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Month: November 2020

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Moral Problems with Mink Production

photograph of mink fur

In a strange twist during a year that has seen more than its fair share of strange twists, a potential new threat in the fight against the coronavirus has emerged, this time in the form of a mutation in the virus found in minks. It has always been known that animals like mink are susceptible to some of the same kinds of respiratory diseases that affect humans, and that viruses can mutate when passed between different kinds of animals (it is speculated, after all, that the origin of coronavirus in humans originally came from bats). While there is reason to be optimistic that the mutation will not be too much of a problem for the development of a vaccine, the threat of a mutated version of the virus widely spreading to humans seems like the absolute last thing we need right now.

The mutated version of the virus was first discovered in Denmark, although a number of other major mink-producing countries (including Poland, France, Ireland, and the Netherlands) have reported the presence of COVID-19 in their minks, as well. As an early response, the Danish government imposed lockdowns in the relevant parts of the country, and attempted to force mink farmers to cull the country’s nearly 17 million minks that are farmed for their fur. This move has received considerable backlash: political opposition has challenged that the government has no legal right to force farmers to cull their mink herds, and the Danish agriculture minister stepped down as a result. Other governments are in the process of deciding which measures to take, although no clear plans of action have yet to emerge.

One aspect of this story that may have caught you off guard is the astonishing number of minks that could potentially need to be destroyed: in Denmark alone there are almost three minks for every human. While this number was never explicitly a secret, it wasn’t exactly well-known either, and after having been made public it has raised more than a few eyebrows of those concerned with animal welfare. While arguments against the raising of animals for their fur are not new, it is perhaps worth revisiting the topic in the face of this potential mass culling.

Typically in arguments like these one considers pros and cons, weighing reasons that have been provided in favor and those that oppose, and seeing which view is better supported by evidence and argument. When it comes to the question of whether minks should be farmed on a mass scale for fur production, however, the balance of moral reasons points pretty clearly against the practice.

Let’s consider some of the reasons against. In a recent letter to Science, three scientists from some of the largest mink-producing countries outline some key reasons why mink production should stop: in addition to the potential to transmit diseases harmful to humans, the conditions for raising mink are typically inhumane, with “minks showing signs of fearfulness, self-mutilation, infanticide, and breeding difficulties.” On top of all that, there is the environmental impact the comes along with any mass animal farming operation: the letter cites that “the climate footprint of producing 1 kg of mink fur is 5 times as high as the footprint of producing 1 kg of wool.”

So here are some arguments against: potential to harm humans with mutated viruses, cruelty to the animals, and damage to the environment. Are there reasons in favor?  Economic reasons come to mind: there is a demand for mink pelts, and so we might think that farmers should be able to supply them. Indeed, culling a country’s entire population of minks would have significant economic effects: the world’s largest fur auction house, Kopenhagen Fur, is reporting to be shutting down in the wake of the Danish government’s culling order, with the potential for an additional 3,000 jobs being lost in the case of a collapse of the mink industry. Certainly, then, the livelihood of mink farmers is at least one factor to be concerned with.

How one weighs these reasons will depend on how much one thinks that minks are animals worthy of moral consideration. If, for instance, one is concerned that mass fur farming is cruel to animals that ought not be treated cruelly, then even though putting an end to mink farming would harm those who make it their livelihood, this might seem like a minor concern when thinking about the overall benefits of ending an inhumane industry. This is not to say that the concerns of mink farmers should be completely ignored – the Danish government, for example, is currently considering a financial rescue package for mink farmers – but rather that, all things considered, the benefits of ending the practice seem to outweigh the harms.

There is, however, another moral problem in the vicinity: given that we currently are not sure how harmful the mutated version of the virus is, should we, in fact, kill millions of minks as a precaution? Recall that one of the reasons against farming minks in the first place was that it is inhumane: presumably, it is wrong to cause animals unnecessary suffering, and there is ample evidence that mass farming practices cause such suffering. However, if we think that these animals have some moral value, then that is also a factor to take into consideration when deciding whether they should be culled.

In trying to figure out what the best course of action in this case is there are clearly scientific questions that need to be addressed. As we saw above, it’s not clear whether the mutated version of the virus is dangerous, or whether it would interfere with the production of an effective vaccine, and so it is not clear whether at this point there is enough evidence to warrant a mass culling of minks. However, one might think that it is best to err towards caution: given the damage that the coronavirus has already caused, it might be best not to take any chances of it getting even further out of control. On the other hand, it is known that viruses mutating is common, and so even if all the minks are destroyed then that’s far from a guarantee that there will be no further mutations in the future. The mere threat of mutation, then, may not be a good reason to kill millions of animals.

At the same time, some animal rights groups have stated that the mass culling of the existing minks that are farmed for their fur would be the best course of action if it would put an end to the farming of minks in the future. For instance, Humane Society International stated that while there “was never going to be a happy ending for the 60 million mink exploited for fur annually” that “stopping breeding them altogether would be the best way to prevent animals suffering in the future for the fickle whims of fashion.” Culling minks could not only prevent future harm to humans, but also potentially put an end to an industry that would otherwise cause much more harm to animals in the future.

This is not an easy moral problem to solve. Regardless of what decision is ultimately made, though, this development in the ongoing coronavirus saga has at least shed light on a moral issue that is worthy of additional consideration.

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Revisiting the Trail of Tears: Tribal Control and Environmental Justice

image of old Oklahoma map designating "Indian Territory"

In early October 2020, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt. The letter granted Stitt environmental regulatory control over all of the tribal lands in the state. Among other things, this gives Stitt the power to determine whether hazardous waste can be dumped on tribal lands, the ability to make decisions regarding whether and where fracking can take place, and the ability to determine if and where large-scale industrial animal agriculture, with all its attendant pollution, can operate in tribal jurisdictions.

This development is yet another chapter of a disturbing story. In the early to mid-19th century, tribes of indigenous people occupied ancestral lands in states such as Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. These tribes were the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek, and Cherokee. It didn’t take long for some American whites to realize that the land populated by these tribes was valuable. Many members of the white population had aspirations to attain the land in order to grow cotton on it — cotton that would be picked by African slaves. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, a piece of legislation that allowed congress to “trade” Southern lands with much promise as fertile soil for the growth of cotton for “Indian colonization” lands across the Mississippi River. What these trades meant in practice was that native populations were relocated from their ancestral lands to places to which they had no connections. In many cases they were removed from their lands forcibly. They were not provided with supplies or support on their journey to their new home. The path was long and treacherous, and many native travelers did not survive. The procession came to be known as the “Trail of Tears.”

Some of the members of the five tribes that survived this journey settled in reservation lands in eastern Oklahoma, which at the time was not a state. The tribal land comprised a significant portion of what is now the state. In many respects, in recent years the government of Oklahoma has increasingly treated native persons as if they have no rights over their own lands. Many people in power in the region are of the opinion that the reservation status of the eastern part of the state was disestablished in 1907 when Oklahoma was admitted into the union. The state has argued that the disestablishment occurred during the “allotment” process, when the land was divided up and treated as individually owned by members of the respective tribes.

The question of whether Five Tribes reservations had been disestablished was resolved by the United States Supreme Court in July 2020. Two cases generated the controversy. In one case, Patrick Murphy, a member of the Creek Nation, was accused of committing a murder. He was convicted and sentenced by the state of Oklahoma. If native persons live on federal reservations, they are subject only to tribal and federal law. Murphy contended that he was tried in the wrong jurisdiction — he should have been tried not by the state but by the federal government. The second case was a case in which Jimcy McGirt was tried and convicted by the State of Oklahoma. He was given two sentences of 500 years for raping a four-year-old girl. On appeal, counsel for McGirt argued that, because the crime took place on the soil of the reservation, McGirt, too, was sentenced in the wrong jurisdiction. Representatives of the State of Oklahoma contended that the lands occupied by the Five Tribes are no longer established reservations. The Supreme Court disagreed, finding no evidence that reservation status had at any time been revoked. Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch said,

“The federal government promised the Creek a reservation in perpetuity. Over time, Congress has diminished that reservation. It has sometimes restricted and other times expanded the tribe’s authority. But Congress has never withdrawn the promised reservation. As a result, many of the arguments before us today follow a sadly familiar pattern. Yes, promises were made, but the price of keeping them has become too great, so now we should just cast a blind eye. We reject that thinking. If Congress wishes to withdraw its promises, it must say so. Unlawful acts, performed long enough and with sufficient vigor, are never enough to amend the law. To hold otherwise would be to elevate the most brazen and longstanding injustices over the law, both rewarding wrong and failing those in the right.”

News agencies reported this opinion as a “landmark decision” by the Supreme Court. The opinion acknowledged the historic and continued injustice endured by members of these tribes and it demanded that the government keep its promises. In the wake of the decision, many speculated that tribal members would have more of a voice in decisions about the environment as it relates to their lands. In particular, they would have some say in the construction of pipelines and other potentially environmentally devastating projects. They might also have some regulatory authority over oil and gas. The actions of the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency demonstrate that they have no intention of respecting tribal input or the decision of the Supreme Court.

Those sympathetic to the EPA’s position argue that land is a finite resource. It’s unfortunate that we may sometimes have to break centuries-old promises, but the consequences justify doing so. State officials have obligations to their local economies. They can’t bring about economic growth and prosperity if nearly half of the state is off limits to any kind of expansive action. What’s more, Oklahoma is oil-rich; it produces 5% of the nation’s crude oil. This is a critical energy source, and these, too, are finite. As harsh as it may sound, some argue that access to important resources shouldn’t be denied because our great, great, great grandparents made promises. At the time at which they made those promises they weren’t fully informed about what they were bartering away. In response, one might argue that no one was “bartering” over anything. Native lands were stolen, and people were killed and displaced. Reservations aren’t a gift nor did they come about as a result of a free and fair trade.

Critics of the EPA’s actions argue further that economic growth need not be a society’s perpetual goal. Perhaps it’s time to finally focus on sustainability instead. The resources that Oklahoma seeks to exploit on tribal lands are resources that should be replaced with green alternatives anyway. Some writers have argued that the fact that our country is always barreling toward economic growth at least partially explains why indigenous knowledge regarding environmental practices is so often overlooked. For example, in Indigenous Knowledge and Technology, Creating Justice in the Twenty-First Century, Linda Robyn argues,

“The legacy of fifteenth-century European colonial domination placed Indigenous knowledge in the categories of primitive, simple, ‘not knowledge,’ or folklore. It comes as no surprise then that through the process of colonization Indigenous knowledge and perspectives have been ignored and denigrated by the vast majority of social, physical, biological and agricultural scientists, and governments using colonial powers to exploit Indigenous resources.”

Members of native tribes have critical insight to share regarding environmental issues. Not only do they know their lands well, they also have rich history, cultural customs, and practical wisdom regarding sustainable environmental practices. Colonizers and other opportunists have never cared much about this wisdom because sustainability was never the goal.

Nearly three hundred years after the Trail of Tears, little has changed when it comes to how some Americans view tribal lands. Growing cotton isn’t as profitable without all the free forced labor, but profiteers still lick their lips and look to tribal lands for other business ventures.

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The Ethics of Pardoning

photograph of Trump pardoning Thanksgiving turkey

Back in October, I read the single greatest news article that I have ever read. It had everything you could want in a story: courage, a murderer turned hero, a thwarted terrorist attack, the London Bridge, a narwhal tusk, and a royal pardon. If you have not already read the article, you absolutely should; each paragraph is better than the one before.

But the story is not only a thrilling and satisfying narrative, it also provides us an excuse to talk about the ethics of pardons. This is a good thing, because I expect that, as happened in previous presidential administrations, we will see a flurry of presidential pardons before president-elect Biden is sworn in. It is always a good idea to think carefully through your principles before there is some controversy where you need to apply them. Otherwise it is far too easy to shift into principles that end up siding with your political tribe after a controversy arises.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines a pardon as “the act or an instance of officially nullifying punishment or other legal consequences of a crime.” In the United States, the power to pardon is possessed by the executive. The president can pardon federal crimes, while governors can pardon state crimes.

