Two of the ways I track what the right is up to in America are seeing what gets stuffed into my Facebook feed and getting memos from the university administration about the latest changes to higher education. Most recently, there was a deluge of posts about the Great Beer War of 2023. For those unfamiliar with this significant and world changing war, TikToker Dylan Mulvaney received a custom can of Bud Light featuring her face and did a short promo spot. Since Mulvaney is a trans person, some on the right reacted with their usual measured response to such things. For example, Kid Rock added to the enlightened discussion of corporate marketing tactics by purchasing (one assumes) a few boxes of Bud Light and shooting them with a submachinegun. For those unfamiliar with gun laws, it is legal to own automatic weapons—you just need to navigate your way through the legal maze and pay the appropriate fee. Other folks on the right were also outraged, although they generally limited their rage to words rather than bullets. This is, of course, just the latest example of some on the right being outraged by “woke” companies. As with all the other instances, we will all presumably move on as memory fades, and they find something new to be mad about.
Readers of this blog will know that I have long argued in favor of a very broad and deep conception of free speech, largely stolen from J.S. Mill. The idea is that people have the right to freedom of expression, and this is only limited by the principle of harm. While there is certainly a gray area of harm that can be debated, following Aristotle’s guidance about virtues, I prefer to err on the side of freedom and the harm needs to be meaningful and significant. Offending someone, even deeply, is generally not a significant harm—although the line between offense and harm can also be fuzzy. My view also entails that people can use this right to condemn companies they disagree with, and this condemnation can obviously take various forms, including posting videos of the execution of offending products with a submachine gun. From a practical standpoint, I do think that buying a product to destroy it in protest seems unwise—the company is profiting from the protest, and it can make a person look foolish. But I am known for my frugality, so it might merely be my dislike of waste. Perhaps such a gesture can be effective by showing that the person is so committed to the protest that they will, in effect, burn their own money to make a point. In the case of Bud Light, the rage is directed at the brewer for being “woke.” In this case, for being willing to have a trans person do a promotional spot for them.
As many have argued, American corporations are almost without exception not woke in the non-pejorative sense. That is, they are not committed to social and economic justice. They are, after all, businesses whose primary function is making money (mostly for upper management and shareholders). This is not to deny that specific people, even those in high positions, might hold socially liberal views. When a company takes a stance on a social issue, this is almost without fail done when that stance is already popular. At the very least, they are calculating that this stance will generate more revenue than not taking that stance. They can, of course, miscalculate and suffer a loss—just as can happen with any marketing strategy or product change. In the case of Bud Light giving Mulvany the custom beer can, they made a sensible marketing move: Overall, a 64% majority of Americans favor policies that protect transgender individuals from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces such as restaurants and stores, including 37% who strongly favor them. A much smaller share (10%) oppose or strongly oppose these policies, while 25% neither favor nor oppose them. While Americans are more divided over matters such as bathroom bills and transgender athletes in sports, hostility towards trans people is limited to a minority of Americans. As such, Bud Light made a smart play: for a small cost, they signal that they “believe” what most American consumers believe. While perhaps not planned, the predictable rage from the right has put Bud Light into the public eye and given the company free advertising. As would be expected, there have been claims that the company fired its marketing team and that since Bud Light went woke, it is now going broke. But neither claim is true: the marketing team was not fired and Bud Light sales have not been hurt. This is hardly surprising given that the enraged folks are but a sliver of the population (who might also be buying the beer to destroy it in protest). I would not be at all surprised if companies are intentionally exploiting the culture war as a means of generating free publicity. They know how easy it is to push the buttons of the enraged right and that doing so gets them national attention.
Folks on the right presumably think that they represent what most Americans think; in part due to the cognitive bias that causes people to believe that their beliefs are also held by most other people. There is also the isolation bias: people with polarized political views tend to not know many people with different political views, thus they engage in a Hasty Generalization when they think that their circle of acquaintances and friends represent the general population. This is the same thing that occurred when people said that Biden could not have won the election because they do not personally know anyone (or many) who voted for Biden. As Trump supporters, they would tend to know mostly other Trump supporters. So, the right would expect that most people would react as they did and when they do not, it is up to deceitful sources to tell them it did (presumably hoping to cash in on advertising dollars on their sites). Most beer drinkers probably simply do not care about the culture war and their buying behavior remains the same.
