as the bison being nice, and wanting to be near us, and that they want us to touch them. We have to understand that our human behavioral signals are very different than the behavioral signals given by wild animals.”

 This is precisely the point: whether we are misreading ‘fearful’ as ‘calm,’ ‘broken’ as ‘playful,’ or ‘terrified’ as ‘amusing,’ we are misreading the animals we encounter nonetheless – and, in all seriousness, potentially causing them harm. If a third-grader perpetually tormented a skittish first-grader by hiding behind corners and jumping out to scare her, then tried to defend this bullying on the grounds that “I find it funny,” we would call her a bully nonetheless – so, too, with cat owners and their cucumbers.

If we truly wish to be the animals lovers we claim we are, then we would do well to try and imagine how they experience the world we share, just as much (if not more) than how we consider it for ourselves. This could take the form of the sorts of concerns about relations of dependence and moral orientations as highlighted by care ethicists like Carol Gilligan or Nel Nodding; philosophers in this tradition highlight how bonds between individuals can ground unique sorts of obligations and rights – such as those between a human pet owner and the creatures who depend on her. Or this might look like the sorts of perspectival concerns highlighted by Sandra Harding and others under the heading of ‘standpoint epistemology’ – the thesis that individuals in certain social positions have privileged access to various forms of knowledge. Even though the setting on the side of a Yellowstone trail might seem peaceful to the humans present, it might equally be quite stressful from the standpoint of the bison – giving this perspective serious consideration is not only epistemically virtuous, but morally preferable.

1 My thanks to Sofia Huerter and Jasmine Gunkel, whose paper presentations at this summer’s workshop of the Society for the Study of Ethics and Animals in Boulder, CO, provoked my thinking on these matters.

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The Hong Kong Protests and International Obligation

photograph of protest at night in Hong Kong

It’s tempting to regard the Hong Kong protests as a family dispute; an unsettling scene to be sure, but a private matter to be handled in-house. This has been the position of the White House, for example, with President Trump saying, “We’ll see what happens but I’m sure it’ll work out. I hope it works out for everybody — including China, by the way.” He’s also suggested that if China’s leader, Xi Jinping, “sat down with the protesters […] he’d work it out in 15 minutes.” 

The trouble with this response is that the Hong Kong protests are not a simple standoff with local government. Embedded in the three months of protest is a plea to see the Joint Declaration between the British Empire and the People’s Republic of China enforced and the “one country, two systems” principle protected. The protests are a response to the perceived infringement on the autonomy promised Hong Kong until 2047 when the region is set to be subsumed by China. Protesters see the rights, liberties, and freedoms unique to Hong Kong eroding; the judicial, legislative, and executive powers meant to be separate from the People’s Republic of China being undermined; and the vague lines meant to establish autonomy becoming increasingly blurred. And all this twenty years into a fifty-year arrangement.

Much of this current round of protests, just as those that came before, is about representation. Hong Kong is not a democracy; its inhabitants have never possessed the power to directly elect officials, either now as part of China or before as part of the British Empire. Hong Kong Basic Law established in the joint declaration gestures at political participation through local elections, but not any concrete framework for what that system might require. Beijing has translated this commitment as the choice between party-approved candidates, whereas protesters assert the right to genuine universal suffrage. Negotiations have been stalled for some time, and neither side has incentive to compromise.

As stalemate has continued, the nature of the Hong Kong protests has grown increasingly international. Protesters sing the US national anthem and rallies have been organized in Taiwan, Japan, the UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, France, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the US. This is no accident; international support is Hong Kong’s only remaining method of exerting pressure on China to respect the terms of the treaty.

Even the disinformation campaign by China has expanded beyond feints and posturing on state-run media to include coordinated efforts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This isn’t merely about the PRC’s image; it’s an attempt to shut down Hong Kong’s Hail Mary and discourage outside meddling.

Given the power discrepancy, this dispute over autonomy is not a matter to be settled by Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China privately; they can’t simply work it out for themselves. Hong Kong lacks the standing to protect or even assert its interests, and its government is not accountable to its people. That makes the international community the only backstop to possibly ensure the freedoms and protections laid forth in the joint declaration. 

Britain, in particular, has a moral responsibility to its former subjects, the people of Hong Kong, to see the terms of that treaty upheld. Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, has argued, “As the former sovereign power, Britain has a debt of honour to Hong Kong.” Having signed and acted as both author and guarantor of Hong Kong’s future, Britain is duty-bound to see the terms of that handover respected and observed. 

This begins with challenging China’s shifting position. The PRC has previously claimed that “Now that Hong Kong has returned to the motherland for 20 years the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as a historical document, no longer has any realistic meaning,” and that “Britain has no sovereignty, no governing power and no supervising power over Hong Kong.” 

But the international obligation runs deeper than merely Britain’s role in negotiations as co-signator. While the international community has no clear mandate to ensure a right to democracy — understood as genuine universal sufferage — in Hong Kong, it does have reason (legal and moral) to see that China’s criminal justice system does not swallow up the autonomous territory and continue to disappear activists and other opposition forces. At the very least, our moral responsibility extends to intervening in human rights abuses. (A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said last week that there was “credible evidence” that in responding to protests law enforcement had used measures “prohibited by international norms and standards.”)

The threat of violence is escalating. The PRC has moved quickly from branding protesters as “rioters” (a designation the carries significant jail time) and intimidating and harassing journalists to tear gas, water cannons, and drawn weapons. Relying on economic considerations or a loss of national credibility to stay China’s hand is no substitute for holding China accountable for flouting human rights, international norms, and the rule of law.

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Is It Wrong to Be a Nationalist?

photograph of Trump hugging flag on stage

When President Trump declared himself a “nationalist” last autumn, some wondered if that was good or bad for the country. One writer pointed out that “for many Americans, mention of the word summons up visions of Hitler and Nazism.” Michael McFaul, the ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration, tweeted: “Does Trump know the historical baggage associated with this word, or is he ignorant?” Shortly after Trump’s declaration, President Macron of France warned against “chaos and death,” calling nationalism “the betrayal of patriotism.” 

The largely negative reaction to President Trump’s self-identification as a nationalist presents an opportunity to examine timely ethical questions: What does it mean to be a nationalist in 2019? Is being a nationalist morally wrong? Is nationalism inherently noxious and inevitably violent or is it merely warped and twisted to justify noxious and violent acts?  The distinction is important in uncovering whether the political force should be condemned outright or tolerated and even supported. 

Examples of nationalism’s marriage with racism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide punctuated the last century. Ethnonationalism, and its entanglement with religion, plagued the Balkans, most recently in the 90s when Yugoslavia splintered under the pressure of civil war. A desire for Hutu ethnic supremacy in Rwanda led to the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi Rwandans. The extreme, racialized fascism espoused by the Nazis resulted in the Holocaust. Sensitivity to the ‘nationalist’ label is understandable. 

Opponents of President Trump’s hugging embrace of nationalism may be nobly motivated to prevent those moral evils from recurring. But to conclude that the mere expression of nationalism entails the tolerance of or advocacy for such evils is wrongfully anticipatory. To automatically conflate nationalism with the acts it has dubiously been used to justify neglects the intellectual complexity of the concept. The fundamental question is: Can nationalism exist without the violence with which it is so often associated? Or does the prioritization of a nation’s interests at the expense of all others represent incitement?

To answer this question, one must define nationalism and parse through its different varieties. The “nation” has been called “an imagined community” of strangers because most individuals will never know the majority of their fellow compatriots. When using this definition of nation, it is clear that a strong force is required to bind these strangers and foster a sense of shared community. 

Ethnicity is often used as this binding force. Ethnic nationalism is based on promoting a singular culture, religion, and language and securing its dominance in defining national identity. The potential for violence is obvious: preferring one culture over all others leads to the relegation or exclusion of others and can sour into the aforementioned evils of the 20th-century. It points to homogeneity, and establishes clear in-groups and out-groups.

Civic nationalism, on the other hand, avoids cultural preferences–and the potential of violence–and bases national identity on shared liberal, democratic values. One example of this form of nationalism is Scottish Nationalist Party, whose raison d’etre is independence for Scotland, defines the country’s national identity not by race or ethnicity but rather democracy and self-determination. The United States of America, lacking any formal endorsement of a national religion or language, is another prominent example of civic nationalism, even if some may endeavor to define the country’s identity through a racial or cultural lens. Merely the existence of these different forms of nationalism suggests that it can indeed exist without violence. 

But even if the concerns about the historical baggage associated with the term “nationalist” are assuaged, there remains other reasons to be critical of it. Placing the question of nationalism within the context of globalization and an increasingly interconnected world reveals as much. President Macron, who has called for strengthening the powers of the EU, characterized nationalism as “our interests first, who cares about others.” While his condemnation appears unconditional, he demonstrates the threat it poses specifically to a globalized world. 

Rising nationalism and populism in Europe has been reflected in the elections of anti-establishment parties, support for Eurosceptic leaders, and, most notably, Brexit. And it is perhaps the erosion of commercial borders caused by globalization and the cessation of governance to more distant political bodies that has led to this resurgence of nationalism; a resurgence driven by a fear of “losing” one’s country.

If the goal is to further the interdependence of countries, to strengthen international bodies, and to encourage the free movement of people and goods, and with them, culture, nationalism is certainly an obstacle. But if the goal is to support localized governance and ensure nations retain their sovereignty, nationalism is inevitable.

It is important to recognize then that to criticize nationalists is to criticize the concept of the nation, too. For those who oppose nationalism, the only possible implication of their opposition is that the nation is not worth supporting with such fervor or pride, a lost cause running counter to the progress of a globalized world. But for as long as the nation exists and is the predominant base upon which the modern state is structured, promotion and prioritization of one’s nation should strike no one as inherently wrong.

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Aid in Dying in New Jersey

photograph of private hospital room with comfort items

On August 1st, New Jersey’s Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act came into effect, and, after the included waiting period, August 16th marked the beginning of its effectiveness. This brings New Jersey into the group of states, including Washington, D.C., that allow terminally ill patients to determine the manner in which their lives will end. Maine has a bill that will go into effect in September, which will bring the group of states/DC that have aid-in-dying legislation to ten out of fifty-one. 

Legal principles in aid-in-dying cases rest on core values that the US Constitution is designed to protect. The major legal principles that have been relevant physician assistance cases include the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. 

The Due Process Clause protects our liberty to make our own decisions about the most important parts of life – like marriage, children, etc. These kinds of life events are recognized by the government as particularly important for individuals and are thus left to individual discretion. The Supreme Court case of Washington v Glucksburg raised the question of whether this reasoning could be extended in order to protect individual choice in end-of-life care. The plaintiff argued that end-of-life is one of those important times in our lives. As such, terminally ill patients should be able to be allowed control and physician aid in dying should therefore be legal. But the Court unanimously held that physician aid in dying was not covered by the due process clause, blocking one avenue to federal protection. 

In the Supreme Court case of Vacco v Quill in 1997, the plaintiff argued that the 24th amendment and the Equal Protection Clause made it the case that physician aid in dying should be legal. The legal principle in the case was that like cases should be treated alike, and the plaintiff argued that “voluntary passive euthanasia” was sufficiently like physician aid in dying. “Voluntary passive euthanasia,” where a patient’s death is hastened by the removal of treatment, was legal. Terminal patients could opt to cease medical intervention and/or life supporting aid such as feeding tubes, respiratory aid, and hydration. Because ceasing intervention amounted to hastening death just as physician aid in dying amounts to hastening death for the terminally ill, we should not allow some patients but not others the opportunity to have control over their deaths. Thus, the plaintiff argued, because we should treat like cases alike, and physician aid in dying is basically the same as voluntary passive euthanasia, physician aid in dying should also be legal. The ruling, however, was that the state did not have an interest in protecting the process of hastening death, and the case is often cited as establishing that there is no state interest in protecting a citizen’s “right to die.” 

Because of these Supreme Court cases, there is no protection at the federal level for physicians to intervene and allow terminally ill patients to control their own deaths. This, however, has not stopped the nine states and D.C. from either legally outlining such a protection through legislation or through judicial precedent. Opposition, on the other hand, is often motivated by the moral evaluation of the intervention more than the legal standing. 