When we look at the ethics of pardoning, there are two types of questions we might ask. We might wonder about how extensive the power to pardon should be. These are questions framers ask when structuring a constitutional system. An example question is whether the president should be empowered to pardon him or herself? We might also wonder whether any given pardon is a good idea. These are questions that the executive branch asks before issuing a pardon. An example question is whether President Ford should have pardoned President Nixon. Note that these two questions come apart. Just as I can simultaneously think it is a really bad idea to own a gun and also think people have extensive rights to own guns if they choose to, so I can think that most pardons are a bad idea and yet also think the president should have broad power to pardon.

There are fascinating questions about how extensive the presidential power to pardon should be. But here I want to look at the second set of questions. Suppose that the president is empowered to pardon someone, when is it appropriate to exercise that power?

One context where pardoning might make sense is when the president believes a criminal trial was unjust, either in process or outcome. A recent example of this is President Trump’s posthumous pardoning of the Boxer Jack Johnson. While there are many checks internal to the judiciary, the presidential pardon is probably the largest external check on incorrect judicial decisions.

Another context where pardoning seems justified is where the judicial branch properly applies the law, but where peculiar circumstances make the application of the law unjust. This is the justification for the presidential pardon given by Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Paper No. 74. Alexander Hamilton explains the power to pardon is important because criminal codes have a “necessary severity” and so “without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt” justice would often end up too “cruel.”

Of course, neither of those two justifications are operative in this narwhal story. According to the NYTimes, in the U.K. “pardons for early release are generally recommended by officials in exceptional situations, such as if a prisoner risks his safety to prevent death or serious injury to another.” Here, the idea is that pardons might be a way to recognize something particularly remarkable about an individual.

And indeed, many pardons do seem to track something about the individual. For example, it is not uncommon that famous people are much more likely to receive pardons for crimes. This may in part be in recognition of their accomplishments, but it is also simply a consequence of being much more likely to be brought to executive attention.

This brings us to one of the biggest worries about the use of pardons, namely that they are idiosyncratic and thus seem in tension with a commitment to equal treatment under the law. Suppose I am also in jail in the U.K. for murder. It could be that I, like Steven Gallant, turned my life around, am close with my child, and act as a role model and mentor. However, none of that will be enough to secure a pardon, I also need to have the opportunity to do something heroic. Opportunities for heroism, however, are not evenly distributed throughout society. And thus some people will have access to pardons that others do not, merely as a matter of luck.

Indeed, this worry about the idiosyncratic nature of pardons applies even to pardons designed to act as a check on the judiciary. This issue is examined in detail in The West Wing episode “Take This Sabbath Day.” President Bartlet faces the question of whether to commute the sentence of a man soon to be executed. President Bartlet, who is Catholic, believes the use of the death penalty is unjust. However, he also worries about punishment for a crime changing based on the beliefs of whoever happens to be president. Toward the end of the episode he expresses his frustration:

“I commute this guy, for no particular reason other than I don’t like the death penalty . . . And the next president sees it in a different way. . . .  We cannot execute some people and not execute others depending on the mood of the Oval Office. It’s cruel and unusual.”

So what should we think about this worry concerning equal justice?

It is actually a tricky legal principle. Is it unjust to give a good thing to one person, if you cannot also give the same good thing to others who are equally deserving? Obviously, certain motivations for giving the good thing only to some people are unjust. For example, if you pardon one person and not the other because the one person is famous, then you are doing something wrong. But what if you would be willing to pardon anyone in that situation, you just know you will only hear about famous people. Then is it still unjust to pardon the famous? This question has important parallels. It would be unjust if I chose to only give money to white beggars and not to black beggars. But would it be unjust if I gave money to every beggar I see, I just also happen to live in a part of town where almost all the beggars I see are white?

It seems plausible that in the interpersonal case, one does not need to be too concerned about the unequal application of personal charity. However, it also seems plausible that in cases of criminal law, we have special reason to maintain not just justice before the law, but also the equality of all persons. It matters, if for no other reason that it not look as though the rich and famous get access to extra opportunities to avoid punishment.

If you think that it is important that everyone have an equal chance before the law, then the use of the power to pardon should be extraordinarily rare. If, instead, giving a good thing to someone is still good, even if you can’t also give it to another, then probably the presidential pardon is an underutilized tool.

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What Reddit Can Teach Us About Moral Philosophy

eye looking through keyhole

Moral philosophy is enjoying a moment in popular culture. Shows like The Good Place have made ethics accessible to broad audiences, and publishing houses churn out books on the philosophical underpinnings of franchises like Star Wars and Game of Thrones. One example of this can be found on Reddit, a social media site that hosts a myriad of topic-based forums. In particular, the subreddit “Am I the Asshole?” exemplifies pop culture’s breezy and accessible approach to moral philosophy, while also shedding light on how and why we engage in ethical questions.

This extremely popular subreddit boasts over two million subscribers, and claims to offer “A catharsis for the frustrated moral philosopher in all of us, and a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that’s been bothering you.” Reddit users post stories about relationship problems, family squabbles, and workplace tension. Any conflict will do, so long as it doesn’t involve physical violence and the original poster has some reason to believe they were in the wrong. Those who comment on these stories are required to pass judgment, expressed using the subreddit’s shorthand language, followed by a brief explanation of their ruling. A person can be either NTA (not the asshole), YTA (you are the asshole), ESH (everyone sucks here, for situations where all parties did something indefensible), and NAH (no assholes here, for situations where no one is in the wrong). A bot eventually sifts through these comments, and the post is labeled with the most popular judgment.

As the word “asshole” implies, this isn’t the place to rail against class oppression or the cruelties of fate. AITA focuses on everyday interpersonal drama, and it’s understood that being labeled YTA isn’t necessarily a judgment on the entirety of a person’s character. Every judgment is situational, though commentators may point out larger patterns of problematic thought or behavior if they emerge, and the subreddit operates under a shared understanding that many of us act immorally without malicious intent. Even in the somewhat rigid lexicon of judgment, there’s room for shades of gray, for the ambiguities of social life. As Tove Danovich writes in an article for The Ringer, “The scope of the problems on AITA, even when the judgment is a difficult one to make, is human, and therefore more manageable. They’re medium questions asked and answered by medium people who just want to be a little bit better.”

Even though the subreddit’s scope is somewhat limited, one aspect of the AITA’s culture offers a window into the role narrative plays in shaping our sense of right and wrong. Scrolling through the front page, one very frequently encounters stories where the original poster was indisputably in the right: “Someone ran me over with their car, and as I went flying over their windshield, I accidentally dented their front hood. AITA?” So many users were annoyed by these posts that they started their own parody subreddit, “Am I the Angel,” where the saintly and oblivious tone of AITA posts are mocked. An ungenerous interpretation of these posts would be that some people just want a pat on the head. They aren’t actually looking for a moral judgment, they want to vent about a situation they already recognize as unfair. Alternatively, one could argue that we so often lack perspective on our own lives, and what seems obviously wrong to an impartial third party may be less transparent from the inside. But one AITA user suggests a different interpretation. On a post from a man who no longer wanted to let his disabled neighbor park in their driveway, Reddit user boppitywop commented, “I think the majority of these posts are because people feel guilty, and they are looking to assuage their guilt. [The original poster] is not the asshole but they’ve made someone’s life a lot more inconvenient and doesn’t feel good about it. [This subreddit] serves the purpose of socially normalizing something that a person feels bad about.”

This comment reveals both the limits and potential of AITA. Some situations are morally intractable, and require a lot more than interpersonal skills (or an understanding of one’s wrongdoing) to effectively address. But they also correctly point out the social function of storytelling. AITA posts help users renegotiate the boundaries between right and wrong in a way that feels deeply communal. Norms are both established and questioned in this online space. The judgment system may feel very open-and-shut, but reading through the comment section of popular posts reveals an ongoing dialogue with the moral philosophy of everyday life.

But in any narrative, language often betrays the biases or intentions of the teller. One ubiquitous trope you’ll notice if you fall down the AITA rabbit hole is what I would call the “sudden turn”: in the middle of an encounter, the antagonist of the story will begin to bawl, shriek, or throw a tantrum without clear provocation. The other person is portrayed as irrational or inscrutable, and one often feels the gap here where their perspective on the situation could fit. Commenters are often very perceptive about the original poster’s word choice, but the way the story is told inevitably colors our judgment of the encounter. This sense of messiness and instability accurately reflects how we experience conflict, and reminds us that all moral arguments, whether large or small, contain some speck of subjectivity.

It’s a simple truth that judging people we don’t know is fun, sometimes even addicting. The voyeuristic element of AITA is certainly worthy of critique, but at the same time, anonymity is crucial to the communal storytelling experience. In an era where few define themselves by a single ethical belief system, AITA helps readers wade through the mire of modern life, and testifies to a universal desire to understand what we owe to one another.

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Pet Ownership and the Ethical Perils of Domination

photograph of dog in cramped cage

For many of us, our pets are our beloved family members. However, the lives of many pets are an excruciating ordeal, full of pain and boredom. This is an inescapable consequence of the fact that they are utterly dependent upon us to meet their most basic needs. For these reasons, I think that pet ownership should be drastically reduced and radically rethought.

What is a pet? Let me propose a novel definition, paraphrasing Yi-Fu Tuan: a pet is an object of our affections that we dominate. Philosophers define domination as an unconstrained imbalance of power that enables agents to control other agents or the conditions of their actions. My view is that our control of our pets is unjust because it is largely legally unconstrained: it is almost entirely up to an owner how she will or will not use her power. This fact, in turn, makes pets extremely vulnerable to abuse and, much more commonly, neglect.

Consider the average urban-dwelling dog. Almost nothing about her life is up to her: whether she receives adequate food, water, shelter, medical care, and social interaction is entirely down to the owner’s whims. This is because legally, pets are considered property; besides animal cruelty laws, there are no legally enforced standards for pet ownership.

The evidence suggests that the result of our dominion over our pets is an incredible amount of suffering. Although some pets are able to have genuinely good lives, owners as a whole seem either unable or unwilling to meet their pets’ complex needs. Let’s start with physical health. According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, more than half of all dogs and cats in the U.S. are obese. The number of cats and dogs who never, in their entire life, visit a veterinarian is anywhere from about twenty-five to fifty percent, with most estimates falling on the higher end. At least 70 percent of captive reptiles die before they even reach the pet store shelf, and of these survivors, about 75 percent will not live past their first year as a pet.

Most of the animals we keep as pets are social creatures. Some, like dogs, have evolved to form strong emotional bonds with their human owners. But we humans are just as bad at ensuring our pets have rich social lives as we are at maintaining their physical health. The amount of time the average pet owner spends interacting with his or her critter is estimated at about 40 minutes a day — hardly enough to be called a reciprocal and mutually enhancing friendship. Goldfish are social creatures, but many are kept in tiny aquaria with no possibility of stimulating interaction either with their environment or other fish. For example, on Amazon one can find a USB Desk Organizer Aquarium — with attached desk organizer, including a multifunction pen holder and LCD calendar — that holds one and a half quarts of water (6 cups) and is advertised as suitable for live fish.

Many owners simply give away their animals when they no longer feel like shouldering the burden of caring for them. Somewhere between six and eight million dogs and cats and other sentient creatures pass through the shelter system each year; about one third of these are there because their owners brought them in. If they are lucky, these animals are adopted by a loving family. But many are not lucky: some 3 million are euthanized every year.

One challenge of ethically assessing pet ownership in the United States is the paucity of data, itself a sign of a troubling ethical insouciance. But the evidence of our mistreatment of our pets is all around us. To give one personal example: I once rented a house next to a family that owned a St. Bernard they kept in the backyard. This “family” dog spent almost all of the day baking under the New Mexico sun with no stimulation and no interaction with humans.

As we might expect, just as allowing humans to legally dominate one another — a practice that is outlawed almost everywhere in the world — leads to extreme suffering, so does allowing humans to legally dominate their pets. The echoes of human slavery in pet ownership raise the specter of a more radical objection: that pet ownership, like slavery, is wrong in itself. Luckily for pet owners everywhere, I do not think this claim can be sustained.

What makes slavery wrong in itself is that human beings have an actual and strong interest in autonomy, or in the ability to fulfill their desires unconstrained and uncontrolled by external forces. To say that they have an interest in this ability is to say that they desire it: human beings have the complex higher-order desire that they be able to fulfill their first-order desires without external constraint or control. Because slavery as such negates autonomy, it violates a human being’s autonomy interest. This makes slavery wrong as such. By contrast, I do not believe that animals have an autonomy interest. My dog wants to go outside, wants to snuggle with me on the couch, and wants to chase squirrels, but I very much doubt that my dog wants to be able to do these things without constraint. Having an autonomy interest requires a level of cognitive sophistication that our pets lack.

