Author: Michael LaBossiere

Peaceful protest is an integral part of America. As is murder. Back in 2016 the two collided in Dallas, Texas: after a peaceful protest, five police officers were murdered. While some might see it as ironic that police rushed to protect people protesting police violence, this reminds us about how police are supposed to function in a democratic society. This stands in stark contrast with the unnecessary deaths inflicted on citizens by bad officers, deaths that once caused the nations to briefly consider that such deaths might be worth preventing.

While violence and protests are worthy of in-depth discussion, my focus will be on the ethical questions raised by the use of a robot to deliver the explosive device was used to kill one of the attackers. While this matter was addressed by philosophers more famous than I, I thought it worthwhile to look back to 2016 to see if my thoughts have changed.

While the police robot is called a robot, it is more accurate to say it is a remotely operated vehicle. After all, the term “robot” implies some autonomy on the part of the machine. The police robot is remote controlled, like a sophisticated version of RC toys. In fact,  one could do the same thing  by putting an explosive on a toy.

Since there is a human operator directly controlling the machine, the ethics of the matter are the same ass if  conventional machines of death (such as a gun) had been used to kill the shooter. On the face of it, the only difference is in perception: a killer robot delivering a bomb sounds more ominous and controversial than an officer using a firearm. The use of remote-controlled vehicles to kill targets was nothing new as the basic technology has been around since at least WWII and the United States has killed many people with drones.

If this had been the first case of an autonomous police robot sent to kill (like an ED-209), then the issue would be different. However, it is a case that falls under established ethics of killing, only with a slight twist in regards to the delivery system. That said, it can be argued that the use of a remote-controlled machine is a morally relevant change.

Keith Abney raised a very reasonable point: if a robot could be sent to kill a target, it could also be sent to use non-lethal force to subdue the target. In the case of human officers, the usual moral justification of lethal force is that it is the best option for protecting themselves and others from a threat. If the threat presented by a suspect can be effectively addressed in a non-lethal manner, then that is the option that should be used. The moral foundation for this is set by the role of police in society: they are supposed to protect the public and should take every legitimate effort to deliver suspects for trial. They are not supposed to function as soldiers sent to defeat enemies. There are, of course, cases in which suspects cannot be safely captured and lethal force can be justified. A robot (or, more accurately, a remote-controlled machine) can radically change the equation.

While a police robot is an expensive piece of hardware, it is not a human being (or even an artificial being). As such, it only has the moral status of property. In contrast, even the worst human criminal is a human being and thus has a moral status above that of an object. If a robot is sent to engage a human suspect, then in many circumstances there would be no moral justification for using lethal force. After all, the officer operating the machine is in no danger. This should change the ethics of the use of force to match other cases in which a suspect needs to be subdued but presents no danger to the officer attempting arrest. In such cases, the machine should be outfitted with less-than-lethal options.

While television and movies make subduing someone safely seem easy, it is difficult to do. For example, the classic rifle butt to the head is a fictional favorite for knocking someone out, when doing that in the real world would cause serious injury or even death. Tasers, gas weapons and rubber bullets also can cause serious injury or death. However, the less-than-lethal options are less likely to kill a suspect and thus allow them to be captured for trial, which is supposed to be the point of law enforcement. Robots could be designed to both withstand gunfire and securely grab a suspect. While this is likely to result in injury (such as broken bones) and could kill, it would be less likely to kill than a bomb. An excellent example of a situation in which a robot would be ideal would be to capture an armed suspect barricaded in a structure.

It must be noted that there will be cases in which the use of lethal force via a robot is justified. These would include cases in which the suspect presents a clear and present danger to officers or civilians and the best chance of ending the threat is the use of such force. An example of this might be a hostage situation in which the hostage taker is likely to kill hostages while the robot is trying to subdue them with less-than-lethal force.

While police robots have long been the stuff of science fiction, they do present a potential technological solution to the moral and practical problem of keeping officers and suspects alive. While an officer might be legitimately reluctant to stake her life on less-than-lethal options when directly engaged with a suspect, an officer operating a robot faces no such risk. As such, if the deployment of less-than-lethal options via a robot would not put the public at unnecessary risk, then it would be morally right to use such means.