The main values that conflict in the moral debate over aid-in-dying are the inherent value of life on the one hand, and the rights of liberty or autonomy to determine how your life is shaped and will unfold on the other. For many, it is a grave moral wrong to end a person’s life, regardless of the circumstances (for discussion see Marko Mavrovic’s “What It Means to Legalize Euthanasia”). This may be the most central ethical prescription for creatures with the moral standing that comes with being a person. However, for most there are exceptions to this tenant. Perhaps ending someone’s life in self-defense isn’t completely morally forbidden, or perhaps there exists some moral calculus that points to a good (like the avoidance of harm) that could justify the sacrifice of one person’s life.

If we admit cases like these into our moral perspectives, we move away from absolute evaluations and allow for the weighing of morally relevant features; we could think it’s likely that there are other goods which compete with the value in not ending life. Non-interference with how a person wishes to live their life is a core moral value that can be at odds with the duty to preserve life. When a competent person makes up their mind to end their suffering, it is unclear to many that it is right to prevent this. And when there are experts that can ensure a safe and humane procedure, this leads to many advocates defending physician aid-in-dying legislation. Growing support appears to favor allowing terminal patients more autonomy in how they spend and end their final months.

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Pacific Islands Forum: Climate War in the Pacific

photograph of shoreline

The fight to mitigate full-blown climate catastrophe last week suffered a blow thanks to Australia’s intransigence at a meeting of Pacific leaders, which culminated in a plea from the president of Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific country already being inundated by rising seas, to the world: “We ask, please understand this, our people are dying.”

We should not be in the grip of moral uncertainty here. There is no more time to dispute the science – or to try to argue that it is in dispute. The science is in and evidence of the rapidly worsening climate crisis is all around us. 

Consider this analogy: Imagine you are walking past a pond, you hear someone pleading for help and you see a drowning child.1 You have the capacity to save the child’s life, at some cost to yourself. The cost may be something relatively minor or it may be something more serious – perhaps you will be late for a class, or miss an important meeting; ruin an expensive suit, or even lose your job. None of these things, even losing your job is (without serious qualification) morally equivalent to the child’s life. It should be uncontroversial that you are morally required to save the child. 

Now imagine that you are a large wealthy country strolling past a small poor nation being inundated by water as the seas rise from the effects of climate change. Imagine you hear that country pleading with you to help, to save it from drowning. Your help would of course require some sacrifice, but it will not threaten your life, or even your livelihood. It may be a major inconvenience to you, but it is a matter of life and death to the other. It should be equally uncontroversial that you are morally required to do whatever you can to come to its aid. 

Something like this happened last week in the tiny Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu where leaders from a host of smaller nations along with Australia met for the annual Pacific Islands Forum. The most pressing topic of the summit was the climate emergency, as the Pacific islands are on the front line, and Tuvalu, like many other low-lying, small Pacific Island nations is facing immediate peril from rising seas. Many regional leaders had their sights set on Australia, which is becoming a notorious laggard on efforts to combat climate change and honor its commitments made in the Paris agreement. It was hoped that an agreement could be reached at the leaders summit that would reflect the urgency of the crisis and forge a cooperative strategy to address the emergency. 

However, this is what those Pacific Island leaders were up against: just two years ago Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, (then federal treasurer) stood up in parliament brandishing a lump of coal and shouting that coal is nothing to be afraid of, to the guffaws of other government ministers. Morrison fronted the forum this week with his guile fully intact. Australia’s current conservative government (Liberal-National Party), now in its third term, began its tenure by repealing the previous government’s progressive and effective carbon tax, and has been defined by its ideological and pecuniary resistance to weaning Australia’s economy from its reliance on fossil fuels, especially coal, towards the many great opportunities the country affords for clean renewable energy generated by solar and wind. 

Australia is one of the richest nations per capita, owing to its vast fossil fuel resources and relatively small population; Australians also have one of the highest carbon footprints per head of population and Australia is the third largest exporter of fossil fuels behind Russia and Saudi Arabia. Because of Australia’s massive coal exports, the country is a major contributor of carbon heavy fuels and bears responsibility for its own carbon output as well as that of the nations to whom its coal is exported. Australia’s lack of action on climate change, together with its plans to continue to open up new coal mining prospects is having direct impact on the imminent existential crisis faced by Tuvalu and other Pacific nations. 

In his opening speech Fiji’s prime minister, Frank Bainimarama said: “I appeal to Australia to do everything possible to achieve a rapid transition from coal to energy sources that do not contribute to climate change,” he said, adding that coal posed an “existential threat” to Pacific countries.

In an effort to head off criticism the Morrison government announced $500m in climate resilience and adaptation for the Pacific region. In response Tuvalu’s prime minister, Enele Sopoaga said: 

“No matter how much money you put on the table, it doesn’t give you the excuse to not to do the right thing, which is to cut down on your emissions, including not opening your coalmines.”

During the leaders’ retreat where a communiqué was debated which will be used as the basis of regional decision-making, Australia refused to budge on certain ‘red lines’ – including insisting on the removal of mentions of coal, limiting warming to under 1.5C, and setting a plan for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, to the grief and frustration of the other nations. 

The Fijian prime minister expressed his anger with the difficulties in negotiating with Australia during the leaders’ retreat, telling The Guardian that Morrison had been “very insulting and condescending.”

So, to return to the drowning child scenario, it is meant to help us see that where it is in our power to help someone whose life is in danger “without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.” Australia has failed the test. It has walked past the child, refusing to help on the basis of reasons which are not morally equivalent – as Sopoaga said he told Morrison at one point during discussions: “You are trying to save your economy, I am trying to save my people.”

But there is another stratum of moral bankruptcy to how the broader conversation in Australia went. Australia’s deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, offering his own commentary back home from a business function as the forum was underway in Tuvalu, told an audience 

“I also get a little bit annoyed when we have people in those sorts of countries pointing the finger at Australia and say we should be shutting down all our resources sector so that, you know, they will continue to survive,” 

The current Australian government not only doesn’t understand its moral obligations or isn’t prepared to meet them, but has no compunction about flouting its preference for its resource sector (lets say its expensive suit) over the survival of its neighbors (the drowning child).

1 I am here borrowing, and adapting an analogy used by Peter Singer in his paper Famine, Affluence and Morality, published in 1972.

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The Ethics of Chimeric Research

microscopic image of human embryos

Recently, various news outlets covered the creation of the first human-monkey chimeras in China. A chimera is an organism whose cells come from two or more species. Researchers managed to develop monkey embryos containing human cells after previous attempts relied on pig and sheep embryos. While this type of research is prohibited in the U.S., the work was legal in China. 

Such projects have been conducted with the hope of developing human organs which can then be transplanted into humans and for conducting research into neurological and psychiatric diseases in humans. Even though such embryos do not progress past one or two weeks of growth, these efforts have been controversial. This is because it is difficult to restrict human cell growth to just one organ. According to Robin Lovell-Badge the concern is that without some way to restrict the contribution of human cells they could contribute to the animal’s central nervous system.

Such scientific endeavors present several ethical issues. These include concerns about animal ethics. For example David Shaw, Wybo Dondorp and Guido de Wert argue that given the limited number of organs for transplant, harvesting organs from human/non-human chimeras is a valid option so long as there is a substantial potential benefit to humans and if there are no reasonable alternatives present. 

Unlike other forms of animal research where the benefits may be less certain, harvesting human organs from a chimera would in most cases save a human life, so there is a large proportional benefit. Also, while there may potentially be other options for saving the life of a human requiring an organ transplant (such as research into artificial organs or changes to public policy requiring that people opt-out of organ donation), those options have not been established. For specific people who will die without an organ transplant there is no established alternative option. Thus, with these two conditions met, Shaw et al. argue that it is permissible to kill chimeras for their organs.  

César Palacios-González has argued that while harvesting organs of a human/pig chimera may be acceptable on such grounds, the case for great-ape/human chimera is more problematic. He argues that from a species-neutral standpoint great apes who possess qualities of self-awareness, complex social structures, and the potential to form rudimentary cultures are “borderline persons.” Because of this, great-ape/human chimeras are deserving of moral protection. 

Killing such animals for their organs would be no more morally justified than killing humans who possess less psychological capacities such as infants, toddlers, and adults with less mental capacities than great apes. Palacios-González suggest that we either accept that it is morally acceptable to kill great apes, great-ape/human chimeras and some human borderline persons for their organs, or we must reject harvesting the organs of any of them. 

While the animal rights argument covers some of the ethical issues involved with human/non-human chimeras, ethicists and philosophers also recognize the distinct ethical concerns presented by chimeric research. One of these concerns is whether it is wrong to cross species boundaries to create part-human beings. Is there some fixed line that distinguishes the human species from other animals, and should this boundary be breached?

According to some, crossing the boundary line of the human species is wrong because it is a challenge to God’s existence, however such arguments will not satisfy those who do not believe in a god. For others, crossing the species boundary is inherently wrong because it is unnatural. There are also those who would argue that is morally wrong because it would create too much moral confusion as we must determine the moral status of human-animal hybrids (for discussion, see Meredith McFadden’s “Moral Standing and Human/Non-human Hybrids”). 

On the other hand, such arguments are difficult to pin down because the concept of species is complicated. For example, according to Jason Robert and Françoise Baylis, “Biologists typically make do with a plurality of species concepts, invoking one or the other depending on the particular explanatory or investigative context.” 

One concept of species holds that species are defined in terms of reproductive isolation. If two populations of creatures do not successfully interbreed, then they belong to two different species. However, this definition only applies to species that reproduce sexually. Another definition considers the lineage of a population of organisms and its continuity over time. Such a definition is more encompassing but also more vague. Operationally it can be very difficult to arrive at a set of traits or qualities that completely distinguishes one species from another.  

The scientific conception of species, therefore, is not fixed. There are many ways to describe species, and it can be very difficult to arrive at a specific and distinctive definition of what makes homo-sapiens a distinct species. Because of this, the notion that it is immoral to cross species boundaries is problematic because it is difficult to define the human species in a fixed way. 

On the other hand, as Robert and Baylis point out, the fact that scientists do not have an account of fixed differences between species does not mean that the ethicist couldn’t employ a fixed account. They explain, “notwithstanding the claim that biologically species are fluid, people believe species identities and boundaries are indeed fixed and in fact make everyday moral decisions on the basis of this belief.” They use the example of race as an analogy; where race is not a biologically useful concept, but it can be a socially useful concept. 

If there are good reasons to adopt fixed notions of species for ethical purposes, then there may be a basis to claim that it is wrong to cross the species boundary, particularly because of the moral confusion it could create. Settling some of these issues will likely require that the public take note of the tension that can exist between a scientific account of something and an ethical account. Should we pursue a more open concept of species and of moral status in line with an experimental approach to these issues, or should we rely on the concept of fixed distinctions when it comes to moral matters. The issue of animal/human chimeras asks us to consider what, ethically, does it mean to be human and what does it mean to be a person?

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What’s In a Name? The Morality in “Meat”

close-up photograph of a raw cut of meat

In 2018, Missouri banned the use of the word “meat” to describe products that are “not derived from harvested production livestock or poultry.” As punishment, “Violators are subject to up to one year in prison and a fine of as much as $1,000.”  The law was written in response to the rise in popularity of realistic meat substitutes such as Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat and to the emerging technology of cell cultured meats. Similar laws followed in states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

The concerns don’t stop with use of the term “meat.” Last summer, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb expressed concerns about the use of “milk” to describe products like soymilk, almond milk, and oat milk. Such terms are misleading, he claims, because “An almond doesn’t lactate.” 

Supporters of these laws offer a range of arguments, some of which appear to be in better faith than others. The first argument is that use of terms like “meat” and “milk” to describe products that are plant- rather than animal-based is misleading and perhaps even deceptive. Consumers have a right to know what they are putting in their bodies. They need to make nutritional decisions for the sake of their health, and the labeling of products like “meat” and “milk” may get in the way of their ability to make such choices effectively.