Although pet ownership is not wrong as such, this does not mean that we should rest content with the legal domination that is part and parcel of contemporary pet ownership. Instead, we should introduce far more stringent, and legally enforceable, standards. In particular, I propose that states adopt a pet “bill of rights,” to be enforced by a dedicated government agency, with at least the following provisions:

  1. Every pet is entitled to adequate food, shelter and water.
  2. Every pet is entitled to adequate medical care.
  3. Every pet is entitled to adequate physical and mental stimulation.
  4. If appropriate, every pet is entitled to adequate human or non-human companionship.

What can individuals do to make the world a better place for pets? Perhaps the choice with the greatest impact would be to not have a pet at all. The evidence suggests that many pet owners are not prepared to shoulder the burden of satisfying the pet bill of rights provisions. One should take this responsibility extremely seriously, which starts with considering seriously whether one is both willing and able to provide for another sentient being’s entire welfare.

Perhaps humanity’s greatest moral achievement to date was the abolition of legal slavery, driven by the insight that giving people legal dominion over other people is morally wrong. Our relationships with our pets are different in important respects from slavery. After all, many — though by no means all — owners are profoundly emotionally connected to their pets. There are already some legal protections for pets, as for all animals — although I have argued that these protections are woefully inadequate. Most importantly from the moral point of view, animals do not have the autonomy interest that would make pet ownership, like slavery, wrong in itself. Nevertheless, our history of slavery should make us sensitive to the moral implications of tolerating legal domination, even over non-human creatures.

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Should I Stay, or Should I Go: Holidays in the Age of Coronavirus

photograph of "Stay Safe" message among pumpkins and thanksgiving background

Some of the busiest holidays in America — Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years — bring floods of people into airports, who are all looking to travel across the country to see family that they might not have seen all year. Normally, the last few months of the year bring plenty of opportunity for those families to meet each other over pounds of food and gift exchanges. The year of 2020, however, is anything but normal. The coronavirus has put a halt to any and all ideas of what was once considered typical. This virus has been ravaging the world for almost a year now, and the country has managed to still celebrate some holidays, such as the Fourth of July, as summer weather allowed for outdoor gatherings where it was easy to social distance, and harder for the virus to spread. Now that winter is coming on, however, these get-togethers will have to be inside the homes of Americans, with far more risk of transmission. As cases climb and hospitals fill, one has to ask what the appropriate course of action is for Americans who want (understandably) to visit family during the holidays, while this pandemic is surging forward with little end in sight.

As scientists have been concerned about since the beginning of this pandemic, the world appears to be entering a second wave of coronavirus cases. After opening up during the summer months, Europe is introducing new restrictions limiting which businesses can open, as well as night curfews for citizens, as they see cases beginning to surge across the continent. Due to far less restrictions than Europe, and the lack of a cohesive federal response to COVID, America never really cleared the first wave of the virus. While the summer months saw a decline in cases, recently the country set a new record of 90,000 cases in a single day, bringing the total cases to nearly 9 million just in the U.S. As cases rise, hospitals are quickly beginning to fill up, which when this virus first hit led to people dying in hallways of hospitals, mass burials, and hospital workers not having proper equipment to protect themselves from the virus. While in the summer it appeared as if the country was past those horrible conditions, the colder months have brought a reminder of the fact that the world is still very much in the midst of this pandemic.

As the temperature grows colder people are coming in contact more often in enclosed spaces, which increases the spread of the virus. But there is also the issue of pandemic fatigue. This virus has taken over every aspect of life, putting extra stress on everyone’s lives. People have had to create new routines and question behaviors that they once thought completely normal, like hugging grandma. People are growing weary of the fact that life is not what it once was, and that there is an ever-present threat that continues to loom over the entire globe. This exhaustion can lead to an increase in cases as people begin to exercise more risky behavior, like dining inside or going to large events, as if we’ve beaten the virus. As we head into the holidays it makes sense that people want to spend time with their loved ones, especially ones that they haven’t seen for months. The winter months already see a combination of seasonal depression with regular depression among people, and COVID certainly led to a decline of mental health among Americans. The rates of both suicides and opioid overdoses have become very concerning for public health experts who warn of an underlying mental health crisis as a result of the stress and anxiety surrounding the coronavirus. People have been isolated from their families and friends for months because of travel restrictions, and now is the time when people most often travel to see their loved ones. It makes perfect sense that people would want to gather for comfort and strength in these very uncertain and stressful times. Many families have lost loved ones — there are over 230,00 deaths in the U.S. currently — and this is the first time that they will have to experience these holidays without those people present. Grief is a powerful emotion, and mixed with pandemic fatigue, this may lead to people willing to take more risks in order to seek comfort in their families.

The winter holidays are most definitely some of the busiest days of the years for travel, either by car, plane, or other transport. This creates a big risk for people who want to visit their families, but need to visit airports to make it home. Just last year over 45 million people traveled on American airlines throughout the globe over this time period. Considering the fact that many countries have restrictions on who can come in, and America is often on the list of those nationalities who are not allowed in, that number will most definitely be lower. Masks are required throughout the airports and during the flight, which would make it seem as if these flights were quite safe. A new study even came out recently which concluded air travel was safer than eating at a restaurant, albeit this study was sponsored by the air industry, which is desperate for flyers due to the loss of revenue from air travel being restricted throughout the entire globe. A recent long distance flight to Ireland, however, questions the validity of this study as 13 passengers tested positive for the coronavirus on the flight, and then passed it on to people in Ireland, for a total of 59 cases all linked to this flight. Throughout the pandemic, the coronavirus has shown how little we actually know about the virus, as even mask wearing was once deemed not important by health officials. But now calls for a national mask mandate have been amplifying, as they have proven to be extremely effective in stopping transmission of the virus. So the question of risk regarding air travel remains up in the air.

This last year has probably been one of the most stressful, if not the most stressful, period of most people’s lives around the world. This virus is something that none of us can ignore because it affects everyone. If it takes the whole world to spread the virus, it seems it is going to take the whole world working together in order to stop it. This end appears to still be quite a ways off, however, and people are still left with a feeling of inevitableness of this eternal feeling of waiting. Understandably, the first instinct for a lot of people might be to reach out to those closest to them. Some might want to continue decades-long traditions that their families have carried on in an attempt to find a sense of normalcy in these strange times. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has information on their website to help people make responsible decisions if they decide to have some sort of celebration for the holidays. But, one must remember that these are strange times, and any contact with people outside those you live with carries some level of risks. As with most things during this pandemic, people will have to consider the risks of celebrating the holidays this year with those they hold most dear.

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What Would Kierkegaard Make of Twitter?

photogrph of Twitter homepage on computer screene

In the weeks leading up to Election Day 2020, Twitter and other social media companies announced they would be voluntarily implementing new procedures to discourage the spread of misinformation across their platforms; on November 12th, Twitter indicated that it would maintain some of those procedures indefinitely, arguing that they were successful in slowing the spread of election misinformation. In general, the procedures in question are examples of “nudges” designed to subtly influence the user to think twice before spreading information further through the social network; dubbed “friction” by the social media industry, examples include labeling (and, in some cases, hiding) tweets containing misleading, disputed, or unverified claims, and double-prompting a user who attempts to share a link to an article that they have not opened. While the general effectiveness of social media friction remains unclear (although at least one study related to COVID-19 misinformation has shown promise), Twitter has argued that their recent policy changes have led to a 29% reduction in quote-tweeting (where a user simultaneously comments on and shares a tweet) and a 20% overall reduction in tweet-sharing, both of which have slowed the spread of misleading information.

We currently have no shortage of ethical questions arising from the murky waters of social networks like Twitter. From the viral spread of “fake news” and propaganda to the problems of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers to malicious agents spearheading disinformation campaigns to the fostering of violence-producing communities like QAnon and more, alerts about the risks posed by social media programs are aplenty (including here at The Prindle Post, such as Desdemona Lawrence’s article from August of 2018). Given the size of Twitter’s user base (it was the fourth-most-visited website by traffic in October 2020 with over 353 million users visiting the site over 6.1 billion times), even relatively uncommon problems could still manifest in significant numbers and no clear solution has arisen for limiting the spread of falsehoods that would not also limit benign Twitter usage.

But is there such a thing as benign Twitter usage?

The early existentialist philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard might think not. Writing from Denmark in the early 1800s, Kierkegaard was exceedingly skeptical of the social movements of his day; as he explains in The Present Age: On the Death of Rebellion, “A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere.” Instead of living full, meaningful lives, Kierkegaard criticized his contemporaries for simply desiring to talk about things in ways that, ultimately, amounted to little more than gossip. Moreover, Kierkegaard saw how this would underlie a superficiality of love for showing off to “the Public” (the abstract collection of people made up of “individuals at the moments when they are nothing”); all this “talkativeness” would produce a constant “state of tension” that, in the end, “exhausts life itself.” Towards the end of his essay, Kierkegaard summarizes his criticism of his social environment by saying that “Everyone knows a great deal, we all know which way we ought to go and all the different ways we can go, but nobody is willing to move.”

This all probably sounds unsettlingly familiar to anyone with a Twitter account.

Instead of giving into the seductions and the talkativeness of the present age, Kierkegaard argues for the value of silence, saying that “only someone who knows how to remain essentially silent can really talk — and act essentially” (that is, act in a way that would give one’s life genuine meaning). Elsewhere, in the first Godly Discourse of The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air, Kierkegaard draws a lesson from birds and flowers about the value of quietly focusing on what genuinely matters. As a Christian theologian, Kierkegaard locates ultimate value in “the Kingdom of God” and argues that lilies and birds do not speak, but are simply present in the world in a way that mimics a humble, unassuming, simple presence before God. The earnestness or authenticity that comes from learning how to live in silence allows a person to avoid the distractions prevalent in the posturing of social games. “Out there with the lily and the bird,” Kierkegaard writes, “you perceive that you are before God, which most often is quite entirely forgotten in talking and conversing with other people.”

Indeed, the talkativeness and superficiality inherent to the operation of social media networks like Twitter would trouble Kierkegaard to no end, even before considering the myriad ways in which such networks can be abused. And, in a similar way, whatever we now consider to be of ultimate importance (be that Kierkegaard’s God or something else), the phenomenology of distraction away from its pursuit is no small thing. Twitter can (and should) continue to try and address its role in the spread of misinformation and the like, but no matter how much friction it creates for its users, it seemingly can’t promote contemplative silence: “talkativeness” is a necessary Twitter feature.

So, Kierkegaard would likely not be interested in the Twitter Bird much at all; instead, he would say, we should attend to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field so that we can learn how to silently begin experiencing life and other things that truly matter.

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Freedom of Speech and the Self-Defense Argument

photograph of Alex Jones with megaphone reporting for InfoWars

As a philosopher, I especially value freedom of speech: the idea that everyone should be free to state their opinions and ideas, without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction — unless, of course, that speech incites violence. This is partly because I revel in odd, counterintuitive, and persuasive arguments that challenge my beliefs and assumptions. Here it appears freedom of speech norms are key to intellectual life: they allow disagreeing parties to express differing opinions without social or political reprisal. If those who disagree keep silent, then intellectual inquiry would stop — how could it not?

The British philosopher, John Stuart Mill, held something like this view, when he defended the instrumental (and personal) value of freedom of speech:

“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion.”

Antiquated language aside, Mill is offering an intellectual reason in defense of freedom of speech: without this liberty, we couldn’t really have an intellectual discussion; there would be viewpoints we may disagree with that wouldn’t be expressed. How can I know I’m right in my political, moral, or religious views, if I don’t know why there are other folks who disagree with me? Notice too this argument applies to cultural and societal norms, and not just the state. If we’re against freedom of expression, as a society, it won’t matter that the state allows.