Put a bit simply, a silencer is a device for suppressing the sound a gun makes when it fires. This is usually done to avoid drawing attention to the shooter. This makes an excellent analogy for what happens to proposals for gun regulation: the sound is quickly suppressed to ensure that it does not get too much attention.

Part of this suppression is deliberate. After each mass shooting, the NRA and similar groups step up pressure on their politicians to ensure new regulations are delayed, defeated or defanged. While it is tempting to cast the NRA as a nefarious player subverting democracy, the NRA seems to have mastered the democratic process: it organizes and guides motivated citizens to give money (which is used to lobby politicians) and to contact their representatives. This has often proven more effective than protests, sit-ins and drum circles. While it is true that the NRA represents only a fraction of the population, politics is like any sport: you must participate to win. While many citizens do not even bother to vote, NRA member turnout is apparently quite good. This is, of course, democracy. Naturally, another tale could be told of the NRA and its power and influence. A tale that presents the NRA and its members as subverting the will of the majority.

Certain pundits and politicians also engage in suppression. One standard tactic is, after a shooting, to claim that it is “too soon” to engage in discussion and lawmaking. Rather, the appropriate response involves thoughts and prayers. While it is appropriate to pay respects to the wounded and dead, there is a difference between doing this and trying to run out the clock with this delaying tactic. Those that use it know that if the discussion can be delayed, interest will fade and along with it the chances of any action being taken.

It is, in fact, appropriate to act as soon as possible. To use the obvious analogy, if a fire is ravaging through a neighborhood, then the time to put out that fire is now. This way there will be less need for moments of thoughts and prayers for victims.

Another stock tactic is to accuse those proposing gun regulation of playing politics and exploiting the tragedy to advance their agenda. This approach can have some moral merit; if a person is engaged in a Machiavellian exploitation of some awful event (be it a mass shooting, a terrorist attack, or a migrant committing murder) without real concern for others, then that person would be morally awful. That said, they could still be acting rightly, albeit for all the wrong reasons. This would be in terms of the consequences, which could be good despite the immoral motivation. For example, if a politician cynically exploited the harm inflicted by lead contaminated water to gain national attention so they could gain power and money, then that person would not be a good person. However, if this resulted in changes that reduced lead poisoning in the United States, then consequences would be good and desirable.

It is also worth considering that using an awful event to motivate change for the better could result from laudable motives and a recognition of how human psychology works. To use an analogy, a person who loves someone who just suffered from a lifestyle inflicted heart attack could use that event to get the person to change her lifestyle and do so for commendable reasons. After all, people are most likely to do something when an awful event is fresh in their minds; hence this is the ideal time to address a problem, which leads to the final part of the discussion.

Although active suppression can be an effective tactic, it often relies on the fact that interest in a matter fades as time passes. This is why those opposed to new gun regulation use delaying tactics. They know that public attention will shift and fade.

On the one hand, the human tendency to lose interest can be regarded as a bad thing. As Merlin said in Excalibur, “for it is the doom of men that they forget.” In the case of mass shootings and gun violence, people quickly forget an incident until the next mass shooting reminds them. This allows a problem to persist and is why action needs to be taken as soon as possible.

On the other hand, our forgetting is often our salvation. If the memory of fear and pain did not fade over time, they would be wounds that did not heal. Just as a person would bleed to death physically from wounds that never healed, a person would bleed out emotionally if memory did not fade.

To use another analogy, if the mind is like a ship and memory is like a cargo, just as a ship that could never lighten its load would plunge to the ocean floor, a person that could never lighten her emotional load would be dragged into the great abyss of emotions and thus be ruined. Thus, forgetting is both our doom and our salvation. Of course, we would have far less need to forget if we remembered what we need to fix. And fixed it.