Opponents of the legislation are unconvinced by this argument for several reasons. First, this kind of figurative language has been used to describe replacement products for many years, and consumers are well aware of this. There is no reason to believe that they arrive at their grills angry and nutritionally deprived when they realize that their “veggie burger” isn’t made from a cow. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the new legislation came about because lawmakers were receiving letters or calls of complaint from confused consumers. Instead, they seem to be motivated by complaints that they are hearing from the animal agricultural industry—an institution that is understandably nervous about the rising success of meat replacement products. What’s more, these products are not packaged in such a way that would render consumers unable to tell that the “burger” they are consuming does not come from a slaughtered cow. They say “vegan” or “vegetarian” in no uncertain terms on the package. They also include a list of ingredients and nutritional information. Consumers know how to access nutritional information. There’s no plausible reason why confusion should exist. There is also no deception if there is no intent to deceive. These products do not claim, in any way, to be animal-based. What’s more, many opponents of this kind of legislation argue that it’s the industry of animal agriculture that is not transparent with consumers about the nature of the products that they sell. The conditions under which these products are produced—in factory farms—are neither appetizing nor ethical. 

One argument in favor of the legislation is more straightforward: these labels harm the agricultural industry, and that might be a very bad thing. Animal agriculture is important for the economy. It is also important on a more personal level. Farmers and ranchers have families to support. The labeling of these products hurts their bottom line and, as a result, has a real impact on the quality of their lives. There is nothing wrong with plant-based food, but such products should stand on their own merits, rather than riding the coattails of popular animal-based products by using the same language. 

In response, opponents argue that, though it is unfortunate that people might lose their livelihoods, society has no duty to protect this industry in particular. Some ways of earning a living are harmful, and moral progress requires that we get rid of them. For example, if we let concerns regarding the livelihood of slave traders and slave owners win the day, we’d still have slavery. What’s more, no one is trying to go this far. Animal agriculture isn’t being shut down, it’s simply competing against other products in the marketplace that use some of the same words as part of their marketing and advertising campaigns.

Legislation restricting the use of the “meat” label also faces constitutional challenges. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with The Good Food Institute, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund filed suit on behalf of Tofurky in response to the law passed in Arkansas. The lawsuit contends that the legislation was constructed to protect the business of animal agriculture in violation of the first and fourteenth amendment rights of the producers of other kinds of food. So long as they aren’t misleading consumers, they can exercise their rights to name their product whatever they want.

Complicating the issue is in vitro meat—a new product that has many meat producers very concerned. The current system of animal agriculture is cruel and inhumane to the animals involved, it contributes substantially to climate change, and it delivers a product that can be unhealthy for consumers. In vitro meat can potentially solve all of these problems. Instead of producing, raising, and slaughtering animals in order to consume their flesh, in vitro meat is produced by taking a biopsy from an animal and then culturing the cells. In this way, meat can be created without causing animals any significant harm.

Legislators are eager to ban the use of the word “meat” for this kind of product as well (though it is not yet on the market). But it’s harder to see the rationale here. After all, cell cultured meat is meat, if what it is to be meat is to be animal flesh. Despite this fact, the Missouri law, for example, bans the use of the word “meat” for in vitro meat as well as for vegetable-based meat products. The takeaway seems to be this—if the product isn’t part of the corpse of a slaughtered animal, it isn’t properly designated as “meat.” This is much harder to defend. Meat produced in a lab could be engineered to be much healthier, so concerns about consumer nutrition and health wouldn’t apply. Transparency concerns may make it important that the product is labeled as cultured, but perhaps, for similar reasons, the conditions under which factory farm meat is produced should also be listed on the package. 

The existence of this legislation, and of other proposed legislation like it, speaks to the power that animal agriculture wields in state legislatures. The fear that motivates these legislative changes may also clue us into something about the future of food.

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The Endangered ‘Endangered Species Act’

close-up photograph of black-footed ferret

On August 12th, officials in the Trump Administration announced a set of deregulatory measures aimed at loosening the protections of the Endangered Species Act. Signed into law by President Nixon in 1973, the ESA not only prohibits the sale and/or transportation of species on the ‘endangered’ list kept by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, but also requires all federal agencies to coordinate their activities with the FWS and other regulatory commissions “to ensure that actions they authorize, fund, or carry out are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any listed species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat of such species.” While the ESA currently protects over 1600 plant and animal species, and has been credited with preventing the extinction of the American bald eagle, the California condor, the humpback whale, the black-footed ferret, and the grizzly bear (among others), the roll-backs proposed by the White House may soon prevent the ESA from being applied in a manner that is, at all, effective.

Although the measures have been marketed as “improvements to the implementing regulations” that will help to “increase transparency and effectiveness and bring the administration of the Act into the 21st century,” conservationists have pointed out three key areas of concern. Firstly, new species that will henceforth be added to the ‘threatened’ list (one step down from ‘endangered’ status) will no longer be automatically given the same protections given to species already on the endangered list. Until now, the difference between ‘threatened’ and ‘endangered’ status was essentially just a way to indicate the species population without implying a difference of response, but this weakening will now allow for a difference in behavior. Instead, ‘threatened’ species will not warrant the same level of heightened concern. While Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt defended this move on the grounds of promoting efficiency, explaining that  “[a]n effectively administered Act ensures more resources can go where they will do the most good: on-the-ground conservation,” the proposed amendments to the ESA do not include any additional protections requiring would-be funding for ‘threatened’ species to be diverted to ‘endangered’ species. In practice, it seems far more likely that ‘threatened’ species will not be taken as seriously as they currently are – which will inevitably lead to more of them eventually making their way onto the ‘endangered’ list.

Opponents of the ESA argue, however, that the ‘endangered’ list has been padded with faulty data. Robert Gordon, a senior official in the Interior department, has argued that much of the ESA has been “federally funded fiction” that wrongly listed species as ‘endangered,’ despite their actual numbers in the wild. In a 2018 report, Gordon argued that 18 of the 40 species heralded as having “recovered” as a result of the ESA were never actually endangered to begin with and that it is simply impossible for the ESA to accomplish its stated goals. Some might argue that these numbers indicate the pressing import of conservation measures, rather than a mandate to loosen them. 

A second concern about the Trump Administration’s roll-backs surrounds the ambiguity of the phrase, “foreseeable future.” At present, the ESA defines an ‘endangered species’ as one “in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range,” whereas a ‘threatened species’ is one that “is likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future.” Whereas, historically, “foreseeable future” has been interpreted in broad terms, the new guidelines explicitly indicate that, “The term foreseeable future extends only so far into the future as the Services can reasonably determine that both the future threats and the species’ responses to those threats are likely…. The Services need not identify the foreseeable future in terms of a specific period of time.” By requiring these assessments to be made on a “case-by-case basis” for each species, the administration not only casts doubt on its concerns for administrative efficiency, but subtly allows regulators to potentially ignore the far-reaching effects of systemic issues related to global climate change. 

Finally, and perhaps most notably, the proposed changes to the ESA delete the phrase “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of such determination” from the Act’s implementation guidelines when considering whether to add a new species to the protected list, effectively allowing human business interests to be weighed on equal footing with the concerns of the endangered forms of life the ESA is designed to protect. Although it adds some language that sounds like a buffer for animal-welfare concerns (in that said economic information can be considered “as long as such information does not influence the listing determination” of a species), it seems like a strange move to explicitly weaken the Act while at the same time applying apparent, though less strict, reinforcement elsewhere. This is especially true given Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross’ comments about how “[t]he revisions finalized with this rulemaking fit squarely within the President’s mandate of easing the regulatory burden on the American public, without sacrificing our species’ protection and recovery goals.” The corporate preference evident in the final draft of the ESA edits lays bare its essence as a public relations patina, instead of the substantive wall of protection for endangered species it was designed to be.

Such a PR move is necessary; a poll from July of last year indicated that four out of five Americans support the Endangered Species Act and only one out of ten oppose it. Despite rampant disagreement about the existential threat of climate change, Americans are unified in their support of preserving animal species. Nevertheless, as Brett Hartl, government-affairs director for the Washington D.C.-based Center for Biological Diversity, said “These changes tip the scales way in favour of industry. They threaten to undermine the last 40 years of progress.” It is not hard to imagine how interests of particular creatures or species – whether in the foreseeable future or beyond – could be discounted when weighed against the possibility of increased profits for larger corporations.

Which means, these deregulatory measures from the Trump Administration are not only concerning in their implications for the government’s continued preference for short-term financial gains over long-term existential stability in the face of climate change, but they pose significant risks for the communities of currently-living creatures threatened and endangered by the actions of human agents. As Christine Korsgaard explains in her recent book Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals, groups of creatures have value for at least two reasons: firstly, because every individual creature in the species (every token of the type) has particular interests that matter (8.7.1). But secondly, and more broadly, a collection of agents with individual goods of their own constitutes a community that has a shared good of its own (11.6.4). Korsgaard uses the example of a public park with a baseball diamond or an open-air theater as an “essentially shared good” – as something that not only happens to be good for individuals with different-but-overlapping interests, but as something which is only good insofar as it allows for the community to participate in something together (like a baseball game or the performance of a play). Applying this concept to habitats and animal communities, Korsgaard says, “When a species of animals becomes extinct in a given area because of human activities, it is a sure sign that we have been harmful to the point of fatal to those animals’ communities.”

What this means, then, is that even if we grant that the economic interests of corporations and business owners are worth measuring against the interests of wildlife and ecosystems, we are obligated to consider both of Korsgaard’s levels in our calculations. It is not simply a matter of measuring a concern for a small set of animals against the financial interests of a multinational conglomerate, but rather the collective interest of the species against the collective interest of the corporation – a comparison which may threaten to actually come down in favor of the plants and animals on the FWA’s list (provided that existential concerns outweigh simple profits).

A number of state attorneys general (including those from California and Maine), as well as environmental groups, have already promised to challenge the Trump Administration’s revisions to the ESA in court. Time will tell whose interests will ultimately win out.

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Data Transparency: Knowing What Google Knows about You

photograph of iphone with image of an eye on screen

I use Google products for most things: I primarily use Gmail for my email, Google Calendar to keep myself organized, and Google Fit to feel guilty about not exercising enough. I’ll also use my Google credentials to log into other sites, or to use apps or services (sometimes apps on my phone want me to sign in with my Google account, and games want me to connect with Google Play). Of course, Google is not the only company to do this: if you have an iPhone and use whatever i-equivalents you have on your devices of choice, your data is being harvested just as much as mine is. While I am well aware of the fact that Google collects information about me, it’s not super-clear what, exactly, they are collecting, just how much information they are gathering, and what they are doing with that data.

Google has taken some strides towards greater transparency, however, having recently offered its users the ability to download an archive of all the data that the company has collected from you. If you’re  a Google products user, then you can visit the site, after which an archive will be created for you to download; you can also visit this site to see the profile that Google has created of you for the purpose of showing you ads it thinks you’ll like. People online have expressed varying degrees of surprise about how much Google in fact knows, and the kind of profile that it has built of you as a user, not to mention the sheer quantity of data that it has collected. While many have expressed that it is creepy that Google should know so much about them, are there legitimate ethical issues that underlie these feelings of creepiness?

Consider first what, exactly, Google knows about me: according to the profile it created, it knows that I’m male, 35-44 years old, Canadian, and that I like sports, cats, politics, and that I check the weather compulsively. It is not 100% accurate: for instance, it thinks I like blues music (which I really don’t), but overall it’s constructed a very accurate profile of my likes and dislikes. 

While this may seem relatively innocuous, things get real creepy real quick: for example, many have been surprised to find that whenever you search by voice for something instead of typing, Google keeps an audio recording of what you’ve said. In my own archive, I could listen to my recordings, most of which I had long forgotten their purpose. For example, a sample of mine included searches for:

“2.874 times two-thirds”

“198 grams in ounces”

“how to quickly soften brown sugar”

“ben…ben, dammit b-e-n, I said ben!”

“do NBA players wear cups?”

“what happened to Brendan Fraser?”

While these are all worthwhile questions, it was a little unsettling to discover that Google had saved a recording expressing my concern for the career of Brendan Fraser from over 3 years ago. People have also recently been creeped out after learning that various other devices that employ voice commands saving recordings, especially with regards to Amazon’s Alexa keeping recordings of voice commands. While it makes sense that some computer somewhere would need to record your voice in order to interpret what you’re saying, it’s somewhat unsettling to learn that these files are stored permanently.