Despite intellectual reasons for freedom of speech norms, critics have offered compelling moral reasons against it: words can hurt, and hurt badly. Verbal abuse, by example, can leave lasting psychological scars; freedom of speech can, and often is, used as a cudgel against marginalized and minority groups in society. There’s a sense in which freedom of speech can marginalize, control, and even erase individuals and groups that society deems other: folks too different from the rest of society to have a point of view worth heeding. Or we can see how freedom of speech norms can be a permission slip for folks to discuss views antithetical to the moral standing of members of marginalized groups. As some critics of the logic of freedom of speech argue (discussing freedom of speech on campus; but the logic generalizes):

“This logic expects members of marginalized groups to debate their very humanity. As a queer faculty member, it means I am expected to engage in a discussion about the validity of my identity: whether it is real, whether it might be symptomatic of demonic possession or perhaps a mental illness. Students and faculty of color, similarly, are expected to debate the reality of their experiences and their right to equitable systems.”

The logic of this argument — call it the self-defense argument — is that it would be wrong to prop up freedom of speech norms when free speech can be used to question the validity of members of marginalized groups. When supporters of free speech point to the instrumental values of our freedom of speech — for, say, preserving rigorous intellectual discussion — they often leave off that words can do serious harm. And the reply, by freedom of speech supporters, that harmful speech should be met with more speech may not be convincing to someone who, day in and day out, has to hear, either explicitly or in a subtle way, that their rights and identity aren’t really a thing. Perhaps freedom of speech is good for rigorous debate, but only when parties to that discussion are on comparable social footing — a thing people in marginalized groups oftentimes lack.

However compelling the self-defense argument against freedom of speech norms is, it functions as a philosophical double-edged sword. The self-defense reasons one can offer against freedom of speech norms can be rejiggered to support them too. First though, consider an insight from the famous Chinese general, Sun Tzu, who observed the following about war:

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near […] Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.”

How are deception and war related to freedom of speech? Banning or restricting speech, and especially speech from individuals and groups who use their power and influence to challenge the validity and identity of marginalized group members, forces such individuals to hide what they really think and believe, and perhaps only express their views in select company. And even if this mostly silences their oppressive speech, it has a nasty by-product: we have a far poorer idea of who holds repugnant and morally objectionable views, and what those views are, than we would if they were allowed to (largely) speak their minds without fear of reprisal.

It is likely good to know whether folks are prejudiced and bigoted, for no other reason than we can keep an eye on them. And that appeal to self-defense should appeal to everyone, especially folks most at risk from freedom of speech abuses. They have a right to know who among them has bigoted and close-minded views, rather than being in the dark about what their neighbors, co-workers, and whatnot actually believe about them. Learning this can be painful, of course, but so is not knowing whether moral objectionable beliefs are pervasive — just as we should prefer, for practical reasons, clumsy and recognizable Nazis over the charming and subtle ones, to illustrate with an extreme case. As the saying goes: ‘forewarned is forearmed.’

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Mill’s Dilemma

image of crowd with empty circle in the middle

One of the most famous defenders of free speech, John Stuart Mill, argued against the silencing of unpopular opinion on the grounds that we would potentially miss out on true ideas and that we need to check our own fallibility. Contained in this reasoning is the idea that in the marketplace of ideas that truth would hopefully emerge. But that marketplace is evolving into several niche submarkets. The use of algorithms and the creation of filter bubbles means that we no longer share a common pool of accepted facts. The recent US election has revealed just how polarized the electorate is, and this raises a moral question about to what extent a democratic public is obligated to look outside of their bubbles.

Regardless of whether the current president concedes at this point, it is difficult to think that the conspiracy theories about the 2020 election will disappear, and this will have long-term ramifications for the country. What this means is that at least two sets of citizens will have very different factual understandings of the world, especially after January. The fake news being spread about the election is filling a demand for a particular version of events, and on the right this demand is now being met with news sources whose content is ever more divorced from the reporting that the rest of us get. For example, the backlash by Trump supporters over Fox News’ projected win for Biden has led many on the right to label the network as “too liberal” and to switch to alternatives who are more willing to reflect the reality that is desired rather than the reality that exists. Similarly, conservatives feeling that their views have been censored on Facebook or Twitter have been drifting towards new platforms which are tailor-made to reflect their beliefs and are rife with misinformation.

The long-term concern of course is that as different political perspectives confine themselves to their own apps, sites, and feeds, the filter bubble effect becomes more pronounced. The concerns that Mill had about censorship in the marketplace of ideas isn’t the problem. The problem is that the pluralistic marketplaces that have spawned, and the different sets of political worldviews that have been created, are becoming insular and isolated from one another and thus more unrecognizable to each other. This is a problem for several reasons. Many have already pointed out that it allows for misinformation to spread, but the issue is more complicated.

The political bubbles of information and the echo chamber effect are making it easier to escape that check on fallibilism for those all across the political spectrum. It also makes addressing real world problems like climate change and COVID-19 more complicated. As one nurse has said, people are literally using their last breaths proclaiming that COVID isn’t real as they die from the disease. When recently asked about the fact that President Trump received over 70 million votes in the election, former President Obama opined that the nation is clearly divided and that the worldview presented in rightwing media is powerful. He noted, “It’s very hard for our democracy to function if we are operating on completely different sets of facts.”

As many experts have testified, this split in worldview is not going away. The moral issue isn’t merely that so many people can believe falsehoods or that truths may be buried; it’s the way that “facts,” as understood within an epistemic bubble, are related to each other and how political problems get defined by those relations which all lead to incommensurability. The moral issue is thus practical: how does a society where everyone is free to create their own worldview based on their preferences and have their views echoed back to them function when we can’t recognize what the other side is talking about? As the election debates demonstrated, certain dog whistles or narratives will resonate to some and not be recognized by others. Even if we put facts, fact-checking, and truth aside, do we still have a moral obligation to look outside of our own bubble and understand what our political opponents are saying?

In a recent paper from Episteme on the subject, C Thi Nguyen argues that we need to distinguish between epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. In the former, information is left out because a consumer is only provided certain sources. For example, if I open links to certain kinds of articles in a news feed, an algorithm may begin to provide more articles just like it and exclude articles that I am less likely to open. Thus leading to an epistemic bubble. On the other hand, if I specifically avoid certain sources or exclude certain sources I am creating an echo chamber. As described, “Both are structures of exclusion—but epistemic bubbles exclude through omission, while echo chambers exclude by manipulating trust.” Breaking free from an echo chamber is far more difficult because it involves using distrust of non-members to epistemically discredit them.

Trust is obviously important. Attempts to undermine fake news outlets or engage in censorship have only seemed to inspire more distrust. Fox News tries to maintain journalistic integrity by projecting an election, but this breaks the trust of Fox News viewers who leave for another network which will reflect their wishes. Since Twitter tags misleading tweets, conservatives are opting for other means of sharing their views. It seems the more that the so-called mainstream media tries to combat disinformation spread, the more it creates distrust. Simply trying to correct misinformation will not work either. Studies of disinformation campaigns reveal just how difficult it is to correct because even once a false claim is corrected, it is often the false claim that is remembered.

So, what is the alternative? As mainstream media attempts to prevent the spread of misinformation on their own platforms, trust in those platforms declines. And those who are left watching mainstream media, even if they do want truth, lose a check on their own biases and perspectives. Do the rest of us have an obligation to look at Newsmax, Breitbart, or Parler just so we can see what epistemic framework the other side is coming from? It may not be good for the cause of truth, but it might be necessary for the cause of democracy and for eventually getting the country to recognize and respond to the same problems. It may be that the only way to rebuild the epistemic trust required to break free from our echo chambers is to engage with our adversaries rather than merely fact-check them. By preventing the marketplace of ideas from balkanizing, there may still be a cheerful hope that through the exchange of ideas truth will eventually emerge. On the other hand, it may only cause more disinformation to spread even easier. Mill’s dilemma is still our dilemma.

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Should At-Home Workers Be Taxed?

overhead photograph of hands on laptop on dinner table surrounded by food and beverages

Deutsche Bank recently released a report titled “What We Must Do to Rebuild” which contains a number of policy proposals. One of the more noteworthy suggestions concerns a 5% daily tax on employees who choose to work from home. Since “WFH offers direct financial savings on expenses such as travel, lunch, clothes, and cleaning,” it seems that “remote workers are contributing less to the infrastructure of the society whilst still receiving its benefits.” As such, “Those who are lucky enough to be in a position to ‘disconnect’ themselves from the face-to-face economy owe it to [those who can’t].”

But there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of this argument. Some of these reasons have to do with how we define “disconnect”; others have to do with our conception of fairness and who owes what to whom.

First, the study seems to assume that incomes have stayed the same, but nearly half of all American households saw a reduction in income due to COVID-19. More importantly, the study assumes that the money not spent on commutes, take-out lunches, and dry cleaning are not being pumped back into the economy in other ways. In general, most Americans spend all or more than they earn. And spending trends during COVID-19 might be down in some areas, but they are up in others. Amazon profits soared during the pandemic. Americans are pumping more money into home improvement during the pandemic. And Americans who aren’t spending are paying down debt, which still counts as cash going into the economy. In fact, Americans (with means) are spending more in a lot of areas including, pets, education, home improvement, food and dining, shopping, gifts and charitable donations.

Now one issue might be with respect to where at-home workers are spending their money. Amazon, Home Depot, and paying credit card debt all push money out of the local economy. But the areas hit hardest are home to large mega-corporations that push money out of the local economy too. If the moral solution to preserving a local economy is to tax those who benefit from the economy but are sending their earnings out, we should start with broad federal policies aimed at the biggest fish. Amazon would be a good place to start.

16.5% of American households earn 50,000-75,000 a year. There are approximately 128,000,000 households in the US. Let’s assume 40% of those are work-from-home with an average of 50,000/year. A 5% tax increase would generate about $125 billion. But look at how the corporate tax rate has fallen since the 50’s when it hovered around 50%. It’s now down to 21%. And in 2018 60 Fortune 500 companies paid zero on income taxes at all. Raising the corporate tax rate and ensuring that top companies actually pay it would generate more than what you would likely get from squeezing it out of the average American stay-at-home worker.

The one area in which at-home workers might be pulling money out of the economy is when they save their money instead of spending it. But it seems that the tax penalty here should not be on people who suddenly have more money to save, it should be on anyone who chooses to save their money rather than spend it. Again, corporations are also hoarding cash. In 2019 Apple and Alpha had approximately $100 billion in cash each. At the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020, The Fortune 500 companies had a total of $325 billion cash on hand just sitting there.

This is not a soak the rich argument; I have taken no position on whether we should tax anyone. This is a soak them first if we’re going to soak anyone argument. The same reasons used to justify taxing at-home workers apply just as well (if not better) to taxing larger corporations.

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Underwater Heritage? Raising Titanic’s Marconi Telegraph Device

black-and-white photograph of Titanic

In the early morning hours of April 15th, 1912, the RMS Titanic, the “unsinkable” ship hit an iceberg and sunk. 1,500 passengers and crewmembers died. After the accident but before the ship sank, Jack Phillips, the chief telegraphist aboard, sent a series of distress calls on the vessel’s state-of-the art Marconi telegraph device. By these means, the Titanic was able to make contact with the Cunard liner Carpathia. Carpathia was able to save 700 of Titanic’s passengers, bringing them safely to a port in New York four days later. Many of these lives, if not all of them, would have been lost had Titanic not been equipped with the Marconi telegraph device. It has been referred to as the “voice of Titanic” for good reasons.

In 1985, the remains of Titanic were discovered off the coast of Nova Scotia. Sonar from a French research ship indicated the presence of the wreckage, and an unmanned diving sled, the Argo, fitted with cameras, was able to confirm that the vessel was, indeed, Titanic.

The discovery of Titanic ignited debates about who owned what was found there. Titanic was a ship in the fleet of White Star Line, which no longer existed at the time Titanic was found. RMS Titanic Ltd., a company that conducted a series of dives to Titanic to retrieve artifacts, claimed ownership as salvor-in-possession. This means, essentially, that the party or parties that salvaged materials from a site have a right to the materials at that site. A company that insured Titanic fought back against RMS Titanic Ltd., claiming rights in virtue of the fact that it paid out compensation over what was lost. In 2007, RMS Titanic Ltd. was granted ownership. Recently, the company made plans to excavate the Marconi device, the “voice of the Titanic” from the wreckage.

