Month: August 2026

While there have been improvements in the gender pay gap, women still generally lag behind men. In the United States, the median income for women workers is 81-83% of that of men. This is an improvement from the 75% figure of 1989 but is still a point of concern. Interestingly, there has been an inversion of the pay gap for CEOs.  Way back in 2012 women CEOs made about 72% of what their male colleagues were paid. Now, female CEOs in the S&P 500 have a higher median income than their male counterparts.

While there have been failed efforts to get an equal rights amendment ratified, the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 provided women with some tools to address discrimination.

On the face of it, women are morally entitled to the same pay as men, provided the relevant factors are the same. This is based on the principle of relevant difference: a difference in treatment is only morally justified when it is grounded by a relevant difference. The challenge is defining what differences are relevant. As an easy example, if Mike is paid more than Sally because Mike is a full professor and Sally is an assistant professor, then that difference would be relevant, and the pay disparity could be thus justified. However, if Mike and Sally were both full professors and Sally was paid less just because she is a woman, then that would not be a relevant difference and hence would seem to be unfair.  But this view can be countered.

One option is to argue that a person’s biological sex is a relevant difference such that even if all other factors were identical, a woman could be justly paid less solely because she is a woman. This seems difficult to justify as it is like saying that if a man and a woman raced a 5K and they ran identical times (crossing the line at the same time), then the woman would lose just because she is a woman, even though everything else was the same. This is absurd.  While a sexist could claim that even in such cases the woman would lose and should be paid less, the “clever” sexist will argue that women have properties as women that are relevant to being paid less.

The usual claim is that women will generally underperform relative to men because of the qualities women have (or lack). As an illustration, someone might use the example that on average men are faster runners than women. For example, the world record for men in the marathon is 1:59:30 and for women 2:09:56 (my best is 2:45). This is not due to any injustice but to the physical differences between the sexes. The sexist would then argue that this disparity in ability extends into the workplace and hence women, in general, merit less pay then men.

This line of reasoning has some appeal. If the work performance of women is inferior to that of men, then they would justly be paid less and this would appear in the statistics, just as the difference in performance shows up in marathon results. If it is countered that some women are superior to some men, the obvious reply is that this is still consistent with the general disparity. After all, the women’s world record in the marathon crushes mine by 36 minutes, but it is still about 10 minutes behind the men’s record. And the average women’s time in the marathon is slower than that of the men.  Likewise, while Sally might be superior to Sam at work, male workers in general might be superior to female workers, thus justifying the disparity.

This line of reasoning can be countered by showing that workplace performance of women is at least comparable to that of men and thus the pay disparity is unjust. If general gender pay disparity is justified by appealing to relevant differences, then individual women who perform at work as well or better than men in a job should be paid as well or more.

Based on my own experiences, I believe men and women have comparable job performances, and that a person’s biological sex does not warrant pay disparities. But this is, at best, a hasty generalization since my sample is small. But this is an empirical question and can be addressed by an adequate investigation. If an objective and adequate assessment showed that one sex is inferior to another in relevant ways, then the general disparity would be warranted.

Another approach, argued for by Representative Todd Akin (the same person who claimed that the female reproductive system has defense mechanisms against being impregnated by legitimate rape) is that employers should have the right to pay women less than men. Akin said, “I believe in free enterprise. I don’t think the government should be telling people what you pay and what you don’t pay. I think it’s about freedom.  If somebody wants to hire somebody and they agree on a salary, that’s fine, however it wants to work. So, the government sticking its nose into all kinds of things has gotten us into huge trouble.” Distilled, this is the view that employers should be able to underpay women because freedom.

On the one hand, this has some appeal. After all, for the state to impose salary rules on employers would limit their freedom. Some argue that in a free-market people can always decide not to accept a salary and go elsewhere to earn a more desirable salary. As such, if an employer wants to pay women less than men, then women can go work for someone who pays women better. A woman could even start her own business and pay women as well as (or better than) men. Naturally, the same freedom would seem to apply broadly so that an employer should not be forced to pay a minimum wage or provide any benefits that could be considered part of the compensation. If workers also have the freedom to secure better pay, then it would be reasonable for employers to have the freedom to set their pay.

But there are some serious points of concern with the freedom argument First, employees usually negotiate from a position of weakness relative to the employer. So, the market is not free but operating in favor of the employer. This is why employees should be able to form unions and have legal protections to help ensure the wage market is free and that one side does not have an unjust advantage. Part of ensuring a free market could involve minimum wage and equal pay for equal work laws. History shows what happens when employers can set their pay with complete freedom.

Second, the idea that women workers can always go elsewhere and receive better pay or start their own business is unrealistic. After all, if most employers pay women less than men, women will not have many options. Also, the odds of a new business succeeding are low so this option is hardly one that most women can use.

Third, there is also the matter of ethics. While some might hold that employers should have the freedom (or right) to pay workers as they please without the interference of the state, this same logic would grant individuals the freedom to steal from employers (or anyone). After all, if an employer should have the freedom to pay workers less than the value of their work, then they are stealing from the workers. If this theft is morally acceptable, then so too would be theft from the employers. After all, if the employer has the freedom to engage in unjust acts, then the same freedom could be claimed by everyone, thus allowing people the freedom to rob employers.

It might be countered that the workers agree to the pay and hence are not being robbed. This would be true if the workers freely entered into the agreement without coercion. However, if the workers are coerced into these agreements (as can occur when there is a disparity in power) then this is theft. After all, if a person “agrees” to hand me some of his property because he knows I have a gun, then I am still stealing. Likewise, if people must work to survive within a coercive economic system, then they can be robbed even when they “agree” to accept what they are offered. Thus, the freedom argument against fair pay lacks merit, unless one believes in freedom to steal. Which, if we look at our economic system, is a belief held by the ruling class—at least the freedom for them to steal.

 

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Since most of the earth’s surface is covered in water it seems odd to be worried about the availability of water. But this seems less odd when we remember that most of this liquid bounty is too salty for humans to drink or use in most forms of agriculture. When pollution and distribution are considered, then worry makes sense.