I was also surprised to find that Google had logged the GPS coordinates of every place that I had used my phone or computer (you can see this data visualized after uploading the relevant file here after you’ve downloaded your own archive). For instance, Google had recorded my trip from Winnipeg to Brandon, Manitoba from 2017:

As well as the time I got a bit lost on a forest trail in Spain later that same year:

While it is perhaps less surprising that Google should keep a log of everywhere I’ve been than a recording of all the times I asked it to do baking conversions, it’s weird to think that it knows everywhere I’ve been, especially given that I don’t recall ever being told that it would do so.

So: some of this is weird, some is interesting, and some is creepy. Are there any ethical problems here?

Assuming that all of your information is, in fact, being kept private, and that you have, in fact, consented to letting Google collect all the information that it has collected, there is still reason to be worried about Google knowing so much about you. Consider first the degree of opacity with which a company like Google operates when it comes to what it knows about you. While it is certainly the case that Google will inform you that certain sites or apps that request access to your data are doing so, it is often not clear what that entails. Google does give you a breakdown of what it does with your data, especially when it comes to advertising. While the explanation is simple in theory – you are shown ads based on what Google thinks you’ll like to see, and they make money if you click on said ads – there is plenty that stays hidden, especially when it comes to which particular advertisers you are likely to be shown.

Google’s process of showing users ads in its search results has recently led to some problems: when some users searched for clinics that provided abortions, for example, Google provided targeted ads from anti-abortion organizations that were deliberately attempting to mislead users into visiting their sites, or in some cases leading them astray on Google maps. While Google is upfront about the fact that they use your data to tailor advertisements, they are far from forthcoming about which advertisements you’re likely to see, and if they are not diligent about their advertisers, advertisers with ulterior motives will be able to continue to be able to game the system.

One can take some steps to better control what information Google collects about you. But with these kinds of services having become so deeply ingrained into our everyday lives, it is more likely than not that Google will continue to be provided with plenty of data about its users. At the very least, it is worthwhile knowing what Google knows about you.

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Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights: DNA Data Collection in Xinjiang

photograph of Uighur gathering

Since 2006 China has engaged in a large-scale campaign of collecting DNA samples, iris images, and blood types in the province of Xinjiang. In 2016, a program under the name “Physicals for All” was used to take samples of everyone between ages of 12 to 65 in a region home to 11 million Uighurs. Since the beginning of the program, it has been unclear whether the patients were at any point “informed of the authorities’ intention to collect, store, or use sensitive DNA data,” raising serious questions about the consent and privacy of the patients. The authorities largely characterized the program as providing benefits for the relatively economically poor region, with a stated goal: “to improve the service delivery of health authorities, to screen and detect for major diseases, and to establish digital health records for all residents.” Often accompanying program coverage were testimonies describing life-saving diagnostics due to this program. Despite being officially voluntary, some program participants described feeling pressured to undergo the medical checks. The Guardian reported numerous stories in local newspapers that encouraged officials to convince people to participate. 

Once a person decided to participate and medical information had been taken from them, the information was stored and linked to the individual’s national identification number. Certainly, questions concerning the coercive and secretive nature of the campaign arise as the government is collecting a whole population’s biodata, including DNA, under the auspices of a free healthcare program. In addition, this is a gross violation of human rights, which requires the free and informed consent of patients prior to medical interventions. The case is especially troublesome as it pertains to Uighurs, a Muslim minority that has been facing pressures from China since the early 20th century, when they briefly declared independence. China is holding around million Uighurs in “massive internment camps,” which China refers to as “re-education camps” (see Meredith McFadden’s “Uighur Re-education and Freedom of Conscience” for discussion). According to The New York Times, several human rights groups and Uighurs pointed to the fact that Chinese DNA collection may be used “to chase down any Uighurs who resist conforming to the campaign.” 

To be able to ensure the success of this campaign police in Xinjiang bought DNA sequencers from the US company Thermo Fisher Scientific. When asked to respond to the apparent misuse of their DNA sequencers, the company said that they are not responsible for the ways the technology they are producing is being used, and that they expect all their customers to act in accordance with appropriate regulation. Human Rights Watch has been vocal in demanding responsibility from Thermo Fisher Scientific, claiming that the company has a responsibility to avoid facilitating human rights violations, and that the company has an obligation to investigate misuse of their products and potentially suspend future sales.

Should transnational actors, especially those providing technology such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, have a moral responsibility to cease sale of their product if it is being used for “immoral” purposes? One could claim that a company that operates in a democratic country, and is therefore required to follow certain certain ethical guidelines, should act to enforce those same guidelines among their clientele. Otherwise they are not actually abiding by our agreed-upon rules. Other positions may demand the company’s moral responsibility on the basis of obligations that companies have to society. These principles are often outlined in company’s handbooks, and used to keep them accountable. These often stem from convictions about intrinsic moral worth or the duty to do no harm.

On the other hand, others may claim that a company is not responsible for the use to which others put their goods. These companies’ primary duty is to their shareholders; they are profit-driven actors which have an obligation to pursue that which is most useful to itself, and not the broader community. They operate in a free-market economy that ought not be constrained simply as a matter of feasibility. As Thermo Fisher Scientific notes, “given the global nature of [their] operations, it is not possible for [them] to monitor the use or application of all products [they’ve] manufactured.” It may be that a company should only be expected to abide by the rules of the country it operates in, with the expectation that all customers “act in accordance with appropriate regulations and industry-standard best practices.”

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Determinism and Punishment

photograph of an open cell block

One summer evening, a friend and I tackled the question of free will and all that it entails. Do we have free will? If we do, how do we know do? If we do not, what are the implications for social and legal norms? My friend, who argued against the existence of free will, posited a scenario in which he was “molecule for molecule” a violent criminal, asking me if he could have chosen to act differently than the violent criminal.

The immediate reaction might be, “No.” How could he have? But this rhetorical device, used by Sam Harris to disprove the existence of free will, is not entirely helpful. It does not prove that we cannot freely choose; it merely shows that if you were “molecule for molecule” someone else you would make the same choice that they made, which is self-evident. It reveals nothing about what you could have done, nor anything about the choices available to you and your ability to choose.

But suppose my friend is correct and we do not have free will. This view coincides with the philosophical doctrine of determinism. Writing for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Carl Hoefer defines determinism as the philosophical belief that “given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.” In other words, a violent criminal such as Davis Bradley Waldroup, Jr.  could not have acted differently.

Waldroup engaged in acts of undeniable brutality. An article in The New Statesman describes how he shot his wife’s friend eight times with a rifle before attacking his wife. Waldroup shot her, maimed her, bludgeoned her with a shovel and a machete, and attempted to rape her before she managed to escape. Yet Waldroup was only found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, and attempted murder, partly because his defense team successfully argued that Waldroup possessed a genetic predisposition to violence, preventing him from engaging in the judgment and reflection required for premeditated crimes (for a similar case see Meredith McFadden’s “‘It Wasn’t Me’: Neurological Causation and Punishment“).

Warranted outrage followed from the families of the victims when he was sentenced to a mere 32 years in prison. Waldroup’s wife said the sentence “was not justice.” Many would agree that the punishment was not equivalent to the severity of his wrongdoing; it was not the punishment he deserved. But if Waldroup did indeed possess a violence gene and thus, no free will in this situation, how can we even conceptualize what he deserves? Determinism renders the sentiment “He did not get what he deserved” meaningless and irrelevant. And that is not all. 

The most fundamental structures in our daily lives are based on the belief that we are free to choose how to act. While we seek and discover external factors (be they biological or environmental) that influence a person’s decision or even the external factors that brought the individual to a moment of choosing, these explanations do not contradict our conception responsibility.  Without the foundation of free will, even the relevance of morality becomes suspect. Either morality cannot exist because people cannot choose to do something right or wrong OR it is already determined that one person will act morally good or morally bad. 

Adopting the view that free will does not exist would require a near-revolutionary reform of our justice system. As Luis E. Chiesa of Pace Law School notes, “It is because of this uniquely human capacity to choose to do otherwise that humans can and should be blamed for their crimes.” Our current system, for all of its failings and imperfections in practice, is based on a consort of factors: rehabilitation, deterrence, public protection, retribution, and proportionality of the punishment to the crime. A new justice system capable of accommodating determinism would need to be based not on retribution or what the lawbreakers deserve, but rather solely on concern for public safety, deterrence, and rehabilitation. 

Some may wonder how rehabilitation could be retained under this reformed justice system. Is it possible to rehabilitate someone’s behavior if it is determined? It is a worthy criticism. Yet it is possible that some determinists could argue that just as an animal, whose behavior is determined by their nature, can be trained to act in a certain way, a human can be rehabilitated, or trained to behave in a less dangerous way. 

Forms of incapacitation, such as incarceration, would exist merely as a means of protecting the public from violent criminals. Lawbreakers who are not violent, such as those who evade taxes, for example, would not need to go to prison as they pose no threat to the safety of the public. Instead, they would need to, if possible, rehabilitate their evasive ways so that they refrain from committing the act again. The only purpose of any other form of legal punishment would be to deter individuals from breaking the law. 

Suppose Waldroup’s violent behavior was altered after one day of rehabilitating in prison and he would never again attempt to brutalize another human being. Should he be punished further than the one day in prison for his previous acts of murder and assault? Troubling as it may be, the determinist would say, “No.”

Why should he? His behavior has been changed, he no longer poses a threat. Like a dog who has learned not to pee inside, Waldroup has been trained to no longer behave in that unacceptable and dangerous way. And given that he did not freely choose to kill one woman and severely injure another, the purpose of punishing him is nullified. He deserves nothing because he controls none of his decisions. 

Even the well-known determinist Sam Harris points out, “Without free will, sinners and criminals would be nothing more than poorly calibrated clockwork, and any conception of justice that emphasized punishing them (rather than deterring, rehabilitating, or merely containing them) would appear utterly incongruous.”

If free will is an illusion, although I am inclined to believe it is not, there is demonstrable value to living under that illusion. The idea that you and I have control over our actions affects the way we behave and structures the nature of our interactions and relationships. We expect and hope for certain behaviors to be exhibited by the people in our lives. We express disappointment in others when they have done worse than they should have because we believe they could have done better. Just as we express pride or happiness in others when they have done better than they should have because we believe they could have done worse. But blame and praise is utterly irrelevant if you believe others could not have done anything other than what they did. 

Let me live under the illusion that I freely chose to write this op-ed and I will let you live under the illusion that you freely chose to read it. And we can both go back to agreeing that some people do not receive the punishment they deserve.

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Excessive or Necessary? Prosecutorial Discretion in Pursuing Legal Charges

photograph of courtroom

District Attorneys (DAs) in the United States get to decide which cases their offices will pursue. For the most part, there is nothing beyond pressure from voters and other public offices to provide any external impetus to a DA’s decision regarding whether to take an accused person to trial. The results of prosecutorial discretion throughout US history are decidedly mixed. Throughout the Civil Rights movement (1954-68), prosecutors in the American South routinely refused to prosecute white offenders for racist violence and discrimination against Black people. Within the last decade in the American Southwest there have been threats and attacks against Latino immigrants which have gone unprosecuted, or in which the prosecutor has not requested incarceration for the defendant.

Recently, prosecutors in many jurisdictions have announced their intention not to bring charges against recreational marijuana users, or people violating strict heartbeat-style abortion laws in states like Georgia. These prosecutors deem the relevant laws unjust, either for the disparate impact on non-white citizens or their excessive infringement of sexual autonomy. From all these examples it is clear that prosecutorial discretion can be used both to circumvent just and unjust laws alike. 

But not all legal professionals agree that DAs do, or should, have such wide latitude. In Virginia, Arlington County’s Commonwealth Attorney Theo Stamos has claimed that she has no choice but to prosecute marijuana possession so long as the law remains unchanged. Also in Virginia, that state’s Supreme Court judges have ruled against Norfolk’s Commonwealth Attorney Greg Underwood in his claim that he has complete latitude regarding whether to prosecute crimes in his jurisdiction.