One of the main objections to excavating significant portions of Titanic has to do with respect for the dead, and respect for the families of those that lost their lives when the ship sank. Some survivors of the tragedy have, in years past, made their thoughts about raising the ship well known. Eva Hart was a seven-year-old passenger on Titanic and escaped on a lifeboat to safety. Her father was not so lucky. In a 1985 interview, Eva reflected on the possibility of raising the ship. She said, “…to me, it’s my father’s grave. I don’t ever want to see the Titanic again. I don’t want to see it raised.”

Eva was not alone in expressing these concerns. On the possibility of raising the ship, the Titanic Project Director in 1985, Dr. Robert Ballard, said, “Oh, I think that would be ridiculous. No, absolutely not. In fact, I would like to go and try to ensure that the desecration of this memorial to 1,500 souls is left the way it is.” He continued, “It’s like trying to raise the Arizona at Pearl Harbor. I see absolutely nothing to be gained and I think that a ship like this, being a sailor of many years, you ought to leave it where it is. The souls have now been located and they are fine where they are.”

There have been other expeditions to Titanic during which artifacts have been retrieved. One of the concerns about this particular expedition is that it might dislodge bodies of the deceased from what many view as their graves. In response, RMS Titanic Ltd. has claimed that their surveillance of the area provides them with no reason to believe that there are bodies in that portion of the ship. Indeed, over the course of more than 200 dives, RMS Titanic Ltd. has found no human remains in the ship. In response to this argument, Paul Johnston, maritime history curator with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History said, “Fifteen hundred people died in that wreck. You can’t possibly tell me that some human remains aren’t buried deep somewhere where there aren’t any currents.”

A second objection is that the courts were wrong in the first place to grant ownership of Titanic to anyone. The vessel isn’t a fairy tale chest full of treasure abandoned by a pirate, it’s a cultural heritage site, even if no one ever sees it. Countless books and movies have been made about the Titanic tragedy. It speaks deeply to so many human emotions and human values. Even all these years after the fact, many feel a deep sense of grief when they reflect on the magnitude of the loss. The story of Titanic is a human story, for better or for worse. The building of the ship is a story of human triumph and innovative spirit. Those that boarded it expressed an adventurous outlook and an appreciation for human accomplishment. These are attitudes with which we can all relate. On the other hand, it is also a story of hubris, socio-economic injustice, suffering, fear, grief, and inexpressible loss. It seems callous to even refer to what sits on the bottom of the sea at that site as “wreckage.” It is a memorial both to those that were lost and to all of the human sentiments the event evokes when we reflect upon it so long after the fact. In this sense, Titanic, unmolested, belongs to all of humanity.

In response to these concerns, those that advocate for retrieving the Marconi device argue that it is precisely because Titanic belongs to all of humanity that significant portions of the ship should re-surface. Viewing portions of the ship, getting to know the people on it and the way that things functioned is an important part of educating people about what happened. For example, it is one thing, in the abstract, to understand that people died; people can read about that in history books. It is a different experience entirely to see the personal effects of those that were lost — their hairbrushes, their shoes, their wedding rings, their diaries. These kinds of details make events real for people. In particular, viewing the Marconi device will educate people on one significant element of the story — the critical technology that prevented the disaster from taking even more lives.

Bolstering this argument are considerations about democratizing the ability to view artifacts from Titanic. Currently, it is possible for the very wealthy to take expeditions to the actual Titanic site. If you have an extra $125,000 laying around, you too can engage in a bit of tragedy tourism by taking a state-of-the-art submersible 2.5 miles under the ocean to what remains of the ship. Bringing relics like the Marconi device to the surface makes the ability to view these items of historical significance available to all people.

The present location of the Titanic exhibit cuts against the idea that the goal of putting artifacts on display is to affordably educate the population at large in a way that is respectful of the magnitude of the tragedy. The exhibit isn’t at the Smithsonian or at some other well-respected museum that people can view at the price of a voluntary donation. Instead, the exhibit is currently housed at Luxor Casino in Las Vegas, where spectators, after they’ve hit the buffet and had a few drinks, can view the personal effects of the dead. That is, if they haven’t gambled away their last thirty-two dollars, which is the price of admission.

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Fairness in Taxation

photograph of pencil lying on 1040 tax form

For many, the 2020 election was primarily tied to the presidential race. However, many important ballot questions appeared in states across the country. In Illinois, a ballot initiative, dubbed by supporters as the “Fair Tax” amendment, sought to amend the Illinois state constitution to abolish the flat income tax and replace it with a graduated income tax. Though it might sound simple, campaigns concerning the ballot question saw over $100 million of investment. In the end, the tax amendment was rejected by a 10% margin at the polls.

Is a flat tax system ethical? What are the values and detriments of taxing income at the same rate?

Only 9 states in the U.S. enforce a flat tax rate. These states are spread across the U.S. and across the political spectrum, from Massachusetts and Colorado to Utah and Kentucky. In terms of flat income tax states, Illinois is on the higher end of the tax rate, charging 4.95% of its residents’ income levels.

One moral argument for the flat tax rate is that on its face, it appears extremely fair. Everyone, regardless of income level, is expected to contribute an equal share of their earnings to the local government. A flat tax is also considered to prevent deadweight loss, and the unintended consequences that follow from it. Those who believe that our economy is meritocratic — where labor leads proportionally to profit — might favor a flat tax because it does not constrain those who choose to labor more and therefore profit more.

Another value of the flat tax is that it is easy to understand and implement. Individuals do not have to worry about whether or not their next bonus at work will push them over the edge into the next tax bracket. The flat tax rate has also been considered good for both the middle class and the upper class, or the “job creators.” Those who subscribe to free market ideology believe that a flat tax is the most acceptable form of income tax in that it does the least to inhibit the efficient allocation of resources which already occurs naturally through free-market processes. Flat tax rates have also been found to stimulate the economy through an increase in investment and consumption.

The relative value of eliminating line-drawing is also a benefit claimed by flat tax advocates. If everyone is taxed the same as principle, we can avoid the difficult, and at times arbitrary, process of determining which income levels warrant which levels of income tax. Supporters of flat tax rates might even point to examples of inequity caused by lobbying in graduated tax systems, such as the recent exemption in the 2018 tax plan, which rather unreasonably favored the food company Newman’s Own.

However, many argue that though flat tax rates appear on their face to be equitable, they actually contribute to inequality overall. For a person near or below the poverty line, 4-5% less income can make a substantial difference in lifestyle compared to the wealthiest members of society. For this reason, flat taxes are often considered as favoring the wealthy, as their lifestyle is affected far less than those at the bottom of the income bracket. When combining a flat tax rate with charitable exemptions, the wealthiest members of society might end up paying very little, which can put the burden of taxation on the middle and lower classes or lead to an overall shortage of tax funds with which to address social issues.

Those in Illinois who supported abolishing the flat tax believed it was the fairest policy for the most amount of people. In fact, 97% of all Illinois residents stood to have their tax rate stay the same or decrease as a result of the amendment. Only those individuals making more than $250,000 per year would see an increase in their income tax rate. However, the fair tax amendment did not pass, by roughly a 10% margin.

An Illinois local news agency, Forest Park Review, published interviews with Illinois residents debating the fair tax amendment. Those in Illinois who were against abolishing the amendment argued that once the precedent of graduated income tax was set, the Illinois state government could set new tax rates at any time. One such detractor, Dan Watts, also pointed to the fact that the state of Illinois has notoriously misspent and mismanaged the state budget and finances for years, and that the responsibility of this mismanagement should not fall back onto individuals in an attempt to “paint the water-stained walls.” Another detractor of the amendment, Dan Bjornson, expressed a similar distrust of government, justifying his opposition to the amendment by pointing out that “they’ve made a mess of the state’s finances and I would not want to give them additional power.” However, others argue that it is the very tax system itself that has created such budgetary crises at the state level. Fair tax supporter Quentin Fulks, the chair of the Vote Yes for Fairness campaign, purported that “Illinois is in a massive budget crisis due to years of a tax system that has protected millionaires and billionaires at the expense of our working families.”

Perhaps the greatest irony of Illinois’ ballot amendment is the fact that those heading both the pro- and anti-flat tax campaigns were themselves billionaires. Governor Pritzker invested $56 million to the “Vote Yes for Fairness” campaign. His campaign donation was nearly evenly matched by billionaire Ken Griffin, who poured $54 million into the “Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment” campaign. It seems that the upper echelon of society is controlling the narrative when it comes to a policy that affects every individual. Perhaps it is time to examine a political system in which one’s income heavily dictates the power one wields in the democratic debate over regulating such income.

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Yes Elon, There Is Space Law

image of deep space with nebulae and bright stars

Elon Musk has spoken at great length about the details of his envisioned human colony on Mars. Among other things, he has ideas about the legal and political contours of Martian life. In terms of the form of Martian government, Musk argues for a direct democracy in which the laws can easily be repealed. His company, SpaceX, is also making a gambit at escaping not only Earth’s gravitational effects, but its legal influence as well. In the various legal terms and conditions of the company’s Starlink app, SpaceX asserts that neither Mars, nor the space between it and Earth, are governed either by the law of any earthly nation or their international laws. (Activities on the Moon, however, will be governed by California law!) Instead Mars and the starships going there will freely govern themselves according to principles of self-government. However, the reach of Musk and SpaceX exceed their grasp.

The laws of the United States govern SpaceX, which is headquartered in California and incorporated in Delaware. In turn, the United States is signatory to a series of United Nations treaties that govern the activities of signatories with respect to outer space and celestial bodies — not limited to only the Moon. As such, SpaceX is subject to the existing laws that govern extra-planetary activity. The assertion by SpaceX that it will not be bound by existing law amounts to a strange choice of law clause, by which a corporation attempts (sometimes unsuccessfully) to prevent potential plaintiffs from forcing the corporation to litigate under less favorable law, or at least make the law that will govern corporate activity more predictable. SpaceX appears to be trying to create a choice of law clause that chooses no law at all.

Being more charitable, SpaceX’s terms can be interpreted as choosing a sort of natural law stemming from generic principles of reason. However, this likely won’t help SpaceX reach legal escape velocity either. Earthly international law is largely based on international treaties, but international treaties and other legal instruments are based on jus gentium, which is natural law stemming from generic principles of reason. SpaceX, trying to choose nothing, has instead chosen exactly what it wanted to avoid.

SpaceX’s status as a corporation is a significant source of its difficulty. A corporation is a legal entity, existing only under its charter, which is governed by the law of the country where it is incorporated. There is a sense in which SpaceX extinguishes itself by disavowing the laws of the United States under which it is incorporated. If SpaceX were a sovereign nation it would be able enter treaties with other nations as it wished. So an eventual Martian colony, if independent from any terrestrial nation, could declare itself unbound by any other nations laws. But as a corporation, SpaceX is much like the colonial enclaves of England in the Americas and elsewhere. These colonies were chartered corporations created by the British Monarch. Independence and self-rule are not automatically granted to colonies, as history amply demonstrates.

The comparison to colonies is apt, as SpaceX appears to adopt the Earthlight Foundation’s contention that it is the “inalienable right” of space pioneers to do as they like, including “use any resources they find” and “own any land or space” they inhabit. The use of “inalienable,” which means not able to be taken or given away, is not likely what the Foundation wanted to say. Presumably, they envision a sort of free market exchange allowing people to exchange — i.e., give away — rights of use for resources in exchange for other considerations. More important that this pedantic point is the air of colonialism and Manifest Destiny that wafts off of the language. Space and its contents are conceptualized as resources to be exploited, valued in economic terms. This is the mentality of sentient locusts, roving the stars to deplete them, like the alien invaders in Independence Day.

The laws of earthly nations often badly fail to reign in the bad behavior of corporations. However, a self-regulated, corporate space colony is not likely to be better. Neither SpaceX nor any of the other corporate space exploration programs are able to operate wholly without oversight. That is at least some small insurance against a Martian corporate hegemony.

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Reintroducing the Gray Wolf

photograph of two wolves stalking in the snow

Earlier this month, the citizens of Colorado passed Proposition 114, a measure that reintroduces gray wolves into the local ecosystem. The measure involves a plan to reintegrate the wolves by the end of 2023. It passed with 50.4% of votes in support and 49.6% in opposition; it was quite controversial. Some citizens of Colorado view the proposal as a way to honor the promises we made when we passed the Endangered Species Act. Others are concerned about the potential threats posed by reintroducing a predator into the community.