While people normally think of water in terms of something we drink, 92% of our water usage as a species is in agriculture. Plants and animals need water directly, but water is also used for other purposes in agriculture. In addition to direct use of water, it is removed from being useful to humans by agricultural contamination The chemicals and waste of agriculture often end up in rivers and other bodies of water, rendering it unsafe unless it can be treated.

Looking just at the direct water costs, the creation of animal “products” imposes the highest water costs per kilocalorie (kcal). Growing edible roots and cereals requires .5 quarts per kcal, making these foods very water efficient. Fruits are more costly, requiring 2.2 quarts per kcal. For meat product, pork is relatively efficient, requiring 2.3 quarts per kcal. Beef is by far the least efficient, using 10.8 quarts per kcal. As might be imagined, this use of water raises both practical and moral concerns. Concerns about water are, of course, increasing as the fight over data centers intensifies.

One practical concern is working out how to efficiently handle water resources as our population increases. Adding to the difficulty is that economic improvements in developing countries will lead to a significant increase in the desire for meat, especially beef. Given the water cost of meat, the agriculture industry will be hard pressed to meet increased demand, especially if the water supply is under even greater strain. If we add data center usage and the ongoing impact of climate change, the challenge grows.

Fortunately, there are practical solutions to some of the technical problems of water. For example, more efficient agriculture would enable more food to be grown using less water. Another example, developing cheaper means of purifying water would help. Obviously enough if the world eschewed meat in favor of plants, then that would have a significant impact on water usage. We could also forgo the creation of data centers, although the rulers of the AI corporations seem intent on making every aspect of life worse in their quest to make their apocalypse bunkers a necessity. I mean, if you have an apocalypse bunker it would be a shame not to ensure that it gets used.

There is also the moral aspect of water, which is distribution: determining how the available water will be used and who will benefit. As noted above, the growing of meat and other animal products is water intensive relative to growing plants. While there are practical grounds to move away from animal agriculture, the decision is largely a matter of ethics. After all, decisions about who is entitled to the water resources and how these resources should be distributed are moral decisions. If, for example, it is decided that water resources will be allocated to the beef industry, then this means that less water will be available to grow more water efficient foods, thus potentially reducing the food supply while also creating food that is more expensive for the consumer. The beef industry has done an impressive job getting people to accept eating meat as part of their identity, although the screw worms clearly have a vote in the future of the industry.

As our population grows and the climate changes, the moral concerns about water will become even more serious. After all, it is certainly worth considering that the demand on water resources will eventually be high enough that choosing between growing beef and raising more water efficient crops will be a choice between providing the more affluent few with a luxury food and providing the less affluent many with the food they need to survive.

The obvious response is that we have always found a solution to past problems, and we will surely find one (or more) in the future. After all, the doomsdays predicted in the past all turned out to be as mistaken as the culture war prediction that same-sex marriage would destroy marriage. While this response is reasonable, there must be a point at which our ability to solve the water problem reaches its limit and the fact that we have not gone extinct yet does not prove that we will never go extinct. But being a fan of science fiction, I am amendable to solving the water problem by crashing space-ice into the earth. As a philosopher, I am comfortable with solving problems by creating more problems.

It is also worth noting there are many practical (rather than theoretical) problems that could prevent us from solving the water problem. The droughts that affected the United States back  in 2012 impacted food production and if droughts become more common, then distributing water resources will become even more pressing. Ironically, flooding is also a growing problem in some areas—climate change can make some places dryer and other places wetter.

There are also the political considerations of the people controlling the distribution of water to serve their own ends. Even the United States has political conflicts over water distribution, and these will only worsen as water distribution changes as the climate changes. And, I am obligated to say, data centers will just make this worse.

As a final point, it must be said that water is is almost endlessly reusable. Unlike oil, our use of water generally does not destroy the water. Roughly put, most of the water that goes in eventually comes back out. But contamination can render water useless to us and some contamination, such as radiation, can last a long time. Fortunately, we can purify water (although this can be costly) and purification also occurs naturally. Unfortunately, we have damaged many of the natural purification systems and have been very busy contaminating water. Also, unfortunate is the fact that being “pro-environment” (favoring the preservation of natural purification systems and being in favor of limiting water pollution) makes a person a target in the manufactured culture wars of the right. Like the beef industry, the fossil fuel industry has done an impressive job making fossil fuels an integral part of the identity of some people, making them useful idiots in the fight against renewable energy and protecting the environment.

There are, however, practical economic reasons for preserving and restoring the natural purification systems, not the least of which is that nature does for free what would cost a fortune to do artificially. These same reasons apply to avoiding water contamination as much as possible. After all, cleaning water is generally more costly than avoiding polluting it. For example, keeping feces contaminated runoff from agriculture out of the water supply is much cheaper than removing the contamination. While I used to think that these economic arguments should have weight, I missed two obvious facts. First, natural purification of water and keeping water clean would save money, but do not make a profit for vested interests. But being a science fiction guy, I can imagine corporations buying land to preserve and charging people for the water it purifies—which would be oddly both dystopian and utopian. The second is that I did not fully grasp the fact that inflicting suffering and making life worse for other people is the goal (along the lines of how cruelty is the point). The billionaires paying the politicians so they can burn the planet are busy building bunkers because they know how this ends.

 

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The euphemism “right to work” is a useful rhetorical tool beloved by anti-labor politicians. A euphemism is substituting a positive or innocuous term for a more negative one.  It is like sprinkling sugar on something unpleasant as suggested by Mary Poppins, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down in a most delightful way.”

Euphemisms are also used outside of politics. For example, in my youth people bought used cars. Now people purchase pre-owned vehicles. People used to be fired. Now they are downsized. Secondhand clothing is now vintage.

Euphemisms are often used when naming laws to conceal the awful things within. One example of is calling anti-union laws “right to work” laws. These laws, not surprisingly, are part of the larger attack on unions, including educators’ unions. “Right to work” sounds good and some people probably mistakenly think these laws somehow address real obstacles to employment, such as discrimination. Which is the point of the name. The “Get Rid of Unions” law would not sound as good.

While there are many arguments for the “right to work” laws, one is that they will have an economic benefit for the state. If such laws were beneficial to workers, then it would be rational for workers to support them. Likewise, if they benefit employers, then it would be rational for employers to support them.