The discussion of prosecutorial discretion touches on the philosophical debate between generalism and particularism. Broadly, this debate is a question about whether (moral) decisions ought to be made on the basis of general principles, or rather particular situations. Professor Jonathan Dancy is one of the most prominent champions of the particularist viewpoint. A given feature of an action—that it’s a lie, for instance—may some times count against doing it but may also sometimes count in favor of doing it. You shouldn’t lie under oath, but you should lie when playing poker. On this basis, particularists argue that there can be no general moral principle to the effect of “do not lie.” The same reasoning is meant to apply to any other potential moral principle. 

Generalists, on the other hand, claim that moral decision-making proceeds by applying general rules to specific situations. Hence, given that there is a moral principle to the effect of “do not lie,” you should neither lie under oath nor when playing poker. The moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant is paradigmatically generalist, as seen in his Categorical Imperative: “Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law.”

Paul Woodruff brings the generalist-particularism debate to the topic of justice and the law in his book The Ajax Dilemma. In the chapter on justice, he notes that thinkers as august as John Stuart Mill and Aristotle have abandoned an abstract, principled notion of justice for a pragmatic, particularist one. He contrasts this account to those of a more abstract and generalist type due to thinkers like Plato and John Rawls. Especially concerning Rawls, Woodruff cautions against equating justice with fairness. Justice is everyone getting their due treatment, whereas fairness is everyone getting the same treatment. While these may sound the same at first blush, Woodruff contends they are in fact worlds apart. Justice and giving people their due requires careful thought and judgment concerning particulars; whereas fairness and giving everyone the same treatment only requires rote execution of rules. 

Attorneys like Theo Stamos have a more generalist approach, one that is plausibly interpreted as treating justice like fairness. The law is the law, and every person must receive exactly the same treatment under the law. An approach like this sees the exercise of discretion as unfair because it means different people are treated differently. On the other hand, attorneys like Greg Underwood have a more particularist approach, one that is plausibly interpreted as treating justice as giving people their due. Here the exercise of discretion allows the peculiarities of a given case or jurisdiction to enter the decision-making process. If the enforcement of a law disproportionately affects the non-white community, discretion allows an attorney to effectively neutralize that law. If there are mitigating circumstances in a particular case, discretion allows the attorney to seek a lesser sentence or drop charges entirely. 

Allowing people to exercise judgment and discretion always creates the potential for malfeasance, dereliction, and oppression. However, it is also what creates the potential for mercy, compassion, and resistance. The solution to the possible pitfalls of prosecutorial discretion is not to limit a DA’s ability to exercise judgment, but rather to carefully scrutinize candidates for the office and elect individuals of experience and integrity.

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The Free-Speech Defense and a Defense of Free Speech

Image of two human stick-figures arguing

Of the things about which people across the political spectrum deeply care, morally and politically, freedom of speech is very highly valued – even if there are disagreements about exactly what it licenses you to say and what, if any, caveats should be placed upon it. In recent years free speech has emerged as a hot topic for conservatives – often taking the form of pushback against ‘political correctness.’ The view that ‘liberal’ or ‘left-wing elites’ are trying to silence those who do not gel with a progressive social agenda is a particular flashpoint. 

Yet, in these quarters, one detects a pattern which suggests that the principle itself is not quite what is at stake: those calling for freedom of speech or decrying its endangerment are often simply defending a desire (viewed by them as a right) to say certain things against others for whom those things are offensive or harmful (for examples see my “Separating the Freedom of Religion from the Right to Discriminate” or Kenneth Boyd’s “Online Discourse and the Demand for Civility” also on this site). In many such scenarios there is a legitimate question over whether certain brands of archconservative really are staunch supporters of the principle of free speech ‘all the way down,’ or whether there is a tendency to use the concept as a way of crying foul when someone calls out the noxious content of their views.       

Something like this seems to be the case in a political stoush that has erupted in Australia over the inaugural Australian Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC to be held in Sydney this week. The conference is backed by the powerful American Conservative Union (ACU), and speakers include Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, former Australian prime minister, climate change denier and staunch opponent of marriage equality Tony Abbott, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of Breitbart and an especially noxious misogynistic loudmouth, One Nation politician Mark Latham. 

The caliber of speakers and the conference agenda has many people worried about the echo-chamber of right-wing ideology, as well as the growing influence of American-style firebrand conservatism on Australia. The ACU’s executive director Dan Schneider and ACU chairman Matt Schlapp have joined forces with the Australian right-wing think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the conservative campaign group Advance Australia – two of the event’s major sponsors.

High-profile opposition Labor senator Kristina Keneally criticized the conference, labeling it as a “talkfest of hate,” and called on the government to deny a visa to Raheem Kassam, citing Kassam’s suggestion that Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s mouth and legs should be taped shut “so she can’t reproduce.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended several of his government’s MP’s speaking at the event on the grounds of “the principles of freedom of thought, speech, expression and association.” Daniel Wild, the IPA’s director of research and a speaker at the event, called Keneally’s criticisms “yet another example of how Labor wants to stifle free speech, open discussion and dialogue in Australia. This is a threat to democracy.” Donald Trump Jr. weighed in tweeting: “one of the major political parties in Australia is trying to silence Raheen Kassam because of his conservative views. The insanity needs to stop!”

Free speech is, according to all these defenses, under attack. Luckily, the conference agenda will have this important topic covered. The conference organizer Andrew Cooper said that “It will include a lot of discussion on free speech, and what I would call the authoritarian left’s opposition to it.” 

Freedom of speech is a core tenet of old school political liberalism. The best-known formulation of the argument for freedom of speech is still to be found in John Stuart Mill’s book On Liberty, published in 1859. Mill may be regarded as the father of political liberalism and the book is still one of its central texts. 

A central concern for Mill was the limitation of the coercive power of the state on the freedom of the individual. Mill’s argument for the freedom of thought and discussion is given in chapter 2 of On Liberty, and in it he aims to show that there should be no attempt “to control the expression of opinion.” He argues that truth or falsity of an opinion cannot be a deciding factor in whether that opinion is disseminated, because such a judgment cannot always be made in advance – and if such a judgment cannot always be made with certainty, then it should never be made at all – just in case the judgment turns out to be wrong. In other words, it is better to let some falsehoods roam free than to imprison a truth. 

Mill also thinks that exposure to all views, however erroneous or harebrained, will actually help people’s capacity to discern between truth and falsehood: whether an opinion is true or false, its being aired will, in either case, be useful for discovering and maintaining the truth — and as such should be welcome. To assume that because one thinks a view is false it should be suppressed, Mill argues, is to assume infallibility of one’s beliefs. Yet, he thinks, all of our beliefs must remain open to revision in possible light of further observation. As such, discussion must remain free – even on issues that we think are established with certainty. Mill argues that people are rarely in the position to see the “whole truth” for themselves, and the only way for it to emerge is by “the reconciling and combining of opposites.”

The point, for Mill, is that a liberal democratic society cannot afford to compromise on the principle of absolute freedom of speech because every which way lies the possible suppression of truth, inflated assumptions about one’s own possession of it, and the possibility of the fallibility of one’s views. 

But also, fundamental to Mill’s view is that the truth, or the ‘right’ opinions will ultimately win out; and that prevails upon a particular view of the public’s engagement with political life, commitment to rational and critical thinking, and capacity to detect and then ostracize false opinions. 

Mill’s liberalism puts a lot of faith in individuals as the best judges of whether a viewpoint is truthful and whether it deserves attention and assent. That Mill puts such faith in individuals is one of his philosophy’s merits, and also one of its pitfalls. It is arguable that recent political events in Australia, the USA, and Britain (not to mention many other countries) suggest this expectation may be too optimistic. It is also possible to point to other reasons for such developments which Mill may not have accounted for, such as dangerous forms of populism and demagoguery. 

Nevertheless, support for Mill’s argument for freedom of speech remains solid, and one of its consequences, or costs, is certainly the airing of opinions and views we may not agree with or may not like. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison makes a defense of the CPAC conference almost worthy of Mill in arguing that the way to defeat “unacceptable views is through debate.” 

Two further points are worth noting, as some evocations of freedom of speech as a defense for the airing of certain views don’t quite fit the picture of free speech Mill envisaged. 

First, Mill argues that offensive, incendiary or harmful opinions are not likely to fulfill the role of helping to bring truth to light, and thus do not deserve an equal hearing and do not constitute the kind of ‘debate’ that Morrison apparently wants to defend. 

The second point is that defending the principle of free speech is one thing, and it is generally a good thing, but it does not justify the content expressed. To defend offensive views through reference to the principle of free speech is disingenuous. A leader does not have to hide behind freedom of speech – but is perfectly free to defend the right while also disavowing the message.

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Digital Textbooks in Higher Education

photograph of neon "Open" and "Textbooks" signs in window

On July 16th, one of the largest publishers of college textbooks in the world announced it will soon switch to a ‘digital-first’ publication structure that will prioritize the majority of its 1500-title catalog within a new subscription-based online portal. Once finalized, Pearson’s shift will aim to bypass the long-developed secondary market for college textbooks in a manner that has been compared to the successful capture by Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services of once-thriving DVD resales.

For years, college students have raised concerns about the exorbitantly high-priced textbook market. Over the last decade, textbook prices have risen four times faster than the rate of inflation, often costing students hundreds of dollars each semester. A report published in September 2018 indicated that more than two in five college students had chosen to skip meals at some point in the semester so that they might afford textbooks. With university costs already playing a significant role in the current presidential election cycle (several Democratic candidates, such as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have made their positions on higher education a central part of their messaging), it makes sense that textbook publishers like Pearson would want to be proactive in seeking a solution.

As costs have risen, a variety of practices have already developed to try and make course materials more accessible for students, such as the purchasing of used and resold copies of older textbook versions on the secondary market – as well as the growing practice of digital piracy for assigned course materials. In recent years, various methods have been tried to curb illegal textbook downloading, from requiring digital keys to access online materials, integrating scannable “approval seals” that can be tracked by publishing houses, and working with institutions to develop ‘custom’ textbooks for particular courses. One proposal, institutional licensing, aims to offload responsibility for digital textbook distribution to universities; publishers would collect an up-front fee from the college, who would then be able to make the textbooks available to particular students. Perhaps the most successful endeavor for maintaining publisher profits thus far, however, has been the rise of the textbook rental market – though this comes with a variety of problems of its own.

On the other hand, students and activists have proposed a variety of measures to benefit students more directly, including the promotion of buy-back programs, calls for ‘open textbooks’ published under fair-use restrictions (click here for an example of one such textbook), and protective legislation like the Affordable College Textbook Act. Although Congress has repeatedly earmarked temporary funding to encourage the adoption of open textbooks, the ACTA aims to establish permanent programs and reports to track and combat high textbook prices, as well as to strengthen transparency requirements for textbook prices when students register for classes. Though it has been introduced repeatedly since 2013, the ACTA has not yet been put to a vote.

It remains to be seen, then, what Pearson’s subscription-based model will do for struggling students. In some ways, lowering up-front prices via a simple catalog subscription model may end up lowering costs for students overall (especially if such a product can be bundled or administered at an institutional level). Certainly, a digital-first structure will make it far easier for Pearson to update textbooks to new editions. Additionally, the lowered environmental costs of promoting ebook usage on a wider scale are a significant factor to weigh in this debate as well.

However, even if initial costs are lower (digital copies of textbooks are typically less expensive than printed versions), because students will have no option to resell their unwanted used textbooks at the end of their classes, overall costs for students may actually rise. Certainly, requiring subscription access to Pearson’s database will not only preclude textbook resales, but it will prevent several other tricky techniques for keeping student fees low – such as professors intentionally assigning older, less-expensive, versions of newly-updated textbooks. 

In a wider sense, Pearson’s subscription model is simply consistent with moves already familiar in the digital entertainment space, as well as for professional-based software products like Microsoft Office and the Adobe suite. As access-based consumption has become industry-standard for music labels and movie studios, it may only be a matter of time before book publishers follow suit. This will continue to bring to the fore important philosophical points about what it truly means to ‘own’ an ebook (as well as other concerns about censorship, for better and for worse), even if regular users of streaming services like Spotify and Netflix are less concerned about such murky questions than they are about simply being able to load up needed content on-demand. 