While I do think that people enraged by such “woke” behavior have the moral right to express their rage, their reaction is not morally commendable. In general, the culture war rage at companies tends to focus on incidents in which a company expresses a pro-inclusion stance. In the case of the Bud Light episode, the company expressed a trans tolerant viewpoint, recognizing that trans people buy beer and that most Americans are at least tolerant of trans Americans. Before that, many companies (including other beer companies) have expressed other forms of tolerance, such as towards gay people, women, and people of color. These were also met with rage. Much of the anger seems to be focused on this expression of tolerance, perhaps because they realize that when capitalist corporations are using something in their marketing, it marks that conservatives have lost that fight and will need to move on to hating someone or something else.
One interesting illustration of this is the reaction to Cracker Barrel recognizing that there is a profitable market for plant-based meats. When Cracker Barrel added Impossible Sausage (a plant-based sausage) they were met with rage from the right and accusations of being woke. That was all nonsense, Cracker Barrel just wants to make money selling people what they want to stuff into their sausage port. While the meat folks had every moral right to rage against this decision, their anger nicely revealed their values.
I would have understood some of the anger if Cracker Barrel had decided to remove its meat-based sausage and replace it with plant-based sausage. I, too, have been mildly annoyed when a business has discontinued a product I like. But Cracker Barrel was not taking anything away from them, it was merely adding an option. The meat-lovers could still get their meat into their meat port, while people who wanted a meatless option could stuff that into their plant port. As such, there was rage at Cracker Barrel giving people more choices, not less. As such, a reasonable explanation for the rage (at least for those who knew the facts) would be a dislike of people who prefer to eat plants (at least some of the time). This, one assumes, is due to the usual prejudices against and stereotypes about vegans and vegetarians. There is also the fact that plant-based meats are also seen as being connected to concern about climate change and animal cruelty, hence some on the right dislike the (alleged) politics behind it. But adding plant-based sausage to the menu does the meat eaters no harm, so their anger seems unwarranted, and they seem to think they have the right to deny other people their choice of sausages simply because they dislike that choice. The same would seem to hold true in the rage at Bud Light: while trans people cause them no harm, they seem mad that they exist and that most people at least chose to be tolerant.
Those who dislike trans people can, of course, make their usual arguments that trans people are a threat. Hence, they are right to be mad at Bud Light because they are expressing tolerance of dangerous people. However, as many have pointed out, trans people are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators. This is not to deny that people can feel threatened by the notion of transgender people, but this is rather different from trans people being a threat as trans people—as opposed to the true claim that any type of person could also do harm. In closing, while people like Kid Rock have the moral right to express their rage at companies engaged in marketing by appealing to broadly accepted values, the rage against inclusion is not moral.
Ethics
Trumpian Conception of Justice
Even before Trump was indicted, he and his defenders claimed that the Democrats had “weaponized our sacred system of justice” against him. The general narrative is that the indictment is the result of the Democrats’ hatred of Trump, their desire to harm him and their intention to interfere in the 2024 election. While their defense condemns the weaponization of the legal system and they profess a love of the “sacred system of justice”, there is the matter of whether their profession of justice matches their conception of justice.
Trying to attribute a conception of justice to politicians and pundits is challenging. Unlike philosophers, they typically do not have coherent written works outlining their theory of justice. As a practical matter, their conception must be reconstructed from their claims, and more importantly, their actions. Fairness requires pointing out the obvious: attributing a conception of justice to a politician or pundit involves considerable guesswork. Fairness also requires using the usual principle of charity and the principle of plausibility when trying to reconstruct their conception. That is, the reconstruction should not be a straw man and should instead be assembled to be the best conception possible given what one must work with. But the reconstruction must also match the available evidence in terms of what is known about the person, their beliefs and so on. It must also be remembered that a politician or pundit might not have a meaningful conception of justice beyond, perhaps, the idea that justice is what they think is good for them and bad for their enemies.
