The first Trump administration made it clear that they saw creating fear as a legitimate tool to deter migration. During his campaign, Trump promised mass deportation and there is no reason to think that a kinder, gentler approach will be adopted in his second term in office. But is using fear to deter migration ethical?
It can be argued that it is. Obviously, deterring people by using laws and policies aimed at creating fear is a how society attempts to deter people from committing crimes. If it is morally acceptable to do this to deter potential jay walkers and murderers, then it is acceptable to do this to deter migrants. While some ethicists oppose the use of coercion by fear, the strategy of deterring bad behavior through fear has the approval of Aristotle. This is like the use of force: not all uses of force are to be condemned, just immoral ones. So, the key question is whether using fear to deter migrants is morally acceptable.
In the past, the Trump administration adopted a strategy of creating fear by doing evil. First, the administration aggressively followed a policy of separating children and parents and officials were clear that this was intended to deter migration by creating fear that America would do evil to migrants. It is no accident that in fiction a quick way to show a group is evil is for it to take children from their parents. Second, the Trump administration treated detained children badly. Caging children and denying them necessities is also a stock behavior of evil characters in fiction. This is for good reason since mistreating children is evil. The purpose of this was to deter migrants through fear that if they try to come here, America will put their children into dirty cages without soap or toothbrushes.
Proponents of this policy argued that people choose to come here illegally knowing what will happen, then what is done to them is justified. On the one hand, this has some appeal. If I tell someone that a pot is hot and they grab it anyway, they only have themselves to blame. On the other hand, if people are being pushed into a situation, such tactics mean people will be harmed rather than deterred. Going back to the stove, if I keep a hot pot to deter starving people from taking the food, I will just end up burning hungry people. Saying that they knew they would be burned is not an adequate defense. In the case of migration, many people are fleeing problems the United States helped. People are being pushed by things worse than what the Trump administration tried to do to scare them away.
There is also the fact that, as Locke argued, there are moral limits to how even a criminal can be treated. One of these is proportionality. Separating families and imprisoning children without necessities is a punishment that goes beyond the alleged crime. This is especially important in the case of children; they cannot rightly be considered guilty of a crime and hence punishing them is unwarranted. As such, using these methods is wrong.
As a final point, even if using such wicked means to deter people could be justified on utilitarian grounds, this would require showing that they are effective. However, they clearly did not work, and we were burning the hungry because the pain of the burn is less than the pain of the hunger. The Trump administration was fine with this. While they had hoped these evils would deter people, they had no qualms about doing wrong even when it does not achieve their stated goal. It became evil for evil’s sake, and we should expect more of the same.
The fan is angry and frustrated. As, am I. I know little of Meloni, other than she is head of state in Italy, if I have that right. As I hear it, Italy has expressed strong support for Ukraine, if, and only if, that is true…I seldom know whom to believe because of geo-political posturing: whichever way the wind seems to be blowing, the posturing swings this way or that. I think, only think, mind you, Trump is isolationist. He displayed that tendency, first time ’round. It seems stronger in this administration. Once again, I think Trump remains manipulator and opportunist, plus, he is similar to the late Ronald Reagan: he has a teflon coating, though his may only be bacon grease…He is smart in some ways, ignorant in others.
That coating is wearing thin, seems to me. The helicopter may be afire. From what I have been hearing, there is uprising brewing. A vocal minority went all but silent, after, or between culture warfare and Viet Nam. It is coming resurgent.Don’t know how that may shake. People are confused; growing suspicious and tired of government inconsistency, led by someone who does not have anything beyond *the spaghetti plan*: throw it against the wall, it it sticks, it is done. I will *try not to show that ad again*. You may draw your conclusions. I have claimed, and contend Trump’s insistence on running government as a business is, itself, thin. He wants to erase or suspend constitutional law and rules, to suit his business plan. Bad idea.The world is too complex. Open your hymnbooks please and we will sing: Shall We Gather at the River? Sure. Kudos to the Fan.
Trump is SOME kind of phenomenon. So was Robert Ingersoll. Look him up—they have things in common.Someone wrote a book on Ingersoll. Don’t recall her name. Look it up…
Here’s the one thing I despise most about Trumpy: what an ignorant simpleton he is. Just look at his statements:
‘Make America great again.’. (what does that even means?)
‘Europe will be great again.’ (what does that even means?)
‘ I am OK with European peace missions in Ukraine’.
‘Zelensky is a dictator’.
This is white. That is black. This is short. That is long. So and so is a loser. This is a political witch hunt. This is bad. That is good.
What a dumb simpleton. Truly an intellectual heavy weight. To think that someone in such an advanced age, who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who’s serving, no less, as the president of the United States, who never bothered to, I don’t say become an honourable person with a strong ethical and moral code, but not even to be able to be as evil as he is, and capable of making at least a good EVIL argument.
In the UK people define him as ‘the orange manchild’, and ‘an infantile moron’.
And look, today he met with our very own fascist prime minister Meloni, another ignoramus whom I bet never learned to speak more than two words of English.
By the way, she speaks just like Trumpy. For example ‘I am very optimistic.’. About what? Why? When? How?
These are dumb times. And the populist ignoramuses are in the lead. For a while. It won’t last long. My prediction is that these people will make complete fools of themselves, it’s inevitable. This is because, like every fool, they greatly overestimate their intelligence, and think that everyone else is retarded. People like that are always destined to fail.
Very good, Professor. I think, in this context, your question is rhetorical. Kenneth Burke said some things about that. Anyway, things are different now, to the * bring us your tired and poor*, era of the 1800s and, early 1900s. We don’t want tired, poor people anymore. There are many more of them here now. Educated people, from anywhere, are welcomed mostly. They have knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA’s), welcomed in a highly technological, scientific society. So, the melting pot has changed, inasmuch as it favors more savoury ingredients. Deterrence of migration with evil now has more to do with pragmatism than evil, per se: Ergo,take care of existing, indigent poverty, rather welcoming more. This is not evil—it is that sort of Jamesean pragmatism, alluded to. Our success or failure to exercise that care is, in my opinion, a separate matter. Now, It may be argued, given recent issues, that our current administration condones and supports an evil side to this. My Grandfathers may have said those leaders want to kill flies with a shotgun. A current issue with the El Salvadoran government exemplifies this notion, I think. If there is a back story there, I do not know it. Smells like old, dead fish, to me. I mentioned pragmatism. Don’t know where Rorty would stand. The above, withstanding, or not, we have the Trump factor. All good, Prof. Thank you.