Of course, this is all without mentioning the potentially detrimental effect that ebooks have on reading comprehension – a particularly pernicious possibility for educational reading materials.

There is much that the age of the internet has changed about how we access information; it remains to be seen whether converting textbook access to a streaming-subscription model will be a Netflix-level success or not.

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YouTube and the Filter Bubble

photograph of bubble floating

If you were to get a hold of my laptop and go to YouTube, you’d see a grid of videos that are “recommended” to me, based on videos I’ve watched in the past and channels I’ve subscribed to. To me, my recommendations are not surprising: clips from The Late Show, a few music videos, and a bunch of videos about chess (don’t judge me). There are also some that are less expected – one about lockpicking, for example, and something called “Bruce Lee Lightsabers Scene Recreation (Dual of Fates edit).” All of this is pretty par for the course: YouTube will generally populate your own personalized version of your homepage with videos from channels you’re familiar with, and ones that it thinks you might like. In some cases this leads you down interesting paths to videos you’d like to see more of (that lockpicking one turned out to be pretty interesting) while in other cases they’re total duds (I just cannot suspend my disbelief when it comes to lightsaber nunchucks).

A concern with YouTube making these recommendations, however, is that one will get stuck seeing the same kind of content over and over again. While this might not be a worry when it comes to videos that are just for entertainment, it can be a much bigger problem when it comes to videos that present false or misleading information, or promote generally hateful agendas. This phenomenon – where one tends to be presented with similar kinds of information and sources based on one’s search history and browsing habits – is well documented, and results in what some have called a “filter bubble.” The worry is that once you watch videos of a particular type, you risk getting stuck in a bubble where you’ll be presented with many similar kinds of videos, making it more and more difficult to come across videos that may come from more reputable sources.

YouTube is well aware that there are all sorts of awful content on its platform, and has been attempting to combat it, although with mixed results. In a statement released in early June, YouTube stated that it was focused on removing a variety of types of hateful content, specifically by “prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.” They provide some examples of such content that they were targeting, including “videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology” and “content denying that well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, took place.” They have not, however, been terribly successful in their efforts thus far: as Gizmodo reports, there are plenty of channels on YouTube making videos about conspiracy theories, white nationalism, and anti-LGBTQ hate groups that have not yet been removed from the site. So worries about filter bubbles full of hateful and misleading content persist.

There is another reason to be worried about the potential filter bubbles created by YouTube: if I am not in your bubble, then I will not know what kind of information you’re being exposed to. This can be a problem for a number of reasons: first, given my own YouTube history, it is extremely unlikely that a video about the “dangers” of vaccines, or videos glorifying white supremacy, will show up in my recommendations. Those parts of YouTube are essentially invisible to me, meaning that it is difficult to really tell how prevalent and popular these videos are. Second, since I don’t know what’s being recommended to you, I won’t know what kind of information you’re being exposed to: you may be exposed to a whole bunch of garbage that I don’t know exists, which makes it difficult for us to have a productive conversation if I don’t know, say, what you take to be a reputable source of information, or what the information conveyed by that source might be. 

There is, however, a way to see what’s going on outside of your bubble: simply create a new Google account, sign into YouTube, and its algorithms will quickly build you a new profile of recommended videos. I ran this experiment, and within minutes had created a profile that would be very out of character for myself, but would fit with the profile of someone with very different political views. For example, the top videos recommended to me on my fake account are the following:

FACTS NOT FEELINGS: Shapiro demolishes & humiliates little socialist comrade

CEO creates ‘Snowflake Test’ to weed out job applicants

Tucker: Not everyone in 2020 Democratic field is a lunatic

What Young Men NEED To Understand About Relationships – Jordan Peterson

This is not to say that I want to be recommended videos that push a misleading or hateful agenda, nor would I recommend that anyone actively go and seek them out. But one of the problems in creating filter bubbles is that if I’m not in your bubble then I’m not going to know what’s going on in there. YouTube, then, not only makes it much easier for someone to get caught up in a bubble of terrible recommended content, but also makes it more difficult to combat it.

Of course, this is also not to say that every alternative viewpoint has to be taken seriously: while it may be worth knowing what kinds of reasons antivaxxers are providing for their views, for example, I am under no obligation to take those views seriously. But with more and more people getting their news and seeking out political commentary from places like YouTube, next time you’re clicking through your recommendations it might be a good idea to consider what is not being shown to you. While creating a YouTube alter-ego is optional, it is worth keeping in mind that successfully communicating and having productive discussions with each other requires that we at least know where the other person is coming from, and this might require taking more active efforts to try to get out of one’s filter bubble.

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Moral Standing and Human/Non-human Hybrids

photograph of lab rat perched on human's arm

In a groundbreaking development towards the goal of growing human organs viable for transplant, Japanese scientists announced that they have government approval to create animal embryos containing human cells in them. The experiments could consist of mice and rat embryos, adjusted to grow with human cells that hopefully will grow into organs once the embryos are implanted into mouse surrogates. 

This is the first such experiment since the government adjusted its stance in March. Before this change, studies were banned that developed embryos that contained human cells beyond 14 days, and scientists were not permitted to implant such embryos into uteruses. One reason to be cautious of implanting an embryo and allowing it to develop to full term is the possibility that the human cells may extend past the initial point and function of their hybridization. So, the unpredictability of developing hybrids even with smaller organs composed of human cells has been met with restraint by the scientific community.

The “14 day rule” has widespread use either in strict policy or soft adherence (though in the past few years some experts have proposed doubling it). Embryos typically implant in the uterus around day seven so it is only recently that the technology to develop embryos past the 14 day rule without implanting them has even been a serious possibility. At around 14 days, the “primitive streak” appears: “a faint band of cells marking the beginning of an embryo’s head-to-tail axis.” Why does this matter?

“The formation of the primitive streak is significant because it represents the earliest point at which an embryo’s biological individuation is assured. Before this point, embryos can split in two or fuse together. So some people reason that at this stage a morally significant individual comes into being.” 

The 14-day rule arguably provides a helpful legal doctrine in its clarity and its non-arbitrary grounding. Most scientists and laypeople alike would prefer to have some such standard so that embryonic research is both possible but regulated. 

There are certainly other, more philosophically popular, standards for moral status – the status that grants a being the cluster of rights and responsibilities as a member of the moral community. Moral status is a difficult quality to codify: while it is pretty intuitive that I cannot be wronged by a table and don’t owe it anything, this is decidedly not the case with my partner of a decade. So what about a pet kitten who scratches me? Does she wrong me? What sorts of behavior and treatment might I owe a pet kitten? These questions get at the moral status of the table, my partner, and a kitten. 

Typically, theories of moral standing have a difficult time including humans at early stages and excluding non-humans (at mature stages of development). This makes the moral status of human/non-human hybrids potentially interesting. If it is, for example, our ability to experience complex pain and pleasure that makes us morally significant, there is great evidence that a number of non-human animals share these capacities (as well as our intellectual abilities). 

For bioethicists and layfolk alike, embryos may possess moral standing for a few reasons. It could be species membership itself that grants humans in early development their status. Or, it could be the potential for developing into a creature with advanced capacities of emotionality and rationality. 

If the experiments proceed as designed, the human cells will stay focused to organs such as the pancreas. Given this, hardline pro-lifers may say these aren’t human enough to have moral value, depending on what’s driving their intuitions: if the moral status is grounded in the religious view that god implants a soul into a zygote, they might simply reject this as human-made, without a human soul, and assign no moral value. If their intuitions are driven by the notion that human embryos have the potential to develop into a creature with special capacities such as intellectual, relational, or emotional capacities, then the moral status of the embryo would depend on what capacities these hybrids would have once developed. It is unlikely that the capacity to produce insulin and regulate blood sugar is the morally significant capacity that grants humans their status in our moral community. 

If it’s “sanctity of human life” that drives one’s intuition of moral status and the status of embryos, the presence of living human cells, and eventually organs, may lead to different positions. For such a position, it is not intellectual, emotional, or sentient abilities that ground the status, so the lack of overall capacities of the hybrid is no drawback. The presence of living human cells seems to be enough of a grounding, but in the hybrid’s case, it doesn’t qualify as “human” overall, only partly, hence “hybrid”. For such a circumstance, one could admit of a scalar model of moral standing, so the hybrid could have whatever percentage moral status that it is made up of human organs, or keep a binary understanding of moral status that the hybrid must cross a threshold of composition to meet.  

For most thinkers, having a human organ is insufficient for qualifying for full moral standing of a mature human. These mice and rats that are implanted with organs will have the standing that mice and rats normally have. The monkeys that scientists are using to perform similar hybridization for organ development will similarly have whatever status monkeys normally do. To contrast, consider the experiments begun earlier this year to make chimeras of brain cells. In such experiments, we aim to alter monkeys’ capacities and manner of experiencing the world by adding human brain cells. Here it becomes more difficult to determine the moral status of the resulting animal.

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“How Long Must We Wait?”: Lessons from the History of the Animal Welfare Movement

close-up photograph of two pigs in dark room

In a series of boxes in the D.H. Hill Library at North Carolina State sit scores of historical pamphlets and newspaper articles advocating an end to cruelty toward animals. The documents date back to the nineteenth century, and provide an undeniable record of the history of strong public sentiment against the mistreatment of animals. The collection preserves the stories of countless activists who opposed inhumane treatment in slaughterhouses, research labs, the entertainment industry, transport, and sport, among other endeavors. These activists dedicated inspiring amounts of time, energy, and resources to a cause that is seldom given the attention that it is due.

The boxes are part of a much larger collection—The Tom Regan Animal Rights Archive. Regan was a philosopher and activist who established the archive to create a home for works dedicated to promoting the interests of non-human animals. His book The Case for Animal Rights is one of the most influential works of philosophy on the subject, but, as the archive shows, he was one thinker among many on an impressive intellectual family tree of animal activists. 

Advocates for animals have always faced significant challenges from many directions. Nineteenth and early twentieth century documents are full of writers defending themselves against the charge of excessive sentimentalism. In fact, empathy for animals was viewed by some at that time as a mental disorder. Zoophil-psychosis was a term coined by American psychologist Charles Lomis Dana in 1909 to refer to what he viewed as a hysterical condition of excessive concern for non-human animals.

The form that this “excessive” concern took was activism against vivisection (roughly, the use of animals in scientific experiments), abuses of animals in slaughterhouses, and other instances of cruelty and exploitation. This concern was not, of course, baseless or the product of a psychotic break from reality. The basis was and continues to be the simple recognition that other sentient beings can also experience pain and suffering, among other significant emotions. Though this fact about other creatures should be fairly obvious, it is a fact about which very few people pause to reflect. We need to ask ourselves the fundamental question: what is the nature of our moral obligations to other living beings who suffer?

Many women who were involved in the fight for women’s suffrage were also involved in reform movements to further the humane treatment of other beings. Female activists played essential roles in the formation of organizations such as The American Humane Society and The American Anti-Vivisection Society. A treasure of the Animal Rights Archive is a collection of original correspondence between suffragette and animal welfare advocate Sarah J. Eddy and physician and social reformer Albert Leffingwell.1 This correspondence highlights one of the most significant challenges the movement faces—transparency. In their letters, Eddy and Leffingwell stress the importance of dissemination of information, which in their time often came in the form of the proliferation of pamphlets. They were optimistic that if the facts were accessible to the public, the force of reason would prevail. It didn’t. Until the very end of the nineteenth century, there were no animal welfare laws that restricted the practices of those operating in laboratories and slaughterhouses. Stunningly, that situation remains largely unchanged today.