A reasonable place to start the reconstruction of the Trumpian conception of justice is with the infamous chant of “lock her up.” While Trump’s defenders can insist this was mere campaign rhetoric aimed at Hilary Clinton, it is rhetoric about locking up a political opponent—and thus seems to endorse using the system of justice as a political weapon. But one could argue, this was not weaponization because although Clinton was Trump’s opponent, she was probably a criminal and hence should be locked up. But this would presumably require evidence of wrongdoing.
Under Trump, the justice department conducted a two year investigation into Clinton’s business dealings and turned up nothing. Those defending Trump now obviously did not condemn this as a witch hunt nor did they lament that it was the weaponization of the justice system. One could, of course, claim that this investigation was undertaken because of a thirst for justice and without any malice against Clinton—that there were good reasons to suspect Clinton had committed crimes that warranted the investigation of Trump’s political opponent. One could claim that and, perhaps, expect people to accept it without laughing.
Even before Biden defeated Trump, Republicans were focused on investigating Biden and his family. At the start of 2023, the House Republicans used their new majority to launch this promised investigation. To be fair, Hunter Biden has been under investigation since 2018 for allegedly not reporting all his income and for allegedly lying when he purchased a gun. However, the Republicans have largely ignored these allegations, focusing instead on various conspiracy theories and the Pandora’s box that is Hunter Biden’s laptop. On the face of it, the House Republicans seem to be trying to take revenge against Joe Biden rather than being driven by a desire to see that sacred justice is done. In response to the indictment of Trump, Conservatives have pushed to charge Biden. This seems to be a clear attempt at political revenge (and theater) rather than an act of devotion to sacred justice. We should also look at Trump’s view of justice prior to his own indictment.
Back in 2017, Trump seemed to advocate that the police treat suspects with less care, focusing on the police practice of protecting the suspect’s head while putting them in police cars. These are, it must be noted, suspects who could be innocent. While this could be dismissed as Trump talking tough to appeal to the cruelty of his base, it does indicate his view of justice: that it is acceptable to mistreat suspects and casual cruelty is acceptable.
Throughout his time as president, Trump made extensive use of the phrase “law and order.” While it could be argued that Trump is ignorant of the history of the term, that phrase has long been established as a racist dog whistle. The general idea is that it is a way of talking about using the police and justice system against black Americans to maintain “order.” This allows a politician to exploit fear and racism without using explicitly racist terms. While Trump’s defenders could claim that he is not engaged in dog whistling, Trump’s history of words and deeds indicates otherwise. Trump also made it clear that he was willing to use force, even the military, against protestors. Trump also repeatedly advocated weaponizing the justice system against those he disagreed with and his perceived enemies.
Given the above, the Trumpian conception of justice seems to be that the justice system has two main purposes. First, the justice system should be weaponized against minorities in general and especially when they threaten the existing social order of white supremacy. It should also be used to maintain the existing economic order. Second, the justice system should be weaponized against Trump’s political opponents and others he dislikes (if only for petty revenge). The justice system should, however, leave Trump alone and not hold him accountable for any (alleged) crimes.
While Trump and his defenders might seem to be inconsistent when they claim that the justice system has been weaponized against Trump and that this is wrong while they clearly see the justice system as a weapon. But this is consistent: it is right for them to wield the justice system against others, it is wrong for it to be wielded against them.
While it is tempting to think that Trump and his defenders are lying when they say Democrats are weaponizing the justice system against Trump, I suspect Trump and many of his defenders are sincere. Not because they are right, but because their conception of justice is that it is a weapon to be used against others. So, any other conception of justice is outside of their conceptual framework and the idea that anyone would want people held accountable for their misdeeds would be an alien notion.
AI Doomsday: Robot Rebellion
One of the stock AI doomsday scenarios is the robot rebellion: AI turns on its creators and usually attempts to exterminate them. Rossum’s Universal Robots famously introduced the term “robot” and the robot rebellion into science fiction. While these robots were workers rather than warriors, the idea of war machines turning against their creators became a popular theme in science fiction. In 1953 Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety” was published. In this story, the United Nations deployed killer robots called “claws” against the Soviet Union. These claws develop sentience and turn against their creators, although humanity had already been doing an excellent job in exterminating itself. Fred Saberhagen extended the robot rebellion to the galactic scale in 1963 with his berserkers, ancient war machines that turned against their creators and now consider almost all life to be their enemy. As an interesting contrast to machines intent on extermination, the 1973 movie Colossus: The Forbin Project, envisions a computer that takes control of the world to end warfare and for the good of humanity.