Interestingly, the premise is both true and false. By this, I do not mean that it is some sort of violation of the usual laws of truth. Rather, the claim is true for some and not true for others.

For employers, “right to work” laws can yield economic benefits, but precisely because these laws inflict economic costs on those doing the work. Darrel Minor, a professor of mathematics at Columbus State Community College did a 2012 analysis of “right to work” states relative to other states.

One focus was the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of each state. This is a measure of the goods and services produced in the state. Based on the 2009 data, the GDP of “right to work” states was $38,755. For other states, the GDP was $43, 899 which is a 13.3% difference. Interestingly, this indicates that the “right to work” laws can hurt both the employed and the employers— states with “right to work” laws are less productive than other states, thus undercutting arguments based on the claim that these laws enhance productivity. However, it is also worth noting that salaries in “right to work” states are 9.4% lower than those in other states. While this is bad for workers, it can be advantageous for employers who want to pay less for the same work.

Another focus of the analysis was on poverty rates. Eleven of the fifteen states with the highest poverty rates were “right to work” states. In contrast, nine of the eleven states with the lowest poverty rates were not “right to work” states. In 2008, 14.4% of the population of “right to work” states lived in poverty. In the other states, the number was 12.4%. As Minor noted, if the poverty level of the “right to work” states was extended to all 50 states, this would mean 3,670,000 more people living in poverty. This data suggests that “right to work” laws contribute to increased poverty. Minor also found that life expectancy in “right to work” states was lower If this data is accurate, then there are good reasons to oppose “right to work” laws. At least if you think it is bad for poverty to increase. For those who are pro-poverty, “right to work” laws are great.

To be fair and balanced, proponents of “right to work” laws point to different statistics and claim there is higher employment and lower costs of living in states with “right to work laws.” If these statistics are true, then the “right to work” laws might have some benefits in addition to the harms they seem to inflict and these should be weighed against each other.  The weight given to each will depend on the values of those doing the assessment. So, for example, someone concerned with poverty and life expectancy would weigh these laws as more harmful than beneficial. Someone focused on the advantage of lower salaries in attracting businesses would see them as beneficial. Someone who enjoys the poverty of others would also favor such laws; sometimes the reward of a law is the suffering of other people.

It is reasonable to consider that the alleged effects (positive and negative) of “right to work” laws are not solely caused by the laws but are the result other factors. For example, perhaps “right to work” states also have inferior education and hence more poverty and lower wages. Also, which is weird but worth considering, some “right to work” states like the Free State of Florida get regularly hammered by hurricanes and these have enduring and surprising detrimental effects.

 It is also worth considering the “right to work” laws are an effect rather than a cause. For example, a state with higher levels of poverty might pass such laws in the hopes of reducing poverty. It is also worth considering that the laws and their alleged effects are both the result of a third factor. States with extensive and strong business interests would tend to have higher employment rates and these business interests would tend to support “right to work” laws because of their perceived usefulness in combating the threat of unions. These should all be considered, although the simplest explanation is that the laws designed to hurt the unions that help workers end up hurting workers.

 

Across the United States, public education has been under consistent assault. K-20 budgets have been cut, teachers’ unions have been attacked, political agendas have been pushed onto education, and educators have been vilified. One reason for this assault is to open the education “market” to allow opportunities for profit. As such, the rise of for-profit schools is hardly surprising. I last wrote about the for-profit university Full Sail back in 2012 and thought I would check and see how it, and other such schools, are faring.

We need to distinguish between the traditional private school, such as Marietta College, and for-profit schools. While for-profit schools are privately owned, they are operated differently than the traditional private schools. The most obvious difference is that their focus is profit.

There is the beloved myth that the profit motivated private sector can out-perform the allegedly inefficient and bloated public sector. However, the facts show that for-profit schools often stack up poorly against public schools and traditional private schools.

Back in 2012 Mitt Romeny praised Full Sail University (whose chief executive was a major campaign contributor). I also checked in on Mitt; he seems to have settled into a quiet retirement from being meaningful in politics.  Back when Mitt praised Fulll Sail, I looked up their statistics and found that some Full Sail graduates were defaulting on their college loans at a rate of up to 60-75%. Back then, the government pushed for for-profit schools to achieve a graduate loan repayment rate of 35%, which is not an onerous requirement. As for why Full Sail graduates had a bad repayment percentage, the average debt of a graduate was 300% to 800% of her income. The 2026 data from the Department of Education reports that Full Sail has a 46% graduation rate, which is lower than the 58% midpoint for 4-year schools. The average cost is $38,875 while the midpoint for 4-year colleges is $20,077. Median earnings for graduates are $40,367 and the midpoint for 4-year colleges is $60,377.  To be fair to Full Sail, students at public schools are also graduating with debt, which provides an excellent reason to be critical of the cost of education in general.

Under Obama, there were attempts to regulate repayment benchmarks and income-to-debt ratios for for-profit schools. Schools that could not meet these would no longer be eligible for federal funds. However, these regulations were struck down in July of 2012.

In contrast, public schools are subject to intense scrutiny from state legislatures. Back in 2012 Florida public universities were the target of then Governor Rick Scott and the legislature. The professed reason was, of course, to ensure that education funds are being well spent. It is, of course, a point of concern that public schools are subject to intense scrutiny while for-profit schools are allowed to, some might claim, exploit students and taxpayers. By way of comparison, my university has a graduation rate of 63%, an average annual cost of $13,739 and median earnings of $52,657. As you would suspect in the Free State of Florida, my university is always under the state’s microscope and subject to the moving goalposts of performance-based funding. To be fair and balanced, this applies to all public universities in the state.

One obvious reply is that for-profit schools are privately owned and should be less regulated. After all, one might argue, the market should decide (via the invisible hand) what education should cost and what jobs should pay. As such, if students of for-profit schools have debts that far exceed their income, then that is just how the market works.