 

Judging from the news coverage, it would be natural to think that mass shootings with assault rifles are the most common form of gun violence. As is often the case, the extent of media coverage is no indicator of the facts of the matter and to think otherwise would be to fall victim to the spotlight fallacy. While mass shootings are all too common, the number of people killed per year in such events is only a small fraction of deaths involving guns. Most gun deaths are self-inflicted: 21,334 of the 33,599 known gun deaths in 2014 were suicides. Of the remaining deaths, homicides accounted for 10,945, accidents 586 and police interventions resulted in 464 deaths. The death tolls in these three categories have been stable since 2000, but gun suicides increased significantly during this time. As should be expected, there have been various attempts to address this problem.

When attempts to prevent suicide focus on guns, a common counter is to repeat the saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Put in non-slogan form, the argument is that there is no reason to focus on guns because doing so will have no significant impact on suicide rates. Those who are intent on killing themselves will find some other means of doing so, such as overdosing. This is analogous to the response to other proposals to address gun violence. For example, when gun regulation is raised as a means of addressing mass shootings, one response is that people will simply use something else, such as homemade bombs or their car.

This counter can be addressed by considering some key facts about guns and suicide. The first is that research indicates that a person will typically start planning a very short time before the attempt (often less than an hour). That is, there is usually a limited window of vulnerability. The second, and the most relevant, is that guns are very effective suicide machines: 85% of suicide attempts with guns succeed, followed by 69% for hanging. The use of poison succeeds 2% of the time. This is hardly surprising: guns are designed to kill effectively and quickly. At this point, an objector might contend that the effectiveness of guns is not relevant since a person will just keep trying if they fail with a low success method. This leads to the third fact.

While it seems reasonable to believe that a person who tries to commit suicide and fails will keep trying, the evidence seems to show that most people who fail do not try again. As such, if the first attempt fails, there probably will not be another, especially if there is an intervention. As such, if a suicidal person did not have access to a gun, then his chance of not dying would be significantly better than if he did. This is not to ignore the other means of committing suicide; it is merely to consider the facts of the success rate.

While a lack of access to a gun would significantly reduce the chances a person will succeed in a suicide attempt, there is the problem of making this a reality. Some countries have addressed gun violence by strong restrictions on gun ownership, thus reducing all forms of gun violence (including suicide). As a matter of political reality, this is not an option in the United States. As such, the challenge of suicide by gun must be addressed in other ways.

One approach, which is analogous to one of many proposals for addressing mass shootings, is a requirement to confirm the mental health of a person purchasing a gun. In the case of suicide prevention, the mental health issues of concern would tend to be different from those involved with mass shootings or other forms of gun violence. Though this is reasonable, it does have two significant gaps. The first is that it does nothing about guns that are already owned. The second is that it requires that the person has an established history that would indicate a likely attempt at suicide.

In regards to guns already owned, the main solution is for the guns to be made inaccessible to the person. This could be done by the person themselves, by friends/relatives or by the authorities. The main problem is that suicide, as noted above, tends to not be planned well in advance and so there may be little or no time for an intervention. There are also legal and practical challenges in taking a person’s guns away without their consent. If the person has proven themselves a danger to themselves (or others), then there are procedures for this. However, if a person is merely suspected of having the potential of committing suicide, there is the problem of justifying taking the person’s guns. Given that gun ownership is taken as a constitutional right, the authorities would have no legal right to take away a person’s guns without adequate justification. Friends and relatives, of course, would not need legal justification to intervene but taking a person’s guns without his consent would be theft (not to mention the potential risk). This is analogous to attempts to prevent mass shootings by taking away guns from people who might engage in such behavior, the problem is that until they act or make clear threats, there is little legal basis for such action.

In regards to the established and known history of mental illness, the problem (as with the case of some mass shootings) is that before a person acts, her background is very often the same as people who will never engage in gun violence. This is the general problem of prediction. There are also the ethical and legal problems associated with acting on mere predictions. This is because gun ownership is a legal right in the United States as well as the usual moral arguments in favor of gun ownership as a moral right.

There do not seem to be many technological options to address the use of guns in suicide. After all, the requirement of a safety feature that prevents a gun from being fired at humans would never pass in the United States, even if such a feature was a technical possibility. A feature that prevented a weapon from firing at designated person (such as the owner) might have some appeal (and is a feature of some science fiction weapons) but even if it were possible, a person could bypass this feature or get another weapon. The solution, obviously enough, must be a human one.