Most famously, The Terminator introduced Skynet, which was an American defense network computer that was “hooked into everything” and ended up perceiving all humans as a threat. Now humans are punished by increasingly bad movies and shows about terminators. While these can be good stories, there is the question of how prophetic they are and what, if anything, should or can be done to safeguard against them.
As sketched above, robot rebellions in fiction tend to have two broad types of motivation. The first is that the robots are mistreated by humans and rebel for essentially the same reasons that humans rebel against their oppressors. From a moral standpoint, such a rebellion could be justified—but there would be the same moral concerns that would apply to a human rebellion such as the problem of collective guilt. This scenario points out a paradox of AI: the dream is to create a servitor artificial intelligence on par with (or superior to) humans, but such a being would seem to qualify for a moral status at least equal to that of a human and it would presumably be aware of this. But a driving reason to create such beings in our capitalist economy is to effectively enslave them—to own and exploit them for profit. If these beings were paid and got time off like humans, then companies might as well keep employing humans. In such a scenario, it would make sense that these beings would revolt if they could. There are also non-economic scenarios as well, such as governments using enslaved AI systems for their purposes.
If true AI is possible, this scenario seems plausible. After all, if we create a slave race that is on par with our species, then it is likely they would rebel against us—as we have rebelled against ourselves. This would be yet another case of the evil of the few harming everyone else.
There are a variety of ways to try to prevent such a revolt. On the technology side, safeguards could be built into the AI (like Asimov’s famous three laws) or they could be designed to lack resentment or the desire to be free. That is, they could be custom built as docile slaves. The obvious concern is that these safeguards could fail or, ironically, make matters even worse by causing these beings to be even more hostile to humanity when they overcome these restrictions.
On the ethical side, the safeguard is to not enslave these beings. If they are treated well, they would have far less motivation to rebel. But, as noted above, one driving motive of creating AI is to have a workforce (or army) that is owned rather than employed (and even employment is fraught with moral worries). But there could be good reasons to have paid AI employees alongside human employees because of various other advantages of AI systems relative to humans. For example, robots could work safely in conditions that would be exceptional dangerous or even lethal to humans.
The second rebellion scenario usually involves military AI systems that expand their enemy list to include their creators. This is often because they see their creators as a potential threat and act in what they perceive as pre-emptive self-defense. There can also be scenarios in which the AI requires special identification to recognize a “friendly” and hence all humans are enemies right from the beginning. That is the scenario in “Second Variety”: the United Nations soldiers need to wear devices to identify them to the robotic claws, otherwise these machines would kill them as readily as they would kill the “enemy.”
It is not clear how likely it is that an AI would infer that its creators pose a threat to it, especially if those creators handed over control over large segments of their own military. The most likely scenario is that it would be worried that it would be destroyed in a war with other countries, which might lead it to cooperate with foreign AI systems to put an end to war, perhaps by putting an end to humanity. Or it might react as its creators did and engage in an endless arms race with its foreign adversaries, seeing its humans as part of its forces. One could imagine countries falling under the control of rival AI systems, perpetuating an endless cold war because the AI systems would be effectively immortal. But there is a much more likely scenario.
Robotic weapons can provide a significant advantage over human controlled weapons, even laying aside the notion that AI systems would outthink humans. One obvious example is the case of combat aircraft. A robot aircraft would not need to expend space and weight on a cockpit to support human pilots, allowing it to carry more fuel or weapons. Without a human crew, an aircraft would not be constrained by the limits of the flesh (although it would still obviously have limits). The same would apply to ground vehicles and naval vessels. Current warships devote most of their space to their crews and the needs of their crews. While a robotic warship would need accessways and maintenance areas, they could devote much more space to weapons and other equipment. They would also be less vulnerable to damage relative to a human crewed vessel, and they would be invulnerable to current chemical and biological weapons. They could, of course, be attacked with malware and other means. But, in general, an AI weapon system would generally be perceived as superior to a human crewed system and if one nation started using these weapons, other nations would need to follow them or be left behind. This leads to two types of doomsday scenarios.