While this does have some appeal, the easy and obvious response is that these for-profit schools get over $30 billion a year in taxpayer funds. Interestingly, the 15 publicly traded for-profit college companies get 86% of their revenues from public money. This includes federal financial aid, the Post-9/11 GI Bill and the Department of Defense Tuition Assistance money. These “private” schools get most (an average of over 70%) of their income from federal funds. As such, these “private” companies are mostly public funded. This would justify the right of the state to regulate these schools and subject them to the sort of strict performance-based funding standards imposed on public schools. After all, they are publicly funded institutions. This also helps explain the ongoing attack on public education—the for-profits are competing with public universities for the same money and every dollar that goes to a public school is a dollar that a for-profit school does not get. Naturally, the for-profit schools also compete with traditional private schools. However, the traditional private schools are less vulnerable to the efforts of politicians to transform education into a for-profit ideological indoctrination.   

There is also a myth that the private sector can provide better services at a lower cost. In the case of for-profit schools, their B.A. degrees are generally more expensive than those of public universities. The for-profit schools also compare unfavorably in 2 year degrees—they charge more than public non-profit schools. Given that the cost of public education has increased significantly (in part because of budget cuts to these schools), for-profit schools are very expensive and compete poorly with public schools. The reality is the opposite of what the free-market fetish ideology claims: the for-profit institutions underperform and overcharge relative to public schools. But the free-market is, as we all should know, about maximizing the enrichment of the rich. By that metric, for-profit schools outperform public universities.

It might be replied that for-profit schools charge more because they are providing more for the money relative to public schools. However, a look at how the money going into for-profit schools shows this does not seem to be the case.

Based on a 2009 study of 30 for-profit companies, 22.4% of their income goes to marketing, advertising, recruiting and admission staffing. 19.4% goes to profit, which is rather impressive. In contrast, 17.7% goes to actual instruction. As such, these schools charge more than public schools and spend less on education. This suggests they are not providing students with a good value for their money.

While top public university administrators are well paid (for example,  the president of Florida A&M University make $650,000 a year plus bonuses and perks), the CEOs of the for-profit schools have an average salary of $7.3 million, while delivering an inferior product at a higher price than public schools.

Our education system is under concerted attack with one purpose being redistributing wealth from high-quality public and private schools to inferior for-profit schools. It was ironic that Obama was attacked in September 2012 for his 1998 remarks about redistribution. After all, the for-profit schools are the recipients of a $30 billion dollar redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to the wealthy. It was also ironic that Mitt Romney, the man who accused the 47% of Americans who do not pay taxes of being irresponsible dependents of the state praised the for-profit schools. After all, they grow fat on public money.

This reality is concealed under deceitful rhetoric used to mislead the public and garner support for what is an attack on a bedrock of a democratic state which is an effective system of affordable and accessible public education.

Ironically, the way to counter the problems presented by the for-profit schools is to apply conservative principles to them. They need to be removed from public welfare, they need to be held responsible, and they need to be forced to compete in a free market (one in which their allies do not use the state to impede the competition). This situation exposes the lie of conservatives: they are what they profess to hate, only on larger scale.

 

Many years ago, I was running with another professor, and we talked about how public university faculty in Florida usually have nine-month contracts and are effectively unemployed in the summer. We also talked about how adjunct faculty had it far worse: they work on a course-by-course basis and have no job security or benefits. My friend said this was somewhat like being migrant workers— working part time and moving from job to job without any security and with terrible pay. Naturally, the migrant professors, as my friend called them, have it much better than migrant laborers. However, the comparison seemed apt in that both groups are exploited and underappreciated.

Back when I was a kid, my mother thought it would be a good idea to make some extra money picking blueberries.  When she was young, this was something done by Maine kids. This must have been before the days of cheap migrant labor in Maine and, as we found out, things had changed. My sister, her friend and I gave it a shot, but we did not make it through a full day and ended up owing money because someone stole our rakes and baskets. It was the worst job I ever tried, but I did get a brief look at what it takes to pick crops.

After grad school, I started my career as an adjunct professor. I taught four classes each semester for $2,000 per class and had no benefits or job security. The next year I was hired as a visiting professor and made $30,000 a year—plus benefits. After three years of that, I was finally hired into a tenure track line. Though I am now a tenured full professor, I have not forgotten those adjunct days. It was not as bad as raking blueberries, but it was a lot of work for very little money, and it felt a lot like that blueberry day for an entire year.

Like migrant laborers, adjunct professors are poorly paid. Back in 1993 I was paid $2,000 per class, making $16,000 for the eight classes I taught over the school year.  In 2010, the median salary for adjuncts was $2,700 per three credit hour class. In 2026, the average is $4,000 per class; so, an adjunct teaching 8 classes a year would average $32,000, with no benefits. While this might sound good, adjuncts often have a master’s degree or Ph.D. and the average salary for someone with a bachelor’s degree is $81,000.

While there might be some exceptions, adjunct faculty typically do not get health coverage from their employers or other benefits. When I was an adjunct, I was fortunate to be young and healthy, but a major medical problem would have ruined me financially. I did tough out illnesses and injuries then because I had no insurance.

Like migrant laborers, adjuncts often travel from workplace to workplace to make their living. One of my past colleagues, who has a doctorate and years of experience, taught at Florida A&M University, Florida State University, and what was then Tallahassee Community College. He had to rush between classes to get from school to school. His situation was (and is) not uncommon—other adjuncts I know teach at both universities in Tallahassee, the community college and online just to make enough to live on. Some even travel around the county from adjunct job to adjunct job, literally acting as migrant laborers. While regular faculty have offices, adjuncts often do not. They might, for example, be assigned a shared room for office hours and must get the department office manager to open the door for them because they are not given a key.

Unlike most migrant laborers, adjunct are highly educated professionals who are doing jobs that normally pay reasonably well and come with benefits. The situation of adjuncts in higher education is like if hospitals employed adjunct medical doctors. The adjuncts doctors would have their medical doctorates, perform surgery, treat patients and so on. That is, they would be just like regular doctors except that their pay would be a fraction of what the doctors received and they would have no benefits or job security.

As might be imagined, this terrible disparity in pay is unjust. After all, the adjuncts are being paid far less for doing the same work and they are generally qualified as regular faculty. It would be another matter if adjuncts were less educated or did work proportional to their low pay. However, this is not the case. As such, the treatment of adjuncts is wrong.