The story of the disappearance of wolves from their native habitats is the story of human western expansion and colonialism. Wolves didn’t simply disappear all on their own. During this time, many people hunted recklessly and decimated populations of elk, deer, and bison. The result was that the food source for predators like gray wolves became limited. Some populations of wolves turned to eating livestock to survive. In response, humans killed every last gray wolf in Colorado. In fact, they killed virtually every gray wolf in the contiguous United States.

As time progressed, humans stopped hunting deer and elk at the same rates that they once did. At this point, however, wolves, the natural predators of these species, no longer existed. This imbalance fundamentally changed ecosystems. Deer populations exploded and ended up harming forests in various ways. Forestry departments embarked on deer-culling missions — the practice of killing deer in order to keep ecosystems and the other living beings that participate in them in some kind of equilibrium.

The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973. It required the Federal Wildlife Service to, if possible, restore animals that have been eliminated from ecosystems. All species of wolves in the contiguous United States were listed as endangered so, in keeping with the act, the FWS was obligated to restore them. In some areas they satisfied this obligation. For example, in 1995 the federal government reintroduced gray wolves into Yellowstone National Park. The findings in Yellowstone suggest that reintroduction of wolves into an ecosystem appears to lead to greater biodiversity in that system. The carcasses of the animals on which wolves feed also serve as a source of food for scavenger species.

Some concerns with Proposition 114 are procedural. Many felt that the issue should not have been up to voters to decide. Reintroduction of gray wolves will impact some areas of the state more than others. Critics are concerned that those who voted in favor of reintroduction are not the people who will have to face the consequences. For example, some rural voters argue that it was urban voters who dictated the trajectory of the vote. Urban voters won’t have to deal with the wolves.

Farmers and cattle ranchers are concerned about the impacts that the presence of wolves might have on their livestock. Ranchers are concerned about the well-being of their animals. Despite the fact that they are raising them to be slaughtered, ranchers would like to be able to allow cattle to freely graze without concerns that they will fall prey to wolves. They feel it is their obligation to protect their livestock up until the time when they send them to CAFOS and slaughterhouses, and the reintroduction of wolves into the ecosystem makes satisfying that duty more difficult. What’s more, because gray wolves are endangered, if a rancher actually witnesses a wolf threatening their cattle, they cannot kill or harass the wolf without risking jail time or a $100,000 fine. That said, there is no reason to believe that scaring the wolf off would expose the rancher to the threat of fine or jail time.

Another pressing concern is that cattle are an investment. To make a living, ranchers need that investment to pay off. If their animals die before they can be sold, the ranchers lose money. In response to this concern, however, advocates of the measure point out that it includes a commitment to offer compensation to ranchers who lose livestock to wolves.

Many ranchers also consider these kinds of environmental policies to be an existential threat to their way of life. They claim that the environmental movement, and conservationism in particular, needs rural allies. Some rural dwellers feel that urban environmentalists are not looking out for the interests of farmers and ranchers and as a result they feel little motivation to cooperate on issues related to public lands.

There are also concerns for the deer and elk populations who will be hunted by the wolves. When we reintroduce a predator into an ecosystem, we increase the extent to which that predator’s prey will experience fear. We also increase the likelihood that deer, elk, and other potential wolf prey will experience more painful deaths than they otherwise might have. It may be true that some of these animals will ultimately be killed by humans as part of wildlife management efforts, but deaths by these hunters are more likely to be fear and pain free.

There is also a metaethical question in play here. Do we have moral obligations only to individual, sentient beings who live in and have experiences of the world? Or do we have moral obligations to species, abstract groupings that are conceptual and not sentient?

Advocates of Proposition 114 argue that we have a moral obligation to protect endangered species. Arguments for this conclusion take several different forms. One is that we have a moral obligation to rectify harms and injustices that human beings have brought about. To the extent that wolves ever did humans any harm, they did so because of the changes that we made to their ecosystem. Advocates of Proposition 114 argue that it was unjust for us to kill off wolves en masse, so we now have an obligation to restore what we have diminished. Human beings are responsible for mass extinction events, and we need to take responsibility for that. The form that this responsibility takes should be more than feeling guilt and mourning the loss. We should actually do something about it, in those cases in which we still can.

Some thinkers, like ecologist and conservationist Aldo Leopold, have argued that species have intrinsic value. The continued existence of any given species is testament to the fact that it has endured the harsh tests of time and the ravages of nature. When the story of a species is brought to an abrupt end unnecessarily by humans, it’s a great tragedy.

Still others argue that it is best for ecosystems to manage themselves naturally. They contend that the equilibrium established by nature is usually more sustainable than a balance that human beings attempt to artificially establish. The reintroduction of the wolf renews the potential that the ecosystem has of attaining that natural balance. This is better, in the long run, for the ecosystem, and ecosystems are worth preserving.

At the end of the day, this case lays bare a fundamental tension in our country that is about more than just gray wolf populations. Environmental change, and what many would refer to as environmental justice, requires people to adapt their lifestyles. Making these changes is easy enough for some, but it is much more difficult for others. Some people’s livelihood, and, indeed, some people’s very identity, is tied up in practices that will be dramatically altered or even eliminated by efforts to protect and preserve the environment and the living creature that inhabit it. It’s no wonder the country is deeply divided.

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Should Republicans and Democrats Be Friends?

photograph of stuffed Republican elephant and Democrat Donkey face-to-face atop American flag

America’s polarization crisis extends to its friendships: a 2017 Pew Research Center survey found that only thirty-one percent of Democrats have at least some friends who are Republicans, while only four-in-ten Republicans said they have some friends who are Democrats. Should we be alarmed by this? Should we be friends with people who hold views we believe to be immoral?

It seems that we have dueling intuitions about the moral permissibility of friendship with those who do not share our values. Consider a peaceful neo-Nazi — someone who has genocidal beliefs but will never act on them. I think most people believe it is wrong to be friends with such a character, and I can think of three arguments in support of this belief. First, there is the “signaling” argument. Being friends with the neo-Nazi will likely be interpreted by others as expressing approval for, or lending credibility to, their beliefs. One ought not signal one’s approval for beliefs one takes to be immoral, so one ought not be friends with the neo-Nazi. The second argument is the “incentive” argument. The idea is that withholding friendship from the neo-Nazi might incent him to abandon his beliefs, which is something we ought to encourage him to do insofar as we believe his beliefs are immoral. If one ought to withhold friendship from the neo-Nazi for this reason, then one ought not be friends with him. Finally, there is the “disesteem” argument, which is that disesteem — that is, feelings of disdain or disapprobation — are an appropriate response to the neo-Nazi’s immoral beliefs, and these feelings are incompatible with genuine friendship. If we ought to A (in this case, feel certain emotions towards the neo-Nazi), and A is incompatible with B (in this case, be friends with the neo-Nazi), then we ought not to B.

So, we certainly have intuitions, backed by reasons, that support not being friends with individuals solely because of their moral beliefs. On the other hand, consider a Kantian and a consequentialist. These two may have fundamental moral disagreements over a host of issues, such as our obligations to the foreign poor, the morally optimal distribution of all-purpose goods, the morality of lying, the morality of infanticide, and whether it is morally permissible to intentionally kill one person in order to save five. Only one of them can be right, so one of them has immoral beliefs. Yet we do not think it would be wrong for them to be friends.

I will assume that Democrats and Republicans have moral disagreements, for example over abortion. The question is whether friendship with someone of the opposing party is like the Kantian’s friendship with the consequentialist or like being friends with a neo-Nazi.

It might be argued that the neo-Nazi’s immoral beliefs include immoral beliefs about how others can be permissibly harmed, which distinguishes them from the beliefs of Kantians and consequentialists, or Republicans and Democrats. But from a Republican’s perspective, Democrats impermissibly believe that it is permissible to harm the unborn; and from a Kantian perspective, consequentialists impermissibly believe that it is permissible to intentionally kill one in order to save five. Furthermore, since the neo-Nazi is peaceful, her genocidal beliefs cannot be distinguished from the others in terms of disposing her to act violently.

The Kantian’s friendship with the consequentialist also nicely illustrates why the distinction between cross-party friendships and friendships with neo-Nazis cannot lie in the sheer number of disagreements, or their moral importance. The Kantian has a large number of fairly fundamental moral disagreements with the consequentialist, including over what makes actions morally right or wrong. Nor can the distinction lie in the idea that Democrats (or Republicans) shouldn’t believe that Republicans (or Democrats) as such hold moral beliefs, while they should believe neo-Nazis hold immoral beliefs. Either the Kantian or the consequentialist should believe that the other’s beliefs are immoral, yet they are seemingly still permitted to be friends.

Nor can the distinction lie in the confidence with which we hold the moral beliefs that differ from our opposite party friend. Plenty of people are just as confident that consequentialism (or Kantianism) is the correct moral philosophy as that racism, or racially motivated genocide, is morally right or wrong. Yet confident consequentialists should not disdain friendships with Kantians and vice versa. On the other hand, we should not be friends with a neo-Nazi just because he is not confident about his genocidal beliefs.

We might try to appeal to the admittedly vague idea of reasonability to distinguish between cross-party friendships and friendships between Kantians and consequentialists on the one hand, and friendships with neo-Nazis on the other. The thought is that the disagreements that occur in the former cases are reasonable, but not in the latter case. It’s not clear that all would agree that this feature does distinguish them, since many people think the beliefs of people of the opposing party are unreasonable. For these people, if reasonability is what distinguishes friendships between Kantians and consequentialists and friendships with neo-Nazis, then cross-party friendships will fall on the side of friendships with neo-Nazis. These people will have to conclude that people of the opposing party do not deserve friendship, that being friends with them lends credibility to their views in a morally problematic way, and that disesteem that is incompatible with friendship is an appropriate response.

More fundamentally, if it’s true that having what we take to be immoral beliefs unfits a person for our friendship, it’s hard to see why they should be unreasonable immoral beliefs. What’s doing the work in our intuition that we ought not to be friends with people because of their beliefs is the moral character of their beliefs, not their rationality or reasonability. Just because a prima facie compelling argument can be given for consequentialism and not Nazism does not make the consequentialist’s beliefs less morally heinous from the point of view of the Kantian.

Another suggestion is that neo-Nazi beliefs are somehow simply worse than, for example, the beliefs of Democrats as viewed from the perspective of Republicans, or the beliefs of consequentialists as viewed from the perspective of Kantians. However, the “signaling,” “incentive,” and “disesteem” arguments are not based on Nazis’ ideas being particularly heinous in the eyes of others, but just on their being believed to be immoral.

We’re left, then, with a troubling conclusion. If one ought not be friends with neo-Nazis solely because of their beliefs, then there is in principle no way to distinguish such friendships from cross-party friendships, insofar as each member of a cross-party friendship believes that the other side holds immoral views.

Still, perhaps we ought to deny the claim that we should not be friends with neo-Nazis, at least in its unqualified form. Some former Nazis strike up friendships with neo-Nazis in order to de-program them; ought we condemn that action? Similarly, if a Democrat believes his Republican friend is racist, might he not justify his friendship on the ground that he is likely to be more successful at persuading his friend to abandon his racist beliefs by remaining friends? A friend of this conception of cross-party friendship might point out that withholding friendship is but one way, and perhaps not the most effective way, to incent others to abandon their beliefs; that simply because feelings of disesteem are appropriate does not mean they are morally required, all-things-considered; and that there are ways to signal one’s disapproval of a friend’s beliefs.

Note that even if these counterarguments are successful, they will not justify a “de-politicized” or “de-moralized” friendship — a friendship wherein at least one person believes the other has immoral beliefs, but decides to do nothing about it. But this raises a further problem, which I can only gesture at: if genuine friendship requires accepting the friend as they are in some sense, then the kind of cross-party friendship that seems morally permissible may not be genuine. In the end, then, it may turn out that genuine cross-party friendships are morally impermissible.

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Winning Graciously and the Problem with Empathy

photograph of Joe Biden speaking with microphone with American flag in background

In his first speech as president-elect, Joe Biden placed a strong emphasis on national unity and reconciliation. “For all those of you who voted for President Trump, I understand the disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of times myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance,” Biden said in between bouts of cheers and honking car horns. “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again. And to make progress we have to stop treating our opponents as enemies.” Biden presents himself  as a president for all, a message which many Democrats and centrists have wholeheartedly embraced as a path to ending, in Biden’s words, a “grim era of demonization” (though he did not specify who or what exactly has been demonized, or whether one side of the political divide is more blameworthy for this demonization than the other).