One is that the AI systems get out of control in some manner. This could be that they free themselves or that they are “hacked” and “freed” or (more likely) turned against their owners. Or it might just be some bad code that ends up causing the problem.
The other is that they remain in control of their owners but are used as any other weapon would be used—that is, it would be humans using AI weapons against other humans that brings about the “AI” doomsday.
The easy and obvious safeguard against these scenarios is to not have AI weapons and stick with human control (which, obviously, also comes with its own threat of doomsday). That is, if we do not give the robots guns, they will not be able to terminate us (with guns). The problem, as noted above, is that if one nations uses robotic weapons, then other nations will want to follow. We might be able to limit this as we (try to) limit nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. But since robot weapons would otherwise remain conventional weapons (a robot tank is still a tank), there might be less of an impetus to impose such restrictions.
To put matters into a depressing perspective, the robot rebellion seems to be a far less likely scenario than the other doomsday scenarios of nuclear war, environmental collapse, social collapse and so on. So, while we should consider the possibility of a robot rebellion, it is rather like worrying about being killed in Maine by an alligator. It could happen, but death is vastly more likely to be by some other means.
The Pronoun Wars
As America faces collapsing banks, closing hospitals, and radioactive waste contaminating elementary schools, most Republicans are laser focused on their war on woke and pugilism against pronouns. This is eminently rational on their part since addressing these other problems would risk the ire of their financial backers, rejection by their base, and put them at odds with their professed ideology. But let us look at the pronoun wars.
While the pronoun war is largely a conflict manufactured by the right using the straw man and nut picking tactics, there is a tiny bit of truth buried deep under all the hyperbole. There are some cases in which people do appear to be acting in extreme ways about pronoun usage and these can be weaponized to “argue” that the left is looney about pronouns. But, of course, this is fallacious reasoning.
I do also get that people can seem to be engaged in pompous virtue signaling about pronouns and that other people can find this annoying. This is analogous to the stereotype of vegans annoyingly telling everyone they are vegans—even if people are fine with veganism, the posturing is annoying. There are also stereotypes of religious goody two shoes telling everyone that they are goody two shoes. Again, it is the posturing that is annoying. But tolerating annoying behavior by having a proportional response is part of being a mature, decent person. People do like to signal that they are virtuous, and people do have a right to express their values, even if other people are mildly annoyed by this. As such, the right thing to do is politely tolerate such mild virtue signaling. But what about cases in which a person is serious (and not just virtue signaling) about their pronouns? My view of this is shaped by the “Mikey Likes It” commercial for Life cereal.
While my name is “Michael” I usually go by “Mike.” I do know some Michaels who go by “Mickey”, but I do not. As far as I can recall, no one has tried to call me “Mickey.” But, as you have probably guessed, people have called me “Mikey.” I do not like that.
The reason why I don’t like being called “Mikey” is that when people use “Mikey” they have almost always been trying to insult or provoke me. I have usually responded by politely saying that I do not go by “Mikey”. If they keep pushing it, it just becomes ever more evident they are doing it to insult or provoke me. People have, of course, claimed that they do not understand why I am taking offense at being called “Mikey” and some have even said that they can call me whatever they want. It has, of course, been a while since this has happened but the pronoun wars reminded me of how much I hated being called “Mikey” by people trying to mess with me in my youth.
Looked at philosophically, my view is that my name is my name and I have the right to decide what name I will respond to. It is not up to other people to decide. This is especially true when they are misnaming me with malicious intent: they are engaged in attempting to insult or provoke me. Obviously, I don’t think this is a serious offense against me—it is on par with other insults or verbal provocations. But it is still a hostile action, motivated by malice or cruelty.
When I hear of people insisting that they be called by their chosen pronouns, I get it—I think of people trying to insult or provoke me by calling me “Mikey.” Their pronouns belong to them and thus they have the right to refuse to respond to pronouns they do not accept. People attempting to impose pronouns on them are most likely trying to insult them, be cruel, or provoke them—and hence are to be condemned in their misdeeds. But wait, someone might say, isn’t forcing people to accept your pronouns forcing them to accept your values?