Naturally, those employing adjuncts have a good reason to use them: they do professional work at a fraction of the cost of hiring regular faculty and can be “fired” by not re-hiring them next semester. It is also common for universities to hold off providing an adjunct with a contract until two or more weeks into a semester—that way they can be sure that the class will fill and that money will be available. An adjunct without a contract can just be let go without pay. I have seen this happen—people working for two weeks, then being told to not come back for week three. Obviously enough, not paying an adjunct for the time worked would be theft, although this does happen.

One irony is that the students adjuncts teach will increase their earning potential significantly by getting a college degree. As noted above, students who get a bachelor’s degree will probably end up making more than the adjuncts who taught them.

People outside of academics sometimes ask me why adjuncts put up with the terrible conditions rather than getting a different job. While some admit that they have been unable to get a job elsewhere, most adjuncts I have spoken to (and I have met many over the years) say they love teaching and are willing to live with horrible salaries to do what they love to do.

Naturally, this claim might be doubted. However, this sort of attitude holds all through teaching, from kindergarten through the graduate level. After all, people who have the degrees needed to teach could make much more money working in other professions, yet they choose to remain in academics. While they might have some other reasons, it is most often because they believe in what they are doing and like teaching.

 Like many good things that benefit people, education is largely powered by people willing to make personal sacrifices to help others and do what they believe to be right. Naturally, educators are subject to the unrelenting culture wars of the right for this reason.

Unfortunately, this love is unfairly exploited, and little has been to address the treatment of adjuncts.  In fact, the current trend in public education has been for the right to cut budgets and attack teachers’ unions.  As education costs continue to increase you can be sure that this money is not going to pay adjuncts properly.

 

 

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Taking a moral position comes with a price. Or, more accurately, prices.  The cost of holding a position and the cost of acting upon it are usually different prices.  There is also the cost of professing a moral position because one might hold a moral view in secret or lie and profess a moral view that one rejects.

This assumes someone can hold a moral position while not acting upon it, which raises questions about what it is to hold a moral position. Intuitively, it does seem that people can do this.  For example, a person might believe they should help others in need yet drive past someone in need because it is raining a bit too hard. It might be objected that a person who does not act upon a moral position does not hold that position, so the driver in question thinks they believe in this principle but are lying to themselves.  But we could see morality as analogous to law: a law that is not enforced is still a law. Or maybe it isn’t really.  

The price of holding a moral position usually varies between people. For example, the cost of holding and acting on a belief in free speech is usually low in the United States and higher in China. While the notion of cost in this context could be discussed at length, I now turn to discussing the cost of the anti-abortion position.

The cost of holding and acting upon an anti-abortion moral position obviously varies. In some cases, the cost could be very high. For example, imagine a young girl living in poverty impregnated by rape who is morally against abortion. For her, the cost of acting on her moral position will be very high. After all, the “pro-life” Republican party and the “pro-choice” Democratic party have done little to help single mothers. But, to be fair and balanced, Republicans are often actively hostile to helping mothers in need while Democrat tend to be merely indifferent.

In other cases, the cost could be absurdly low. For example, an elderly wealthy man who has no children could be anti-abortion at no meaningful cost to himself. But it must be said that the cost of a moral position can be inflicted on others. For example, an elderly wealthy man who is a politician could see to it that his view became law and thus his moral position would impose a high cost on women and girls while costing him nothing.  

In the United States, most Americans have consistently supported legal abortion. But in the United States of Oligarchy and MAGA, the majority does not rule. As would be expected, while 55% of men claim abortion should be legal, 64% of women hold that view. As would also be expected, most of the politicians who are anti-abortion are men, although there are female politicians who also have that view.  But women are still in the minority when it comes to holding office or being a national pundit.

It is also interesting, but hardly surprising, that those who take the anti-abortion view tend to be social conservatives or religious (or both). For people in these categories, the cost of their position varies.

For example, the Catholic Church takes a strong stance against abortion. However, the Catholic Church pays a tiny price for this position in that Catholic charities do provide aid and support to girls and women who seek help from them. As such, the church has been willing to bear at least a tiny fraction of the cost of holding and acting on their anti-abortion moral position. Obviously, the Catholic Church can still be criticized for its position.

Many of those who hold to the anti-abortion position are social conservatives. They also profess to be fiscal conservatives, at least when it comes to social programs aimed at helping those in poverty or need—such as infants, pregnant women and girls.

While some women can afford to have children without undue hardship, there are many women and girls who cannot. For example, girls in the lower economic classes will struggle with cost of pregnancy and raising a child. There is also the matter of the cost of an unwanted pregnancy in terms of a person’s life. For example, an unwanted pregnancy can put an end to hopes of an education or career. There is, of course, also the matter of pregnancy inflicted by rape and the potential costs to the victim. While even most conservatives will allow abortion in the case of rape an incest, not all will.

When the anti-abortion politicians prevent, cut or eliminate funding for programs aimed to help pregnant women and girls, this imposes the costs of the anti-abortion position of these politicians onto the women and girls. That is, the females are paying the price of the politician’s “moral” positions. I am, of course, being charitable here and assuming these politicians are anti-abortion as a moral position and not just anti-abortion because they are misogynists.

The anti-abortion view is generally cheap for conservative politicians. After all, they are unlikely to be in a situation in which they or someone they care about is experiencing an unwanted pregnancy and lacking financial support (or to be cynical, lacking access to abortion).  As such, they can hold their view with little chance of having to pay a significant price. It is effectively a free moral stance for them. However, for the women and girls who experience an unwanted pregnancy and lack adequate means of support, the cost is high when the anti-abortion and anti-social support views became instantiated in law.

One interesting (and ironic) way to characterize the approach of conservatives who are anti-abortion and anti-social support is that they are engaging in ethical parasitism: they are holding to moral positions they expect others to pay for. A milder characterization is that they are living on ethical subsidies: the costs of their moral views are subsidized by those who pay the actual cost. Since I am opposed to such freeloading, I am morally opposed to these moral welfare kings (and queens) who are unwilling to pay for their own ethics.