Like everyone else, how I look at the world is shaped by my backstory. While, as a professional philosopher, I have an excellent logical toolkit, my use of these tools is shaped by how I feel about things. Since the matter of guns is an emotional issue, I need to sort out how my backstory influences how I assess arguments about guns.

Academics, especially philosophers, are often cast as latte sipping effeminate liberals who would get the vapors if they so much as caught sight of a gun. The positive version of this stereotype is that an academic is far too civil to have any truck with something as barbarous as guns and far too intelligent to believe that guns have any value. A true intellectual, or so the stereotype goes, should dismiss all pro-gun prattle with the wave of a hand, a bemused smile and a remark about people clinging to God and guns. This slides nicely into a rather negative stereotype of gun owners.

Gun owners are all too often stereotyped as slack jawed ignoramuses, upper lips sweaty with thoughts of killing God’s creatures and who secretly stroke their shooting irons while fantasizing about killing. The positive reverse of this negative stereotype is that gun owners are practical folks who believe in God, guns and country and want nothing to do with those ivory tower intellectuals and their bemused smiles.

Being a gun-toting philosopher, I have been subject to these stereotypes. If an academic colleague or a fellow intellectual learns that I am a gun person (and especially that I have hunted), they often react with shock and dismay. Surely, they say, I am too smart and too decent to have anything to do with guns. Once they get to know me, they tend to look at my gun history as a small aberration in an otherwise decent person.

Gun folks who find out I am an academic are often surprised by this, especially when they learn I am a philosopher. They often think of academics as elitist liberals who swoon at the sight of guns. Once they get to know me, they tend to look at my being a philosopher as a small aberration in an otherwise decent person. As is true of everyone else, I am who I am today because of who I was. So, on to my gun related backstory.

Like many American boys of my time, my first gun was a BB gun. It was a Daisy BB gun, but not a Red Ryder. It would, however, put an eye out. As boys, we would shoot the hell out of each other with our guns, so it is a wonder that we all made it out of childhood with both eyes. This was the gun I used for my first kill.

 While the mists of time have obscured many memories, I clearly recall taking aim at a songbird perched on a powerline by what we called “the frog pond.” Carelessly I shot, not thinking I would hit it. The bird fell, striking the ground as a corpse. Though I was a kid, I knew I had done something terrible and had committed a needless, senseless killing. I had murdered that bird. I was not protecting myself (obviously) and I did not need it for food. That callous and careless murder shaped my view of guns for the rest of my life. My young mind grasped that it is all too easy to silence a song forever.

Eventually I got my first real guns, a Marlin .22 and a single shot .410-gauge shotgun. I still have them back home in Maine. My father made sure that I knew all the safety rules and he taught me two of the great truths about guns. The first is that a gun is always loaded. The second is that you never point a gun at anything or anyone unless you mean to kill. The safety lessons stuck and  I have never been injured by my own gun and I have never harmed another being without intending to do so.

Once I was old enough, I went hunting with my father. I had to get up at an ungodly hour of the day and I remember feeling very cold. We’d then drive down to the land we owned in Lamoine. On the way we’d get Dunkin Donuts which was my favorite part. Sometimes we would cook bacon and eggs by the ocean. Sometimes we would  go down the night before and that meant Dinty Moore Beef Stew from the can. These are all positive memories—no one got hurt. Well, no one but the ducks. Although I make really good beef stew these days, I still buy a can of Dinty Moore from time to time. It tastes like memories.

While hunters are sometimes cast as bloodthirsty, callous or trophy lusting egomaniacs, nothing could be further from my experiences. My father taught me to respect the animals we hunted and the natural world. He also taught me a lesson that has shaped my character ever since.