Even if the transparency issues could be settled, other significant problems remain. Abuse of animals has always been big business. Many people stand to gain from it. When there is money to be made, people can’t be bothered to be concerned about whether their products have feelings. Sadly our historical record demonstrates that this motivation can sometimes win out even when humans are the “products.” That we are subject to errors of this magnitude should cause us to reflect on practices that are more commonplace, but that nevertheless involve suffering. In a letter to Eddy, Leffingwell laments the perils of powerful interests,

When we began the special agitation on the subject of vivisection a few years ago, it was—on my part—, with a very strong hope that the Medical Profession generally would meet us “half-way”—as the saying is, and concede some degree of supervision and controls. I was very sure that as a class, the physicians of this country did not approve of unlimited experimentation, and our investigations of five years ago, embodied in the REPORT proved that I was correct. But experience has demonstrated that I was altogether too hopeful. The older men, who disapproved of unrestricted vivisection have been passing away, and their places are not filled. The men who were engaged in vivisection as a means of gaining their daily bread realized their danger and united in a common defense. It is not merely that they control the medical newspaper press throughout the country, and that they have the confidence of a majority of those concerned with learning,–with this they were not satisfied and have stooped to unworthy methods in defense of vivisection. Five years ago, I could not have believed that members of the American Medical Association would have sunk so low as to employ falsehoods as a method of argumentation.

The letters between Eddy and Leffingwell tell the story of a sustained fight for animal welfare that lasted decades. Though they, along with others deeply committed to the cause, succeeded in putting together a society of diligent advocates, little changed when it came to the actual treatment of non-human animals or with regard to legislating any significant protections. Leffingwell complains, 

If I could feel that little by little, we are undermining the confidence so wrongly given, and that one day the falsifiers will be utterly discredited, and (as Wendell Phillips used to say,)—“the Truth get a hearing” and be accepted generally, I should feel greatly encouraged. It does seem certain that in the long run, falsehood cannot overcome truth. But how long must we wait?

Sadly, it turns out that the answer to this question remains unclear—we’re still waiting. Special interest groups like the meat industry and big pharma are more powerful than ever. The value of the use of animals for the purpose of scientific research in our culture has become like an article of faith. We’re propelled blindly forward, chasing progress, unreflective about whether it’s really worth chasing and what the cost of our pursuit actually is.

Some laws exist that seemingly protect animals against powerful interest groups. In the spirit of the advocates that have come before us, we should insist on transparency when it comes to the plain fact that the protections that currently exist are nowhere near enough. Their existence does little more than create an illusion of protection for the animals in question. Two federal laws are worthy of note here. First is the Animal Welfare Act, passed in 1966. The Act nominally provides for the humane treatment of animals, and its mere existence may make citizens feel at ease with the protections afforded. The Act does ensure that animals in certain contexts, are provided with “adequate housing, sanitation, nutrition, water and veterinary care.” They must also be protected against extreme temperature. Crucially, however the Act, 

[…] does not cover every type of animal used in every type of activity. The following animals are not covered: farm animals used for food or fiber (fur, hide, etc.); coldblooded species (amphibians and reptiles); horses not used for research purposes; fish; invertebrates (crustaceans, insects, etc.); or birds, rats of the genus Rattus, and mice of the genus Mus that are bred for use in research.

Society is quick to provide protections for cats and dogs, animals that are likely to be companions, but not for the animals most commonly used for research or those that are slaughtered and killed for food.

The second piece of federal legislation of note is The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, passed in 1958 and revised in 1978. Again, on its face, the Act seems to promise humane treatment of animals killed for food (at least to those to whom that does not sound like an oxymoron). There are troubling truths about this Act as well. First, the Act does not apply to birds of any type. This is striking because the vast majority of animals that are killed for food are chickens (9 billion in the United States alone). What’s more, the protections provided by The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act are limited to ensuring that that animals don’t experience pain at the moment they are slaughtered. Animals must be “rendered insensible to pain by a single blow or gunshot or an electrical, chemical or other means that is rapid and effective, before being shackled, hoisted, thrown, cast, or cut.” The Act contains exemptions for religious slaughter. Notably absent are any protections for how animals must be treated while being raised for food. The abuses that take place during that time are significant and are articulated in careful detail in Peter Singer’s classic Animal Liberation.

When faced with facts about the way that animals are treated, and the lack of protection for those animals, it is important to be reflective. But change in one’s personal philosophy is not sufficient. As Tom Regan, championing the strategy of so many uncelebrated thinkers who came before him, says in the epilogue of The Case for Animal Rights, “How we change the dominant misconception of animals—indeed, whether we change it—is to large degree a political question. Might does not make right, but might does make law.” It’s up to us, then to take up the struggle.

1 Sarah J. Eddy and Albert Leffingwell Correspondence June 1898-1905. MC 00666 Halfbox 1

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Legal Personhood and Nonhuman Rights

photograph of two elephants on marshy plains

In July 2019, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh granted all of the country’s rivers status as legal persons. Doing so makes it possible for the newly created National River Conservation Commission to bring legal action against anyone whose activity is deemed “harmful” to the country’s rivers. Other countries, and states within the US, have enacted similar rules (see Meredith McFadden’s “Who and What Is a Person: Chilean Rivers” on this site). There have also been extensive efforts on the behalf of non-human animals to establish for them legal personhood. For example the Nonhuman Rights Project in 2018 sued the Bronx Zoo to obtain a writ of habeas corpus for Happy, an Asian elephant housed at the zoo since 1977. In short, they got a court to compel the zoo to justify the lawfulness of their captivity of the elephant. 

The reasoning in each case has been distinct and so no consistent framework has yet emerged to ground the efforts to extend (the recognition of) rights beyond human beings to non-human animals and non-organisms. The Nonhuman Rights Project has focused on arguing that long-standing legal definitions in the Anglophone tradition already recognize the rights of animals—and that humans largely fail to act consistently on our own legal principles. The Bangladeshi ruling leverages a cultural belief that the river is a mother figure to the country. A broad ruling on the rights of nature made in 2011 by Bolivia’s government appeals to existence of conditions on the integrity and balance of natural systems—in short, nature’s wellbeing. This raises the question of what consistent basis, if any, can be articulated for such cases going forward. As attempts to abate climate change and eliminate animal cruelty increase, there will be a need for a powerful and consistent legal-philosophical framework to undergird these types of claim. 

One possible framework relies on an anthropocentric and social utility view of rights: that is, one which determines when, and to what, rights should be extended by calculating the benefit to humanity the rights would yield. Under such a framework the ability of current and future humans to secure food, water, and shelter gives sufficient reason to treat non-human animals and non-organisms as bearers of legal rights. Most of the arguments geared toward motivating people to deal with climate change fall under the auspices of the anthropocentric framework. However anthropocentric accounts of rights only extend rights to non-human animals and non-organisms on a provisional basis: these entities are considered as bearers of rights for only as long as it benefits humans. This framework does not make sense of the language found in measures like those taken by Bangladesh and the Nonhuman Rights Project. In these cases it is for the sake of the animals and the rivers themselves that rights are being recognized—not for the sake of the humans who benefit from them.

The Nonhuman Rights Project highlights the following definition from Black’s Law Dictionary: “So far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of rights or duties.” To this they add, in the case of Happy, that she is cognitively sophisticated enough to pass the mirror test—a psychological exam argued by some to demonstrate the existence of a sense of self (see McFadden’s “Passing the Mirror Test” for discussion). Hence they offer cognitive sophistication as a criterion for being capable of rights or duties. Other defenses of animal rights appeal to sentience—the ability to feel pain and pleasure—as the relevant criterion establishing animals as bearers of rights. Peter Singer wrote in his 1979 Practical Ethics, explaining the views of John Stuart Mill, “[t]he capacity for suffering and enjoying things is a prerequisite for having interests at all, a condition that must be satisfied before we can speak of interests in any meaningful way.” However neither of these lines of reasoning extend to non-organisms, like rivers and lakes. These entities do not have cognition at all, much less sophisticated cognition. Moreover Singer, continuing on after the passage quoted above, forecloses upon the possibility of non-organisms having interests: “It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road by a schoolboy. A stone does not have interests because it cannot suffer.” This directly contradicts the language of the measures taken in Bolivia and Toledo, Ohio which discuss the rights of nature “to exist, flourish, and naturally evolve.”

Taking the idea of the rights of non-organisms like lakes and rivers seriously may require a significant departure from mainstream moral philosophy, according to philosophers of so-called “radical ecology” frameworks. Proponents of radical ecology contend that the project of extending rights of personhood to non-humans can never fully account for the moral standing of non-humans, viewing the project as a thinly-disguised version of anthropocentrism. Instead they argue for a fundamental revision of how human’s view the natural world. For instance the very division of the world into the categories of ‘human’ and ‘non-human’ is a misstep according to radical ecology—one which is at the root of problems like those addressed by Bangladesh, the Nonhuman Rights Project, Toledo, Bolivia, and others. Hence while the radical ecology framework gives full breath to language about nature’s rights to flourish, it objects to the method of extending legal personhood to non-human entities. 

Meeting the challenges of climate change and generally reforming humanity’s relationship to the rest of the natural world is no simple task. The steps taken by various jurisdictions and organizations to extend legal personhood to nonhuman animals and organisms represent a strategy that is in its first iteration. The strategy has so far met both with mixed reception and mixed results. Regardless of their success, similar measures and strategies are likely to arise as jurisdictions grapple with environmental and animal rights issues. Likewise, scholars will continue trying to develop powerful and consistent philosophical frameworks to undergird the legal work.

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The Ethics of a Revenue-Neutral Carbon Tax

photograph of traffic gridlock for multiple blocks

“It’s just an excuse to take more money from us.” As Canada has implemented a carbon tax, this is the commonly voiced complaint. This kind of skepticism appears to be grounded in the belief that a) climate change either is not real or not a threat and that b) a tax is an inappropriate reaction to the situation. When first confronted with the idea of a revenue-neutral carbon tax people’s response is often one of puzzlement. However, after explanation, skeptics often become receptive. But is a revenue-neutral tax ethically better than one that is not revenue-neutral? 

A revenue-neutral tax is a tax that does not increase the revenue for the operating expenses of the government. All of the money collected through taxation is distributed back to people, usually in the form of rebates directly to taxpayers or through reductions in income taxes. The government’s net revenue does not increase, hence the tax is revenue-neutral. Those who favor such taxes like the idea that the size of government does not increase. It also answers the skeptic from earlier; it isn’t just an excuse for a tax because it does not contribute to the government’s net revenue. 

If every taxpayer receives a rebate of the same amount, then those who use the least carbon get to keep the largest amount of money. Those who use the most carbon either save the least or have to pay more. Thus, the economy as a whole is incentivized to use less carbon and to invest in products and technologies that are better for the environment. Ethically, a tax like this seems prudent; it helps address climate change and it does so in a way that it can address the concerns of tax skeptics. 

On the other hand, a revenue-neutral tax potentially overlooks important ethical concerns. For example, climate change is likely going to lead to infrastructure and public health problems. Philosopher Simon Caney has described some of the ethical duties in adapting to climate change. These include spending money on building sea-walls to protect people in coastal areas, subsidizing people to move from threatened coastal settlements, and spending money to inoculate people from infectious diseases that will become a greater danger due to climate change. Often, these kinds of expenses fall on governments to fund. 

British Columbia was the first jurisdiction in North America to implement a revenue-neutral carbon tax. One of the legal requirements of the tax initially was that carbon tax revenue be offset through income tax reductions. 

As one can imagine it is difficult to raise those taxes again after they have been cut. Thus, as costs relating to climate change begin to fall on governments those governments may find it more difficult to raise additional revenue to pay for additional expenses because of a revenue-neutral tax.

Further, the effects of climate change are going to be most felt by future generations. Climate change will be expensive as well as economically disruptive. This means that those most affected by the costs of climate change will be worse off when it comes to managing the effects. A non revenue-neutral tax would allow governments to provide additional funding and investments for future generations and thus better fulfill ethical duties of adaptation to climate change. Indeed British Columbia recently opted to change their revenue-neutral policy so that those tax funds can be devoted towards energy retrofits and public infrastructure in order to support climate adaptation.

Often carbon taxes are considered justifiable according to what is called the polluter pays principle. According to Mizan R. Kan this principle has a long standing and widespread rationale. It holds that those who cause damage through pollution should pay for it. While not universal, many interpretations of the principle hold that the polluter should not only pay for engaging in pollution, but also to compensate for that damage. This would mean that there are duties of funding adaptations to climate change. 

A revenue-neutral carbon tax does require polluters to pay for their pollution but it does not require them to compensate for the damage that their pollution costs. Thus, the polluter pays principle may better justify a non revenue-neutral carbon tax over one that is revenue neutral. If we interpret this principle not only as an economic principle but as an ethical one, then a non revenue-neutral tax that uses funds for adaptation would seem to be more ethically justified then a revenue-neutral one.