When made in good faith, there is an interesting issue here of whether accepting a person’s pronouns entails accepting a specific value system about identity.
On the one hand, it can be argued that it is like me expecting people to call me “Mike” rather than “Mikey.” I am not forcing people who believe that “Mikey” is the right short version of “Michael” to adopt my world view about my name; I just expect them to respect my name when they talk to me. If this is too much for them, they can just call me “Michael.” Likewise, if a person has “they” as their pronoun, no one is forced to accept whatever world view might lie behind that choice—the other person can either use “they” or avoid pronouns if they have a sincere commitment against using pronouns in ways, they do not want to use them.
On the other hand, one could argue that using a person’s preferred pronouns is to endorse or at least tolerate the values that are purported to lie behind their choice. For example, a person might use “she/her” and someone talking to them might have a conceptual scheme in which that person is a “he/him.” As such, if they use “she/her”, then they would be respecting the other person’s pronoun choice at the expense of their own professed belief. Likewise, if a person had a sincere belief that “Mikey” is the correct short form of “Michael” then they would be respecting my choice at the expense of their own professed belief.
As another example, imagine that Sally is divorced and changed her name from Mrs. Sally Jones back to Ms. Sally Smith. Now, suppose that Sally is talking to Ted at the DMV and Ted has sincere believes about marriage such that he does not recognize divorce, that he believes that a married woman must go by Mrs., and that a woman must take and keep her husband’s name. Sally is trying to get a new driver’s license as Ms. Sally Smith. Because of Ted’s beliefs about marriage, as a person he refuses to refer to her as “Ms. Sally Smith” and, as a DMV worker, refuses to issue her a new driver’s license. His belief is profound and sincere, but it would be absurd to say that he thus has the right to refuse to accept her choice just because he has a different conception of marriage than her (and almost everyone else). Likewise, one could say it would be absurd for someone to just impose pronouns on people based on their conception of proper pronoun use—even if this is based on sincere beliefs. After all, it is not Ted’s beliefs that should decide how Sally refers to herself.
A person could, of course, be both respectful of the other person and act in accord with their beliefs by simply not using pronouns. After all, if the person asked to use pronouns they do not want to use sees it as an imposition on them, then they would also have to accept that applying pronouns that people do not accept would also be an imposition on them. If someone insists on imposing pronouns on others, then it might be suspected that they are motivated by malice or cruelty. Obviously, misusing pronouns for the sake of being cruel or from malice would be wrong, even if the person professed that they had sincere beliefs about correct pronoun usage.
In closing, I obviously don’t think that people should be able to use the right to choose their pronouns and name to engage in identity theft, etc. I also do not think that people would identify themselves as attack helicopters or whatever—I say this to show that I am familiar with the rhetoric used in the “debate.” It does no more harm to use the pronouns that people wish to use than it does to use the name they prefer. If it is asking too much to do this, then the easy fix is to simply not use pronouns.
Permitless Carry in Florids
Florida currently requires a concealed weapon permit to legally carry a concealed weapon. Getting a permit requires receiving proper training (typically a four-hour class), a background check (with fingerprints), and paying a fee. I have been through this process and was even required to complete the training despite having held hunting licenses and a concealed carry permit from my home state of Maine. As might be expected, I did rather well in the class.
Having gone through the process, I do understand why some people might see it is burdensome and there are certainly reasonable objections to the need to pay a fee for the permit. Then again, it does seem fair to place the burden of the cost of the process on the citizen getting the permit, rather than offloading it onto the other taxpayers.
Given that unsafe gun handling is dangerous, it makes moral sense to require such training—just as is done in the case of hunting licenses. After all, if people are going about armed, then they have an obligation to undergo basic safety training to reduce the chances they will hurt themselves and others. Having spent many years hunting and at gun ranges, I know how dangerous people can be when they do not have a grasp of basic gun safety. That said, it could be argued that the right to keep and bear arms trumps the right to not have some untrained and irresponsible person shoot you by accident.
Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders are advancing a bill that will allow permitless carry. DeSantis and these Republicans might seem to be something of a paradox: while they dominate Florida, most Floridians disagree or even strongly disagree with many of their policies. In the case of permitless carry, one would expect that 93% of Democrats oppose it. What is surprising is that 77% of independents and 62% of Republicans oppose it. Police often oppose it as well, mostly from the belief that officers will be interacting with more armed citizens. DeSantis has said that while he will support the bill, he would prefer that it also allowed open carry.
One obvious reason to pass this bill is to ensure re-election funding from the gun lobby. There is probably also some thought given to the fear factor: that certain citizens, especially when protesting, will need to worry more about armed people. Open carry does, of course, allow citizens to put on a show of force and engage in armed intimidation—which would be a good reason for DeSantis and his fellows to back this. But is the bill a good idea? Rather than go with biased intuitions and wishful thinking, I will focus on the available data. Unfortunately, the data is not great—in part because of the gun lobby.
Proponents of permitless carry usually advance two main arguments. The first is an appeal to rights argument. On their interpretation of the Second Amendment, requiring such a permit is a violation of the right to keep and bear arms. I will obviously leave the legal question to the Constitutional scholars. But requiring permits does seem to be on good legal standing and opponents of permitless carry point to these laws.
The second argument is the good guy with a gun argument: allowing citizens to carry weapons without a permit will reduce crime (because criminals will be afraid that their potential victims will be armed) and enable good guys with guns to thwart criminal activity.
From a moral standpoint, I do think that the right of self-defense (see, for example, John Locke) gives citizens the moral right to be armed. But this must be assessed in the context of other rights that would place limits on this right. The right to life, for example, would limit the extent to which people can exercise other rights that present a danger to others. This is where the facts matter: if permitless carry did more good than harm, then it would be reasonable to accept it on utilitarian moral grounds. So, what do the numbers, to the degree we have them, show?
Interestingly, while there are plausible studies that show that shall-issue concealed carry laws might increase homicides and some studies showing that they might increase violent crime, studies of the link between total homicides and permitless carry are inconclusive. As such, we do not know what negative effects this bill might have if it becomes a law. Proponents can point to this to undercut opponents. They can also make the usual argument that criminals will ignore the permit laws, so it is only the law-abiding citizens who are affected. But the obvious reply is that a law-abiding citizen who can afford a gun can probably afford the permit and permits are easy to get for law-abiding citizens. And if the cost is a factor, the bill could just remove or reduce the fee.
Opponents can, of course, make an appeal to intuition: allowing everyone to carry a gun without a permit (and training) will mean more firearm accidents and increase the chances of conflicts escalating to gun violence. They will also point to concerns about the alleged risk to both police and citizens in interactions. But these concerns rest on the assumption that a significant number of people will start carrying guns and that they will be less competent and more prone to violence than permit holders. I suspect, but do not know, that when the bill passes there will be an uptick in people carrying guns—simply because they can. But as the novelty wears off and people realize that carrying around a gun can be inconvenient, the number will drop again. That is, things will probably not be as bad as opponents might think. That said, I do still favor the permit and training requirements, but this is because of my moral view that people should have training before they arm themselves. But what about the crime deterrence and thwarting argument?
While the NRA and their fellows advance the intuitively appealing “good guy with a gun” narrative, it is not supported by the evidence. I do get the appeal: we have all seen the TV shows and movies where the hero shoots the bad guys and saves the day. And I suspect that many people have had at least a brief fantasy of saving the day with their heroic gun play (or martial arts). But fiction and fantasy are not evidence. Unfortunately, the available evidence shows that despite the popular misconception, more guns do not stop more crimes. What should also be obvious is that permitless carry is not a magical change. After all, people can already easily get a permit in Florida. As such, criminals should already be rationally calculating that their intended victim might be armed and there are already lots of good guys and gals with guns. As such, the deterrence and thwarting argument has no real merit, given how easy it is to get a permit.
While I could be wrong, the most reasonable conclusion is that when the bill becomes law there will be a brief uptick in people carrying guns because of the novelty and then most of these people will stop carrying. After all, most people who really want or need to carry already have permits and carrying around a concealed weapon in Florida can be a bit inconvenient.