 

 

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Alternative reality fiction involves, as would be suspected,  a fictional world like the actual world except for some key differences. In the case of alternative history fiction, the key differences arise due to some change in historical events—thus creating an alternative fictional timeline. One popular example of this is changing the outcome of WWII.

The idea the world could have been different is not just something for science fiction, but is also of interest in philosophy and science. Philosophers have long written about possible worlds and scientists got into the game relatively recently. From a philosophical standpoint, writers who create alternative histories are using counterfactuals in that they are describing a world that is counter to fact.  For example, an author might explore what might have happened if the American Civil war ended with a Southern victory and a permanently divided United States and Confederacy.  As another popular example, an author might change WWII.  One example of this sort of counterfactual alternative history is the movie Inglourious Basterds.  This is a clever piece of science fiction in which Jewish soldiers assassinate Hitler. There are, of course, also more extreme versions that are in the fantasy genre, such as the tale in which Lincoln hunts vampires. But counterfactual alternative realities are not just limited to entertainment; they are now a fundamental component of American politics.

While political narratives often distort reality by including straw men, modest lies and partial truths, some narratives present entire counter factual worlds. In some cases, the extent to which a politician or propagandist crafts an alternative reality would seem to make them a science fiction author. After all, they are describing a world somewhat like our own that does not exist, except in the imagination of the creator and those that share the creator’s vision.

While critics of Trump often present him as a departure from traditional Republicans because of his relentless untruths, this was an established well before Trump. One example of a Republican alternative reality is their narrative about the Obama administration.  Paul Ryan’s 2012 speech is an excellent example of this sort of pre-Trump narrative. The world he describes is somewhat like our own and there is someone called “Obama” who was president of that America. However, the world of Ryan’s speech differs from the actual world in many important ways, as presented by Sally Kohn over at Fox. Another callback is when Clint Eastwood blamed Obama (or rather a chair standing in for Obama) for the invasion of Afghanistan—which happened long before he was president. Reagan was also skilled at presenting an alternative reality, one in which welfare queens drove the streets in Cadillacs. But these all seem quaint and restrained when compared to the alternative realities being presented by Trump and his Republicans today. In the Trump Continuum, leftists are attacking the reflecting pool with knifes, grocery prices are low and he keeps winning the Iran war. While I could list examples almost without end, to keep up with the latest truths, lies and distortions from politicians and pundits of all stripes, PolitiFact is a good place to visit.

While I suspect that Trump supporters do not read my blog, they would agree with me that politicians spin alternative realities. However, they would claim that Trump is describing the real world and everyone else is writing science fiction about an America that does not exist.

In the case of science fiction, the authors are aware they are creating fiction and, in general, the audience gets that the works are fictional. Of course, there can be some notable exceptions when fans lose the ability to properly distinguish counterfactuals and alternative histories from truth and history. One of William Gibson’s stories provides a fictional example of reality failure in which a photographer assigned to take pictures of surviving 1930s futuristic architecture begins to slide into an alternative reality, the Gernsback Continuum. This is a continuum in which the world of 1930s pulp science fiction became real. This story can now serve as a metaphor for what is happening now in American politics: there are people who seem to believe they are living in an alternative America. If you are critical of MAGA, they are the ones who think they are living in the Trump Continuum. MAGA folks presumably think everyone else is living in the Woke Continuum. But someone must be living in fictional political worlds that are populated by fictional political characters. The fight is over who and one key question is why they are doing this.

One obvious explanation is that people who do not know better and are not inclined towards critical thinking can be deceived by such fiction and accept it as reality. These people will, in turn, attempt to convince others of the reality of these fictions and will also make decisions, such as who to vote for, based on these fictions. As might be imagined, fiction-based decision making is unlikely to result in wise choices. Even when a belief is shown to be an error, people who believe because of their ideology will usually double down in the face of this disproof. This can make true believers almost immune to corrections. While this is a problem for those who are concerned about facts and logic, it gives the tellers of counterfactual narratives perfect audiences: believers who will reject challenges to the narrative in which they live and thus are willful participants in their own political continuum, be that the Trump Continuum, the Woke Continuum or whatever. For these people, art does not imitate life, nor does life imitate art. Life, at least is art—albeit bad science fiction.

 

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Way back in August of 2012 Ted Akin, a Republican representative from Missouri, created a stir when he said, “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.” While such ignorance was striking then, it is the order of the day in today’s political reality.

Such ignorance raises concerns both ethics and epistemology. Akin’s claim that the female body can “shut down” a pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape” raises the question as to whether a member of congress who gets to make decisions about women’s health is morally obligated to make the effort to know what he is talking about. This also raises a general question about officials and knowledge.

On the face of it, someone who is in a position to create and pass laws regarding rape and abortion seems obligated to know the facts about rape and pregnancy. After all, passing such laws from a position of ignorance will usually do more harm than good (and any good done would seem to be a matter of chance) since they would not be based on reality. In the case of rape and pregnancy, anyone who has taken a high school level class in anatomy and physiology (which I did) or a competent sex education class would know the female body lacks these “shut down” mechanisms. It hardly seems unreasonable for a congressman to have at least a high school level knowledge regarding the human reproductive system.  Interestingly, the right now asks everyone “what is a woman?”; if only this was a good faith quest for knowledge.  

Of course, it could be argued that such classes do not typically explicitly state that the female body lacks these mechanisms, and someone might claim that pregnancy from “legitimate rape” is very low. However, this claim would be at odds with facts. Way back in 1996 the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston conducted a large (4008 women) study over three years and found that there is a national average of a 5% rate of pregnancy among rape victims. This resulted in an estimated 32,101 cases of pregnancy per year in the United States. As such, Akin was wrong about the facts.

While having one congressman being wrong is a matter of concern, there is also the general concern about the extent to which views about abortion are based on false beliefs.  After all, to the degree that opposition to abortion in cases of rape is based on the mistaken belief that women are all but immune to being impregnated by “legitimate” rape this opposition is unjustified. Naturally, there can be other justifications presented, but clearly Akin’s “shut down” view failed to justify his view that abortion should not be allowed even in cases of rape.