Of course, a carbon tax is not the only way to meet ethical duties of preventing and adapting to climate change, and a non revenue-neutral tax may be a harder sell to the public and to politicians. Conservatives can support a revenue-neutral tax because it does not increase the size of government and proposing the alternative may increase political gridlock, making it more likely that nothing will be done at all. This is why the choice between a revenue-neutral and a non revenue-neutral tax presents an ethical dilemma. 

A non revenue-neutral carbon tax offers the opportunity to use funds to meet ethical duties both to prevent climate change and to fund adaptations to climate change. This can not only help us today but it can satisfy duties that we may have to future generations. Thus, as a single policy it better satisfies our ethical duties. However, it may be more difficult to get bi-partisan support to pass such a tax given skeptical attitudes and cynicism regarding efforts to tackle climate change. If no tax is passed at all and no other policy proposal (such as a cap-and-trade scheme) is enacted then even fewer ethical duties are met. Thus, because a revenue-neutral tax may be more practical in that it has the best chance of being enacted, it may be the most ethical option. 

Perhaps the best solution is to ensure that the public is better informed about the differences and merits of both kinds of taxes so that a more rational and fact-based conversation can be had. For the public to best articulate its needs and determine which is the most effective option, it will likely require an open and honest discussion about what the needs of local communities are and will be, and what will allow the public to see a carbon tax as a legitimate option for addressing climate change.

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The California Housing Crisis and Collective Action

photograph overlooking San Francisco

The situation in California has become increasingly dire, and is even beginning to appear on the periphery of the 2020 presidential race. While there are factors that make California unique, it might be a sign of things to come for cities like Chicago, Austin, and Nashville. The political discourse currently taking shape may be indicative of the US’s future treatment of problems stemming from population growth and density.

California’s housing shortage places enormous pressure on tenants as supply shrinks and demand continues to expand. Strong economic growth, mostly in the tech sector, has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but has been met with inadequate construction of necessary housing. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute found that California needs to build 3.5 million more homes by 2025 to meet demand. This situation has seen the state’s home prices grow to 2.5 times the national average, while rents are 50 percent above average. As a result, nearly a quarter of the nation’s homeless population lives in California.

Current homeowners like Los Angeles resident Glenn Zweifel insist that “there is not necessarily a shortage of housing but an excess of people,” and attribute the problem to an attitude of entitlement: “Just because you want to live somewhere doesn’t mean you can.”

This, however, oversimplifies the problem. First, this is a matter of displacement; it isn’t simply a case of turning prospective residents away. Property values are skyrocketing which means that current tenants can’t earn enough to keep up with rising rents. It’s estimated that you’d need to make $34/hour in order to afford a two-bedroom rental home. Not everyone is in a privileged position to be able to uproot their lives. Tenants may not have much of a choice about where they live; their jobs, families, and financial, medical, or social situation may mean that relocation is simply not an option.

Second, the housing crisis is a byproduct of class and generational conflict. The interests of old, rich, white property owners are at odds with the young, poor, minority renters. The two main obstacles to increasing housing development are zoning laws and community opposition. Apartment buildings are banned in most of California, and single-family zoning laws prohibit higher-density housing construction in residential areas. Current residents don’t want affordable housing going up next door. They are intent on protecting the value of their assets, and know that environmental protections can be easily abused so as to protect their investment.

Conservative/libertarian writers, like Edward Ring, emphasize concerns of fairness:

“There’s a reason people work hard for decades to pay off their mortgages so they can own homes in spacious suburbs. It’s because they value the leafy, semi-rural atmosphere of an uncrowded suburban neighborhood. [Policy initiatives] will effectively double the housing density in these neighborhoods, violating the expectations of everyone living there who relied on the zoning rules that were in effect when they bought their homes.”

Property owners, they argue, have earned the right to restrict others’ access to those goods for which they have labored. To undermine that basic right of ownership and fail to reward these individuals’ hard work is manifestly unjust. And yet lawmakers continue to recommend the 

“forcible integration of people who, for whatever reason, require government assistance to support themselves, into communities of taxpayers, who, by and large, are working extra hard to pay the mortgages on overpriced homes in order to provide their children with safe neighborhoods.”

Market forces may be conspiring to put people on the street, but property owners, so the argument goes, are not the guilty party and are not obligated to make accommodations. In the end, they argue, it’s unfair to have homeowners shoulder others’ burdens.

This is a common sentiment. But the neighborhoods in California are, in effect, gated communities aimed at maximizing monetary gains and keeping out the undesirables. Even when residential communities are pried opened and new residents are admitted, those who’ve threaded the needle and somehow gained access to such a scarce resource are the very same that attempt to slam the door closed behind them. As San Francisco Assemblymember Phil Ting explains, “If you’re a city council, the people who vote for you oppose the housing you’re creating, and you’re creating housing for the people who have yet to move in. And when they do move in, they fight the next project.”

The political incentives all point in one direction. Homeowners are entrenched; they have ties in the community and their voices carry the weight of immediate political consequence. There are few other voices — certainly not the homeless or prospective residents — that might countermand it. This may change if businesses start feeling the effect of not having the necessary workers and talent to function. Being unable to attract necessary professions like nurses, teachers, janitors, and firefighters threatens to grind the economy to a halt. Property Shark notes that despite San Francisco paying nurses one of the highest wages in the US, a nurse would have to earn 10 annual incomes in order to afford a house there. The situation is no different for tech workers. But until businesses start feeling the pinch, there is more of a political incentive to protect current residents, slow development, and push the homeless to shelters elsewhere.

Conservatives are often partial to subsidiarity — the idea that actors closest to the problem are the best positioned to address it. They prefer local solutions which might limit government meddling and eliminate red tape. But the California Housing Crisis is a collective action problem; conflicts of interest between individuals encourage actors to pass the buck, while sustainable solutions require a concerted group effort. The consequences of doing one’s part to address the housing crisis encourage free-riding (that mirrors the immigration crisis at the national level). Those who flout their obligations are the ones who stand to reap the greatest rewards. Towns who haven’t built an apartment in a decade are also ones where the median home sells for $1.6 million. Given the incentives at play, a decentralized approach is unlikely to work.

There are a number of proposed solutions, but the two which have gained the most traction concern “upzoning” and rent control. SB 50 would allow apartment buildings to be built near major transit hubs, increasing housing capacity six-fold while also mitigating increased traffic congestion. It represents a market-based solution that looks to harness developer incentives in order to accelerate the development rate.

But critics contend that a market-based solution like SB 50 is unlikely to provide relief. Michael Storper, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, argues that the bill is essentially about “raising housing opportunities for highly skilled, relatively high-income people.” Upzoning may encourage more housing, but it will be housing designed to maximize the return on investment. The bill doesn’t make development in lower-income neighborhoods any more attractive or profitable. Instead, it may very well “gentrify what’s left to gentrify in highly desirable areas.” Francisco Dueñas, the housing campaign director at the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, agrees: “We think that in general, similar to what happened in Chicago, [SB 50] is just going to increase the value of that land, fueling greater speculation, and then that gets translated into increased rent and more people getting pushed out.” Ultimately, while the bill may encourage development thus increasing supply, critics worry it does nothing to address the issue of displacement.

An alternative aimed directly at this issue is rent control. (One such proposal, Proposition 10, was on the ballot in 2018 and was defeated. Another measure, AB1482 is currently gathering steam.) As property values soar and wages stagnate, renters are unable to keep up with rising prices. By placing legal limits on what landlords can demand for rent and tying those figures to cost of living calculations, these measures hope to protect renters from effectively being forced out of their residences. Renters may no longer be victims of arbitrary market forces and suffer the consequences of prices which reflect whatever the market will bear.

Critics emphasize the negative effect expanding rent control will have on housing development, as it eliminates financial incentives to build new housing or develop existing properties. Given the magnitude of the housing shortage at hand, ensuring renters remain where they are might not be the most pressing objective. Rent control creates immediate gains, but, as a Brookings Institute study concludes, “in the long run it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood.” Reduced profit margins discourage landlords from regular maintenance, renters bunker down in apartments that are too big or small for their needs, and the neighborhood housing market is depressed.

There are no easy solutions. At best, the crisis in California is a cautionary tale that might signal when to raise the alarm, and, if we’re lucky, where to look to find a way out.

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Population Growth and Anti-Natalist Philosophy

photograph of tightly-packed crowd

July 11 marked World Population Day, observed by the United Nations (UN) each year since 1989. It was established after the human population of Earth reached 5 billion on July 11, 1987 to, “…focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.” As of July 11, 2019 the human population has reached 7.7 billion and is projected to reach nearly 10 billion by 2050. Continued overall positive population growth, combined with a general upward trend in worldwide human life expectancy, has created concerns about overpopulation: that is, a situation in which the resources of particular regions—or the planet in general—are outstripped by the needs of the human population. 

Concerns about human population are not new. Throughout history, legislators and scholars across cultures have been concerned with either depopulation, overpopulation, or population density. In Ancient China, Kongzi (Confucius) advocated government policy to ensure a balanced distribution of people across the arable land of China. Mozi, though a critic of Confucianism, also advocated government policy concerning population. One of the three  moral/political criteria for beneficial actions (利, “lì”) in Mozi’s philosophy was that it promoted population growth. In Ancient Greece, Plato fixed the ideal population of a city-state at around 50400 (accounting for 5040 citizens, and then other non-citizens such as women, children, and slaves). Aristotle criticizes Plato’s calculations for not taking into account issues with fertility rates, mortality rates, and the size of territory required to sustain a population. In the Middle Ages, the Islamic philosopher Ibn Khaldun wrote extensively on population dynamics, advocating for denser population centers to facilitate social and economic prosperity.

Much of the contemporary discussion of human overpopulation is traceable to Richard Malthus’ 1798 “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” Malthus provides a mathematical argument as the basis of his thesis that overpopulation was a problem that would steadily grow worse: human population grows exponentially while the food supply only grows linearly. That is, the increase in food production occurs at a rate which remains the same over time whereas the increase in population occurs at a rate which itself increases over time. Malthus’ view of the problem focused on the poor and destitute, whom he viewed as those whose position was more vulnerable to famine and disease. These twin killers are examples of what Malthus referred to as positive checks on population: calamities that arise naturally from overpopulation and serve to check population growth. Allowing population to grow until checked by such natural forces was cruel in Malthus’ view. He argued that the better measures were so-called preventative checks: e.g., abstaining from or delaying procreation. 

In the current day, there is significant sympathy with the preventative aspect of the Malthusian position. In light of the growing population, and ever-increasing evidence that human activity is a primary driver of climate change, some people believe that having children is immoral. Or, at least that it is a decision which has to be made in response to the issues facing the world—and not narrower personal or familial ones. Other contemporary scholars have generated their own strands of reasoning to argue against procreation—or at least against the presumption that a decision to have children stands in need of no special justification. In general, arguments to the effect that procreation is immoral are referred to as anti-natalist views. Canadian philosopher Christine Overall and South African philosopher David Benatar both provide their own versions of anti-natalism.

Overall, in her book Why Have Children, canvasses the usual arguments both for and against having children and finds them all lacking. She concludes that the decision to have children always stands in need of justification, and that the justification must be given in terms of the possibility of a healthy relationship developing between parents and children. Benatar, on the other hand, argues that human existence is generally characterized by misery. Because of this he argues that it is always bad to bring new life into the world. In other words, whereas Overall claims that having children can possibly be justified—though not in any of the usual ways—Benatar argues that having children is always unjustified. In his Better Never to Have Been, Benatar claims that life is bad—but so is death and dying. The only way to avoid this double-bind is to never have existed in the first place. (Incidentally, the sort of arguments Benatar gives are among the types of arguments Overall finds lacking.)

In the broad sweep of history, anti-natalist views rise and fall with the population itself. At times when populations have significantly decreased, arguments arose advocating having more children. Barring the success of a general anti-natalist argument like Benatar’s, issues about overpopulation are broadly about resources and climate. Given the dire warnings and predictions about the state of Earth’s climate future, sympathy with anti-natalist positions will likely continue or even increase.