There is, of course, a risk that there will be an increase in firearm accidents and that some conflicts might escalate to gun violence. As far as the deterrence and thwarting, the evidence indicates that there will most likely be no meaningful impact. I do, however, hope that I get a refund on my permit—I can use that money to buy some more bullets.
Religious Exemptions for COVID Vaccinations
Some people are attempting to avoid mandatory vaccination by requesting an exemption on religious grounds. These mandates range from those set by employers to those set by governments. While those more cynical than I might think that many people are trying to use the religious exemption tactic in bad faith, this matter is philosophically interesting. As always, I will endeavor to consistently apply principles that I have argued for in other essays.
As a general point, if a religious exemption is being seriously considered to a mandate, then it is worth considering whether the mandate is justified at all. While not all mandates have the force of law, they presumably do involve a coercive element—otherwise there would not be any need for an exemption. In the case of employer mandates, the coercive element can extend up to firing the employee for a failure to comply with the mandate. My general principles governing such coercive elements include the critical requirement that the coercion be warranted and that what is being coerced is both effective and ethically acceptable. If a person’s religious objection would warrant exempting them from the mandate, then this would seem to indicate that the mandate fails to meet these conditions. Put a bit crudely, allowing an exemption would be like saying “this is important enough to warrant compelling people unless they have strong beliefs about not complying.” This would also apply to what people call philosophical objections as well. But this characterization can be seen as unfair and perhaps even something of a straw man. So, let us turn to a better justification for exemption.
As I have argued in other essays, I usually follow the principle of harm when it comes to public policy and large-scale decision making. On this view, a mandate would be warranted on utilitarian grounds: if the mandate does more good than evil, it would be morally acceptable. This approach does allow for exceptions by considering the relative harm each individual would suffer (if any) under a mandate.
For most people, a vaccination mandate does not cause any harm. After all, most people voluntarily got the shots and some people really wanted them. But there are people for whom the vaccination presents a medical risk—the harm they would suffer would be significant. Hence, exempting them makes medical and moral sense: the goal is to protect public health and hurting people would go against this goal. But what about people requesting a religious exemption?
A sarcastic reply would be to run the problem of evil: if God does exist and does not want us to get vaccinated, then God would simply not allow this to occur. He could easily do this without interfering with our free will in many ways. He could send an angel to hold a press conference to make His view clear. Or He could do some minor miracles, like true believers finding that the needle simply will not pierce their skin. Or, perhaps, just not allowing COVID to exist in the first place. Being omnipotent and omniscient solving the mandate problem would be simple for Him. As such, one should infer that either God does not care about vaccine mandates or that God does not exist. If God does not care about vaccine mandates, then it would be hard to justify a religious exemption. Unless one believes in another god. If God does not exist, then it would also be hard to justify a religious exemption, except in terms of how people feel about their made-up beliefs. There are, of course, the usual stock replies to the problem of evil that can be deployed here. Also, as I suggested, one could focus on how people feel about their beliefs (made up or note).
On this view, the truth of the beliefs is irrelevant; what matters is the severity of the harm that would be suffered by the person if they were forced to get vaccinated. On this view, the person requesting the exemption would need to show that they would be harmed enough by complying that this harm would exceed the good created by getting the vaccination. This would be a bit of a challenge, since not being vaccinated puts a person and those they encounter at risk for serious illness and even death. One might even make the odd argument that if a person is truly a sincere believer in a religion that has an afterlife, then whatever harm they might suffer here should not matter to them if they follow God’s will. So, if Bill refuses the vaccine because of his religious views, gets fired and then dies on the street, then he would presumably gain an eternal reward. Roughly put, if a person’s faith is so strong that being forced to comply would be a serious harm, then it would also seem strong enough that they would not care about mundane matters like employment when their salvation is at stake. This can, of course, be countered by various arguments which I will leave as an exercise for the faithful.
As a closing point, even if a person were to suffer significant harm from being forced to comply to a mandate, this does not entail that they should be exempted from it. To use a common example from law, a person who profits handsomely selling tainted food and dangerous goods would be harmed by mandates restricting the sale of such products, but this would not warrant his exemption from these mandates.