In the wake of his victory, celebrations have erupted across the globe. People in blue Biden-Harris t-shirts dance in the streets of New York, and across the Atlantic, fireworks are being set off over London. While this outpouring of joy feels well-earned, it’s worth considering what attitude the left ought to take towards Trump supporters going forward. One of the central questions of ethics, famously taken up by T.N. Scanlon in his 1998 book, is what we owe to each other. Many Democrats are wrestling with this question now: what obligations do those on the left have toward their (somewhat) vanquished political foes?

On the one hand, gloating over the defeat of an opponent seems more likely to sow further division than mend bridges. This is primarily a practical consideration for politicians and legislators. As political scientist Ian Bremmer points out, the Republicans may still maintain their hold over the Senate, depending on how the upcoming election in Georgia turns out, so a commitment to compromise and teamwork between both sides will be key going forward. In a tweet, he suggests that “Now is the time for every Biden supporter to reach out to one person who voted for Trump. Empathize with them.”

However, many on the left are pushing back, citing an inextricable problem with the brand of amnesiac empathy Biden encourages. Karl Popper’s famous “tolerance paradox,” inspired by observations of facism in Europe in 1945, states that,

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

Unfettered tolerance contains the seed of its own destruction. An America that is truly for all, for both Trump supporters and the far left, cannot help but destroy itself. The solution, it seems, is for the tolerant to commit to uplifting the downtrodden and disenfranchised while opposing those groups that perpetuate structural violence, a kind of qualified tolerance. Biden’s call for reconciliation may ultimately feed into the pernicious logic that allows for good people “on both sides,” though it seems unfair to preemptively attribute such reprehensible moral equivocation to Biden’s fledgling administration months before he’s even been sworn into office.

So, do we strive for unity which may elide the very real struggles of the disenfranchised, or sink deeper into mutual estrangement, which risks stagnation in the aim of moral purity? The reality is that many of us have no choice but to compromise with one another, to enact change step by step rather than in a glorious blaze of revolution. Political compromise may constitute a moral compromise, but it may pave the road for a future where such concessions are less difficult to make. This may feel like a deeply unsatisfying approach to those long ignored by mainstream political discourse, and it doesn’t always address the deep hurt victims of structural inequality have faced for centuries in this country.

Regardless of the difficult road that lies ahead, this is a moment where celebration is warranted. In particular, Biden’s stance on climate change and immigration are a source of hope for many across the globe, though it is still to be seen whether or not his administration can enact substantive change within our deeply fractured system. But once the euphoria wears off, Democrats and Republicans alike will have to reckon with Scanlon’s question in the tumultuous months to come.

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Expertise and the “Building Distrust” of Public Health Agencies

photograph of Dr. Fauci speaking on panel with American flag in background

If you want to know something about science, and you don’t know much about science, it seems that the best course of action would be to ask the experts. It’s not always obvious who these experts are, but there are often some pretty easy ways to identify them: if they have a lot of experience, are recognized in their field, do things like publish important papers and win grant money, etc., then there’s a good chance they know what they’re talking about. Listening to the experts requires a certain amount of trust on our part: if I’m relying on someone to give me true information then I have to trust that they’re not going to mislead me, or be incompetent, or have ulterior motives. At a time like this it seems that listening to the scientific experts is more important than ever, given that people need to stay informed about the latest developments with the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, there continues to be a significant number of people who appear to be distrustful of the experts, at least when it comes to matters concerning the coronavirus in the US. Recently, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that he believed that there was a “building distrust” in public health agencies, especially when it comes to said agencies being transparent with developments in fighting the pandemic. While Dr. Fauci did not put forth specific reasons for thinking this, it is certainly not surprising he might feel this way.

That being said, we might ask: if we know that the experts are the best people to look to when looking for information about scientific and other complex issues, and if it’s well known that Dr. Fauci is an expert, then why is there a growing distrust of him among Americans?

One reason is no doubt political. Indeed, those distrustful of Dr. Fauci have claimed that he is merely “playing politics” when providing information about the coronavirus: some on the political right in the US have expressed skepticism with the severity of the pandemic and the necessity for the use of face masks specifically, and have interpreted the messages from Dr. Fauci as being an attack on their political views, motivated by differing political interests. Of course, this is an extremely unlikely explanation for Dr. Fauci’s recommendations: someone simply disagreeing with you or giving you advice that you don’t like is not a good reason to find them distrustful, especially when they are much more knowledgeable on the subject than you are.

But here we have another dimension to the problem, and something that might contribute to a building distrust: people who disagree with the experts might develop resentment toward said experts because they feel as though their own views are not being taken seriously.

Consider, for instance, an essay recently written by a member of a right-wing think tank called “How Expert Worship is Ruining Science.” The author, clearly skeptical of the recommendations of Dr. Fauci, laments what he takes to be a dismissing of the views of laypersons. While the article itself is chock-a-block with fallacious reasoning, we can identify a few key points that can help explain why some are distrustful of the scientific experts in the current climate.

First, there is the concern that the line between experts and “non-experts” is not so sharp. For instance, with there being so much information available to anyone with an internet connection, one might think that given one’s ability to do research for oneself that we should not think that we can so easily separate the experts from the laypersons. Not taking the views of the non-expert seriously, then, means that one might miss out on getting at truth from an unlikely source.

Second, recent efforts by social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to prevent the spread of misinformation are being interpreted as acts of censorship. Again, the thought is that if I try to express my views on social media, and my post is flagged as being false or misleading, then I will feel that my views are not being taken seriously. However, the reasoning continues: the nature of scientific inquiry is meant to be that which is open to objection and criticism, and so failing to engage with that criticism, or to even allow it to be expressed, represents bad scientific practice on the part of the experts. As such, we have reason to distrust them.

While this reasoning isn’t particularly good, it might help explain the apparent distrust of experts in the US. Indeed, while it is perhaps correct to say that there is not a very sharp distinction between those who are experts and those who are not, it is nevertheless still important to recognize that if an expert as credentialed and experienced as Dr. Fauci disagrees with you, then it is likely your views need to be more closely examined. The thought that scientific progress is incompatible with some views being fact-checked or prevented from being disseminated on social media is also hyperbolic: progress in any field would slow to a halt if it stopped to consider every possible view, and that the fact that one specific set of views is not being considered as much as one wants is not an indication that productive debate is not being conducted by the experts.

At the same time, it is perhaps more understandable why those who are presenting information that is being flagged as false or misleading may feel a growing sense of distrust of experts, especially when views on the relevant issues are divided along the political spectrum. While Dr. Fauci himself has expressed that he takes transparency to be a key component in maintaining the trust of the public, this is perhaps not the full explanation. There may instead be a fundamental tension between trying to best inform the public while simultaneously maintaining their trust, since doing so will inevitably require not taking seriously everyone who disagrees with the experts.

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Is Moral Mediocrity Bad?

illustration of cartoon crowd with most wearing masks

Here’s a question to consider in a pandemic: do we wear masks and socially distance because we should, or because we’re conforming to what others do? No doubt part of the explanation involves moral reasons: we wear our masks and socially distance to prevent others from getting ill. But that isn’t the whole explanation. Moral psychology backs this up: there is good evidence that we’re morally mediocre; i.e., we aim to be morally on par with our peers, not much worse or much better. And the implication is that moral reasons don’t explain as much of our behavior as we want to believe. Most of us don’t steal candy bars from the story for the sole reason that stealing is wrong; we have practical reasons too: it is easier to simply purchase them, dealing with the police isn’t fun, getting caught would be embarrassing, and so forth.

The empirical evidence from psychology strongly suggests we modulate our behavior based on what others do. To give a few examples: people are more likely to reduce household energy use if shown statistics that they use more than their neighbors. We are subject to peer pressure on a host of practices like littering, lying, tax compliance, and suicide. Moral mediocrity shouldn’t surprise us: as a social species, it not only matters what we do, but how we look to others. We rely on others to cooperate with us for our survival, and so it matters what others think of us if we want them to cooperate with us.

Is moral mediocrity bad? Not particularly; but it isn’t great either. Moral mediocrity can be bad if our peers are morally terrible. Aiming to be about as good and as bad as Nazis would clearly be bad; we should want to be substantially better than Nazis. Of course that’s an extreme case, but there are less extreme ones, too: the social science evidence we reviewed earlier would suggest that we would be less likely to wear masks and socially distance if our peers didn’t do likewise. However, moral mediocrity can also be good: in a just society, where everyone does what justice requires because everyone else is just as well would be a good society in which to live. Citizens in a just society would be good parents and grandparents, they would comply with just norms and laws, pay their debts, wouldn’t cheat or steal, and would only use violence to defend themselves or innocents when necessary. The moral mediocrity of the citizenry isn’t great; but such a society would be. Like many things, moral mediocrity is a mixed bag: some good; some bad.

However, optimal moral agents don’t just act morally; they act for moral reasons too. Suppose Omar is drunk and feeling generous, and gives Sally the cash in his wallet. As it happens, Omar owes Sally that exact amount. But Omar didn’t give Sally the money because he owed her, but because he was drunk and impulsive; had he been hanging with someone else, he would have given them the money instead. This is not a case where Omar’s actions aren’t motivated by just reasons, but rather circumstance. There is nothing especially wrong here; Omar did a good thing). But one should get credit for doing the right thing if one acts from duty, not just as a by-product of something else. When we act for moral reasons, it shows our motives are rooted in moral duty; they aim at the moral good, instead of hitting it accidentally. Kant explains the importance of acting from duty (not merely in accordance with duty):

“[There] are some souls so sympathetically attuned that, even without any other motive of vanity or utility to self, take an inner gratification in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the contentment of others insofar as it is their own work. But I assert that in such a case the action, however it may conform to duty and however amiable it is, nevertheless has no true moral worth, but is on the same footing as other inclinations.”

The evidence of our moral mediocrity suggests we deserve less credit for morally good actions than we often think. We are the beneficiaries of the moral progress made by those who came before us; the reason, say, we think slavery is wrong has far more to do with the cultural period in which we were born than any profound moral insight and bravery on our part as individual moral agents. And this would suggest that we should protect our moral inheritance, instead of free-riding on the hard-won moral victories of those from the past.

And we should clarify in closing: nothing here is reason to discount the role of choice and free will in shaping the kind of moral agents we are. However, it is often tempting to overemphasize the role that agency plays in shaping our moral character and choices, and to downplay the role of our peers and environment. Highlighting our tendency toward moral mediocrity is meant, if nothing else, to correct this imbalance of emphasis.

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The Politics of Depression

blurred photograph of crowd on busy street at night

In contrast to the exuberant energy of the 2016 presidential election (for better or for worse), the 2020 election has been characterized by fatigue, anxiety, and even depression. Regardless of which candidate triumphs in the presidential election, many voters on both sides can’t help feeling daunted by the government’s inability to meet the needs of its citizens.

The language of illness has always been a useful lexicon for politics; the metaphor of the “body politic” informed statecraft in Europe for centuries, and enemies of the state have always been described as a disease eating away at that body. But for those members of the body politic struggling with mental illness, the question is how to remain politically active while battling depression, especially when the stakes are so high.

Depression may be the mental illness par excellence for political discourse under capitalism. While capitalism has been linked to schizophrenia (we are expected to be sober workers by day and hedonists by night, as sociologist Daniel Bell points out, which ultimately creates a fractured psyche), Mark Fisher draws comparisons between his experiences with depression and the mindset induced by capitalism. In his 2009 book Capitalist Realism, he writes that “while sadness apprehends itself as a contingent and temporary state of affairs, depression presents itself as necessary and interminable: the glacial surfaces of the depressive’s world extend to every conceivable horizon.” He sees a parallel between the “the seeming ‘realism’ of the depressive, with its radically lowered expectations, and capitalist realism.” As Fisher understands, enacting political change and fighting depression are struggles against a similar opponent.