Akin did allow that the “shut down” mechanism might fail, thus allowing for a slight possibility that a woman could be impregnated by “legitimate” rape. However, he asserted that even in such cases abortion should not be permitted. As he saw it, “there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

I, not surprisingly, agree that rapists should be punished. I am reasonably sure that this is a non-controversial position. However, the matter of not “attacking the child” is more controversial.

As Akin presented the matter, a woman who has an abortion after being “legitimately” raped is “attacking” and presumably punishing the child (Akin seems to be saying that the rapist should be punished and not the child). While the idea of punishing a child seems horrible, there is the question of whether this occurring.

One key point is whether the entity in question (which might be just a fertilized egg) is a child. This, of course, is a matter that is disputed during the larger debate over abortion and addressing it would expand the essay far beyond its intended scope. As such, let it be assumed for the sake of this argument that the entity is a child. Let it also be assumed, obviously enough, that abortion kills this entity.

As might be suspected, casting abortion as punishing the child is a clever rhetorical move since it is terrible to punish a child for the crimes of someone else. It also allows those who oppose abortion rights to cast abortion in the case of rape as a woman punishing a child rather than a woman deciding not to bear the child imposed on her against her will by a rapist. While this has some rhetorical punch, it falls apart under examination.

While the entity (or child, if one prefers) is killed by the abortion, it is not being punished. Punishment entails a response to wrongdoing and requires that the entity in question be capable of being punished (and not merely harmed). In the case of the entity, it has done no wrong—mainly because it lacks the attributes needed to be wrong doer. To use an analogy, a kitten who accidently scratches a person and infects him with cat scratch fever is not a wrongdoer—it has no understanding of what it is doing nor intent to cause harm. To use another analogy, cancer cells might cause a person harm, but they are not doing wrong—they have no moral agency. Naturally, a person can inflict harm on the kitten or destroy the cancer, but neither the kitten nor the cancer is being punished. They lack the attributes needed to understand that they are being punished and hence cannot be punished, although they can be harmed or killed. This can be disputed, perhaps by arguing that punishment is in the hand of the punisher, so to speak.

Likewise, a zygote and even a fetus lack the agency and understanding to be wrongdoers. They can, of course, be harmed but they cannot be punished. After all, they lack the attributes needed to understand that what is being done is punishment and hence they can be harmed but not punished.

Naturally, it can be countered that although the claim that the entity is being punished because of the crime of the rapist is a rhetorical point, what matters is that the entity is being harmed. That is, a woman who is raped should not be allowed to have an abortion because doing so would harm the entity (or child, if you prefer). It must be assumed the fact that the woman was raped is morally irrelevant, which is an extreme position. However, it is worth considering because people like Akin and Paul Ryan held that view.

Roughly put, the principle that Akin and Ryan seemed to be operating on is that it does not matter how the woman was impregnated, what matters is that she is pregnant and that the abortion would kill the entity. More generally, it does not matter how an innocent life got there, the right to life of that entity overrides the rights of the host. One interesting way to look at this matter is to look at illegal immigration in the United States.

Suppose that the United States is analogous to a woman. The children that migrants bring with them or give birth to in the United States are, obviously enough, analogous to the child in a pregnancy. Given the principle that Akin and Ryan seemed to be operating on, children that end up in the United States cannot be deported if doing so would harm them. After all, this would be comparable to aborting a child in a woman’s body

The obvious counter is, of course, that the migrant children have parents that can take care of them and hence the abortion analogy breaks down because the United States cannot be expected to take care of children when there are parents who can do that. After all, to expect Americans to bear the cost of raising someone else’s children would be wrong.

Of course, Akin and Ryan were expecting women impregnated by rape to do just that—that is, to bear the cost of taking care of children they did not choose and that were forced upon them. Naturally, it could be morally commendable for a woman to elect to raise the child—but it hardly seems reasonable to say that a woman is obligated to do so. Yes, I do see that this analogy could be turned against people who are pro-migrant and anti-abortion.

To use another analogy, the principle that Akin and Ryan seemed to accept would seem to oblige people to raise any child that someone was able to get onto their property. So, if someone managed to sneak into Ryan’s house and leave behind babies, then Ryan would be obligated to raise them. After all, while the trespasser broke it, the rights of the babies trump the rights of the property owner. It would not do, of course, to attack the babies because of the crime of the trespasser.

 

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Will is a useful thing to have as it allows a person to overcome factors that would make their decisions for them, such as pain, fear, anger, fatigue, lust or weakness. I would, of course, be remiss to not mention that the will can be used to overcome compassion, love and mercy as well. The will, as Kant noted, can select good or evil with equal resolve. However, I will set aside the concern regarding the good and bad wills and focus on training the will.

Based on my own experience, the will is like physical stamina—while people vary in what they get by nature, it can be improved by proper training. This, of course, matches Aristotle’s view of the virtues.

While there are many self-help books discussing how to train the will with elaborate and strange methods, the process is straightforward and like training any attribute. To steal from Aristotle, it is mainly a matter of exercising the capacity but not doing so to excess (and thus burning out) or deficiency (and thus getting no gain). For example, one way of developing the will to serve temperance is to practice refraining from pleasures to the proper degree (the mean) and this will help train the will. As another example, one can build will via athletic activities by continuing when pain and fatigue are pushing one to stop. Naturally, one should not do this to excess (because of the possibility of injury) nor be deficient in it (because there will be no gain).

As far as simple and easy ways to train the will, meditation and repetitive mental exercises (such as repeating prayers or simply repeated counting) seem to help in developing this attribute. It might also help by giving the mind (whatever that is) a chance to relax and recover some will.

One advantage of indirect training of the will, such as with running, is that can develop other resources usable in place of the will. For example, when a person tries to get into shape to run, sticking with running will initially take a lot of will because the pain and fatigue will start quickly. However, as the person gets into shape it will take longer for them to hurt and feel fatigued. As such, the person will not need to use as much will when running (and if the person becomes a crazy runner like me, then they will need to use will to take a rest day from running). To borrow a bit from Aristotle, once a person becomes properly habituated to an activity, then the will cost of that activity becomes less, making it easier to engage in that activity.  For example, a person who initially must struggle to eat healthy food rather than junk food will find that resisting not only builds their will but also makes it easier to resist the temptations of junk.