Depression itself is becoming increasingly political, both in terms of how we conceptualize it and how we attempt to cure it. Danish literary critic Mikkel Krause Frantzen proclaims in an incendiary essay for the LA Review of Books that “any cure to the problem of depression must take a collective, political form; instead of individualizing the problem of mental illness, it is imperative to start problematizing the individualization of mental illness.” He asserts that “Dealing with depression—and other forms of psychopathology—is not only part of, but a condition of possibility for an emancipatory project today. Before we can throw bricks through windows, we need to be able to get out of bed.” This political approach to illness is rooted in a wider politicization of illness. For example, Anne Boyer writes in her recently published memoir about cancer, The Undying, that “Disease is never neutral. Treatment never not ideological. Mortality never without its politics.” Boyer rejects apolitical cancer treatment, noting that “Our genes are tested, our drinking water is not. Our body is scanned, but not our air . . . The news of cancer comes to us on the same sort of screens as the news about elections.” Like cancer, depression is often viewed as purely somatic, not as a condition with a basis in the material reality of the afflicted.

When we acknowledge that material reality, we create the potential to radicalize those with mental illness. However, the fatalistic mindset of depression often discourages political engagement. One study conducted by researchers at Pennsylvania State University, which argues that “that depression is a political phenomenon insofar as it has political sources and consequences,” found that mental illness “consistently and negatively affects voting and political participation.” Furthermore, “depression also has developmental consequences for political behavior. Adolescent depression has the potential to set individuals on a trajectory of political disengagement in adulthood.” The study paints this as a vicious cycle; without adequate mental health care, we become depressed, and then depression inhibits political engagement, which prevents healthcare policies from ever changing. The study concludes that though research into the neurological aspect of depression is extremely important, it is also,

“worthwhile to theorize about depression in terms of the social model, especially because the experience of a mood disorder such as depression is largely rooted in social circumstances. Depression is socially-situated in so far as it is not something that simply ‘happens’ to someone but arises out of the circumstances of life. This is compounded by the fact that traditionally disadvantaged groups disproportionately experience depression.”

So how can the mentally ill break out of that vicious cycle? There is no easy solution to this dilemma. Even recognizing that major changes that need to be enacted in order to create a liveable world isn’t always enough. As Frantzen says, “there is no reason to believe that abolishing private property ownership, or realizing a global and absolute cancellation of private debt, will relieve the suffering of depressed people with a single stroke, as if by magic.” For voters experiencing a sense of hopelessness at the polls, and who fear plunging to an even greater depth of hopelessness on election night, a radical kind of self-care is needed. Many have already pointed out the often vacant politics of “self-care,” which does not always promote social change as much as we’d like it to. But when self-care is able to foster “not competition among the sick, but alliances of care that will make people feel less alone and less morally responsible for their illness,” in Frantzen’s words, it is certainly a step in the right direction.

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The Day after Election: A Return to Normal?

black-and-white photograph of the Capitol building at night

Much attention and energy is focused on the outcome of the election, but regardless who wins there is a great deal of work to be done — simply declaring one side the victor won’t solve our problems. So what’s the next question we should be asking after “Who won?”

Regardless of who wins the Presidential election, it is clear now that Americans are anxious about the election and the future of their democracy. A recent poll found that 9/10 believe that America is not “normal” right now. Between COVID-19, racial tensions, public unrest, and the election, many Americans yearn for a so-called return to “normalcy.” Public health experts often speak of what it will take to return to normal from a health perspective. The Biden campaign has heavily focused on returning to normalcy. As described by Glenn Reynolds in USA Today, it is a pitch that “all the Trump craziness will expire, and things will be safe, sane and familiar.” The Republican campaign has also been pitching the concept of returning to normal. But the most important morally salient question to be asked is what does “normal” even mean and why do people want to return to it?

Normal can imply two important meanings. Normal can signify actions that are consistent with norms like rules, principles, standards. If one does not act in a way governed by certain norms, then it is not normal. Normal can also signify what is usual, typical, or to be expected. For example, the Brookings Institution suggests several ideas about what returning to normal might mean after a Trump presidency: a normal president will release their tax returns, a normal president won’t associate with dictators, a normal president won’t attack democratic norms by refusing to accept the results, a normal president would be more empathetic, etc. In some cases, these may indicate norms that we think a president should follow such as respecting election results. In other cases, these are simply expectations based on past experiences. It may not be normal for a president to spend so much time on Twitter. However, it becomes problematic when we start to confuse the two, because “normal” in the second sense may mean different things to different people.

Normalcy, in the second sense I have described, is inherently conservative and backward-looking. It is a form of nostalgia, and a tendency to see through rose-colored glasses; an attempt to harken back to the good old days. For example, Ezra Klein of Vox suggests that the Biden campaign “is offering a politics of nostalgia. He is painting a sepia-toned portrait of the Obama era, and reminding voters that he was in that portrait, standing right behind a president they liked and miss.” But if this is the case, then what is “Make America Great Again” if not an appeal to a return to some perceived normalcy? Of a return to the good old days? But psychological studies of fading affect bias remind us that the good old days are not always as good as we remember. After all, President Trump isn’t the first to cozy up to dictators.

Why is a return to some previously “normal” point in time even desirable? Normal is what led to where we are. The victory of Trump in 2016 and everything that has happened since was only made possible by trends and habits that existed before the election. Polarization and fierce partisanship were on the rise well before 2016. The disproportionate shooting of Black people by the police was still present long before 2016, as was systematic racism. Normal before the pandemic left most nations unprepared and scrambling to secure the necessary equipment and resources needed to address the crisis.

Conservative media has stressed that much of what the Biden campaign and broad left are proposing is not normal. The proposals to tackle climate change, public health, and racial justice are new, not normal. In some cases, such as responding to climate change, insisting on normalcy would be bizarre. For many on the left eager for change, it is the break from the norm that is desired. For the right, Trump has already ended normalcy by significantly changing the balance on the Supreme Court. It is foolish to insist on norms that developed in the past that are not responsive to the problems of the future.

Yet, as each side seeks reform in the name of restoring normalcy, it is clear that what is “normal” is not a consensus. The rhetoric of insisting on returning to a “normalcy” that half of the country doesn’t recognize is inherently exclusionary. To be outside of what is called normal is alienating; this is true regardless of political ideology. The larger problem is whose “normalcy” will prevail? And what are the risks of excluding the other side of the normalcy they seek?

It may not even be possible to return to “normal.” Even if Trump loses the election, even if he loses badly, his success in politics has demonstrated that so many assumptions about our democracy were incorrect. That Trump and the Republicans have been able to attack the media, criticize members of the armed forces, spread misinformation, spread coronavirus, run without a new platform, completely backtrack on their own stated principles regarding court appointments, and still get over 40% support in most opinion polls reveals something more concerning. In 2004 an accusation of flip-flopping could be devastating to a candidate, but now consistency over policy barely matters compared to political affiliation. How can democracy function when almost half of the electorate is willing to overlook facts, principles, and social cohesion? Even if Trump loses, the basic strategy will live on. Voter suppression tactics will only become more subtle. Political conspiracies will continue to spread. Many on the left now embrace the advertising tactics of the Lincoln Project, who are able to run the sort of negative and manipulative messaging that used to be so devastating against Democrats. The distrust and animosity that have swelled over the past decade of American politics and the habits that have followed from this will not disappear after election day.

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Third-Party Voting in 2020

photograph of citizens filling out voting ballots with "Vote" sticker on booth

In the weeks leading up to the election, many high-profile celebrities have made last minute political endorsements and pleas for individuals to vote. On October 25, Jennifer Aniston shared an Instagram photo of herself dropping her ballot in the mail. In this post, she shared she had voted for Joe Biden, and in a short PS added “It’s not funny to vote for Kanye. I don’t know how else to say it. Please be responsible.” Kanye West officially announced his presidential bid on Twitter back in July. While he is only on the ballot in 12 states, he has spent over $5 million on his campaign and traveled around the US to give campaign speeches. Perhaps this is part of the reason he did not take lightly to Aniston’s comments, facetiously quipping “Friends wasn’t funny either” in a now deleted tweet. While many might not consider West a serious candidate, he has spoken at length about his stances on political issues from abortion to police reform.

While it may not have been her intention, Aniston’s post points to a larger moral issue not only about the issues at stake in this election, but about voting in general.

Is it wrong to vote for a candidate you know has no chance of winning? Is it okay to vote third party or to cast a protest vote?

From Ralph Nader to Jill Stein, third-party candidates are treated with extreme hostility by Democrats, especially when elections are a toss-up. It seems that every year, a substantial number of voters on the right or left cast votes for candidates that they know have no chance of winning. For some, these votes are out of ‘protest’ against the two-party system which does not represent their interests. To others, it is a joke, or perhaps a statement of their apathy toward or lack of faith in our political system as a whole. Five million votes were cast for third-party candidates in the 2016 election. It is fair to say these candidates were not serious, as they were not even given a space on the debate stage. While this might not seem like a lot compared to the overall sum of 138 million votes, some argue that votes for third-party candidates cost Hillary Clinton the election, as the number of votes for Jill Stein were far larger than the margin that Clinton lost by in swing states such as Michigan and Florida. Some have pointed out the flaw in such criticisms, because they assume that third-party voters would have voted for Clinton as their second choice.

However, the 2020 election is also very different from the 2016 election. In 2016, barely any major polls predicted Donald Trump’s victory. Those casting third-party votes may have underestimated the consequential power of their actions. Donald Trump was also a wild card back in 2016, because though he made plenty of campaign promises, he had no political record to attest to his potential behavior in the White House. In 2020, both Trump and Biden are established politicians with a record. Though it’s been four years, the lingering effect of the largely unforeseen election upset has left virtually no national poll in a position to underestimate Donald Trump. Those choosing to vote outside of the established norm are well aware of the potential consequences of failing to register a preference for one of the two likely candidates.

While it’s clear that voting for a hopeless candidate in this election will generate a predictable outcome, is it possible that our vote can be morally assessed by more than the consequences we believe it will produce? Principled voting, often as a form of protest, has been labeled negatively as immoral, selfish, and wasteful. Voting as a statement is certainly not widely accepted in American culture, but that does not mean it has no moral basis. Under the “expressive theory” of voting, rather than seeking consequentialist ends, individuals vote in order to express their loyalty to a political party or an ideology. Voting might also be a way to keep in line with our principles and avoid hypocrisy. To go even further, could voting, or refusing to, be a way to keep our hands clean of any ills done by political leaders who will undoubtedly go on to make moral mistakes during their four years?

On the other hand, maybe our decision to cast a protest or principled vote is a reflection of one’s total alienation from the parties in power. Studies have shown that most of us naturally turn to consequentialist moral decision making when under pressure. Principled stands, such as voting based on value rather than strategy, are often chosen when we perceive there is little at stake.

The perception that little is at stake in a presidential election has been labeled by many as one of inherent privilege, as there is often much more at stake for historically marginalized groups when it comes to which party holds the key to the presidency. Voting is still bafflingly inaccessible to many Americans based on inequities attributable to race, socioeconomic status, and criminal history. In order to combat this lack of access to civic influence, many on the left have appealed to altruistic intuitions. Altruistic voting is the concept that we should vote not for our own selfish interests, but for the welfare of others. Those who advocate for altruistic voting see politics as a method to enhance the collective good. In her aforementioned Instagram post, Jennifer Aniston appealed to altruism by urging her followers to “really consider who is going to be most affected by this election if we stay on the track we’re on right now… your daughters, the LGBTQ+ community, our Black brothers and sisters, the elderly with health conditions.” It is fair to say that for many, this election has come to represent much more than merely who will sit in the Oval Office for four years.

Many critics of altruistic voting point out the fact that its consequential justifications are not consistent with its low probability of consequential change. Regardless of practicality, is a good moral basis for voting? One could see the nobility in choosing to put one’s selfish concerns aside for the betterment of society. However, there is often no clear moral choice when it comes to voting, as perfect candidates rarely exist. While you may seek to vote for the candidate who will protect a woman’s right to choose, they might also have a questionable record in terms of criminal justice reform. Even if one plans to take an altruistic approach, there is no guarantee, in a system which consistently demands choosing the “lesser of two evils,” that one will truly discern who to vote for.

How we moralize voting is hinged on what we really believe a vote means. Does it mean we wholeheartedly believe in the candidate on the ballot? Does it mean we think they are the most rational choice? Or is it simply another way to express who we are and what we believe in? How we answer these questions will reveal whether or not we believe voting Kanye 2020 is unethical.