There are also what could be called will surrogates. A will surrogate functions much like the will by allowing a person to resist factors that would otherwise “take control” of them. However, what makes the will surrogate a surrogate is that it is something that is not the will—but merely serves a similar function. Having these would seem to “build the will” by providing a surrogate that can be called upon when the person’s own will is failing—sort of a mental tag team situation.

For example, a religious person could use their belief in God as a will surrogate to resist temptations forbidden by their faith, such as adultery. That is, they can do what they will rather than what lust is pushing them to do. As another example, a person might use pride or honor as will surrogates—she, for example, might push through the pain and fatigue of a 10K race because of her pride. Other emotions (such as love) and other factors could also serve as will surrogates by enabling a person to do what they will rather than what they are being pushed to do. Or not do.

One obvious concern  about will surrogates is that they could be seen not as allowing the person to do as they would will when they lack their own will but as merely being other factors that “make the decision” for the person. For example, if a person resists having an affair with a coworker because of his religious beliefs, then it could be contended that he has not chosen to not have the affair. Rather, his religious belief (and perhaps fear of God) was stronger than his lust. If so, those who gain what appears to be willpower from such sources are not really gaining will. Rather they merely have other factors that make them do or not do things in a way that resembles the actions of the will. But such will surrogates can be useful, like training wheels on a bike that allow one to learn.

 

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Traditionally, drawing is seen as an imitative art in that artists create images based on real things. Naturally, this imitation can range from copying entire scenes to creating an original assembly from bits and pieces of real things. Descartes, in the painter analogy in his Meditations, makes note of this interesting nature of painting (which also applies to drawing). He considers that dreams are assembled like paintings from bits of real things. At the very least, he argues (before moving on to even greater skepticism), the colors used are real.

Moving away from metaphysics and epistemology back to aesthetics, imitating real things does not disqualify a drawing from being art. In fact, artists are often praised for their ability to accurately imitate reality. For example, my friends mistakenly claimed that I am an artist because they could recognize who I was drawing.  Interestingly, though this realism is often praised, there might be a point at which a drawing is too real to be considered art.

One argument for this is easy enough. When I taught an aesthetics class, I demonstrated my lack of artistic ability and asked my students why my badly drawn capybara was not art. They pointed out the obvious—it did not look much a capybara because it was so badly drawn. I then ask them if it would be art if I could draw better and they tend to agree. I then asked about photocopying or scanning the picture I drew my capybara from. They pointed out the obvious—that would not be art, just a copy.

Obviously, part of the reason the photocopy or scan would not be art is that it is just a mechanical reproduction. Things become considerably more interesting when a photorealistic image is created not by a technological means of duplication, but by hand. For example, Samuel Silva recreated the image of a red haired girl from a photo by Kristina Taraina as well as other photorealistic images. While Silva works with color Bic pens (seriously), Paul Cadden creates his photorealistic works by drawing and with paints. He, however, uses the term “hyperrealism” rather than “photorealism.”

Clearly, the creation of such realism in imitation requires great technical skill. For example, Silva can create photorealistic colors using Bic pens and this demonstrates an impressive mastery of color. There is also the obvious technical skill required to imitate a photograph with such incredible accuracy.

However, technical skill alone does not make something art. After all, this technical skill can be exceeded by a decent color photocopier or a smartphone camera.

It might be objected that technical skills do make it art, even though a machine can do it better. To use an analogy, the fact that a scooter could beat a champion runner does not prove that the runner is not an athlete. Likewise, the fact that a machine can imitate better than Silva or Cadden does not mean that they are not artists. This leads to a second point about art and imitation.

The problem, it can be argued, is not that a machine can imitate better than Silva or Cadden. Rather, it is that there seems to be a point at which the exactitude of the imitation ceases to be a contribution to artistry and begins to detract from it. While it seems unlikely that an exact tipping point can be specified, it does certainly seem that this is the case. Why this is so can be shown by returning to the reason why a mechanical copy is not art: there is nothing in the copy that is not in the original (laying aside duplication defects). As such, the more exact the copy of the original, the less room there is for whatever it is that makes a work art. As such, to argue that Silva or Cadden is an artist requires showing that they do more than merely copy. That is, they must add something aesthetically significant to their work that is not in the original. Otherwise, they could be seen as organic photocopiers—somewhat like how computers were once humans who did math.

One way to approach this matter is  an analogy to photography. By its very nature, an unaltered photograph merely captures an image of what is there (photons bouncing of surfaces and all that).  What the photographer adds is her perspective—that is, she selects what she will capture and thus what makes the work art is not that it duplicates reality (which it must by the laws of physics) but that the photographer has added that something extra (which, to steal from Locke’s Indian, I must say is “something I know not what”).

As such, someone who creates photorealistic images of photos could be adding that something extra in a way comparable to what photographers do when they create their art (assuming that a photograph can be art).

The obvious reply is that a person who is creating a photorealistic re-creation of a photograph does not seem to be adding that something extra. Cadden does, however, claim that he is not engaging in photorealism, but rather in what he calls hyperrealism. He says that

“Hyperreal paintings and sculptures are not strict interpretations of photographs, nor are they literal illustrations of a particular scene or subject. Instead, they utilise additional, often subtle, pictorial elements to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye” and he adds that “Furthermore, they may incorporate emotional, social, cultural and political thematic elements as an extension of the painted visual illusion; a distinct departure from the older and considerably more literal school of Photorealism.”

From a theoretical standpoint, Cadden is certainly on solid ground. After all, he makes an argument analogous to the one used above, namely that he adds that “aesthetic extra” that makes his work more than a technical achievement in manual duplication. There is, however, the question of whether that “aesthetic extra” is present in his works. Since he works from photographs, it seems easy enough to put the matter to an empirical test by comparing his works to the original and giving due consideration to the difference. As such, if his work differs in aesthetically significant ways from the original image, then it would be safe enough to consider it art and him an artist.  In any case, both Silva and Cadden are remarkably talented and do amazing work. While my drawing skill has increased dramatically from my capybara days, I am not an artist—I merely apply graphite to paper in the form of recognizable shapes. After all, my indisputable theory of art is that if I can do it, it ain’t art.

 

 

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