While a duck usually drops immediately when hit, sometimes they are only badly wounded. These birds are sometimes able to fly away before being forced down. They are, no doubt, terrified and in great pain while they struggle to escape. While it might be thought that the right thing to do would be to let such a bird escape, the truth is that it will most likely suffer from an infection and die horribly and slowly. Once, when we were hunting, this happened, the bird flew quite a distance and then plummeted into the water, wounded but not dead. My father got the boat into the water and went after the duck, shooting it and retrieving it. The reason was not to avoid losing the duck. The reason was a moral responsibility to that duck. To leave it to suffer and die would be wrong; the duck was his responsibility. This reinforced my belief in the responsibility that comes from using a gun and the moral necessity of being fully accountable for one’s actions. We are dangerous beings, and we are accountable to those we harm.

Some might say that this tale is all well and good, but that the real lesson is that a person should not be out there shooting animals in the first place. As a philosopher, I agree there are excellent moral arguments against harming animals (I have, of course, read Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation and this is why I no longer eat veal). However, to hunt for the sake of food and to do so with respect for the animal is to accept that I am part of the natural world. That is, I am a hunter and the duck is prey. Someday, I too shall pass, and my mortal shell will be consumed. As I see it, it is morally acceptable to kill a duck for food, provided that the kill is clean.

Those who embrace vegetarianism can raise very reasonable moral objections against killing even for food: why kill an animal that can suffer instead of eating a plant that (supposedly) cannot? I do find merit in these arguments and accept that killing animals for food is morally worse than killing plants. However, I accept the moral weight of my actions, and this makes me reluctant to kill. In fact, I would now only kill for my own survival.

When I went to college and then to graduate school, I learned a great deal about ethics. It is, in fact, a subject I teach. Interestingly, what I learned about ethics did not radically change my views of guns (or hunting). Mainly it gave me a better theoretical framework in which to discuss the issues.

While I do not hunt like I used to, I still engage in target shooting with friends. We go to a gun range, follow all the safety protocols (and watch out for the fools who do not) and usually get lunch afterwards. We get, I think, the same enjoyment from this that people get from playing golf. While there is some risk of injury, that is true of many activities—so I have never regarded target shooting as immoral.

While assault rifles are usually the focus of the media, there is also concealed carry. Some states allow anyone to carry a concealed weapon while others require a license. When I got my first permit in Maine, the process was easy and was handled by the local police. When I got my permit in Florida, I had to take a safety course (which was easy, since I had been shooting for almost 40 years) and pass a thorough background check.

When I was in Maine, I had the permit mainly as a matter of convenience, so I could carry my .357 under my jacket while hunting. It was a backup in case my rifle malfunctioned, and I had to finish off a wounded deer. A fellow I know once had to finish off a deer with a small knife, which was horrifying. . I got the permit in Florida mainly for convenience in taking a gun to the range and to be legally safe in regard to carrying a knife. Being from Maine, I always have a knife.

Some people get permits because of fear of being attacked. While I am aware that this could happen, I am not particularly afraid that I will be attacked since I understand how statistics work. I also understand how being afraid creates more danger and a person whose mind is shaped by fear is more likely to overreact violently. I practice casual alertness: I know that some people I encounter will be friendly, the vast majority will be neutral and the odds of encountering an attacker are incredibly low. But it is unwise to be unaware. I have been in a few situations that could have gone very badly, but my preferred resolution is talking and that has worked so far.

I do, however, believe that a person has a moral obligation to be capable of self-defense. To expect others to bear the burden of defense is moral selfishness, worse than expecting someone else to do one’s cooking and cleaning. After all, defending a person can result in death. Naturally, I do accept that the helpless and those who are less capable should be protected; but being willfully helpless is a moral failing. I am not, however, claiming that everyone should get a gun. A gun is a great responsibility and should, as a matter of ethics, only be entrusted with those of the right character who are willing to learn to use the weapon properly and responsibly. I think the same way about all dangerous machines, including automobiles and computers. While there is the right to be armed, not everyone is up to exercising that right properly. This is, of course, distinct from the legality of the matter. To use an analogy, I think there are people who should not have children because they are awful parents. However, they have every legal right to do so, until they cross certain boundaries. The same applies to guns.

That, then, is my gun backstory that shapes the lens through which I see gun issues. Naturally, I expect people to have moral criticisms of my backstory as well as the position I take as the result of reasoning colored by this backstory. But those who disagree with me should consider their own backstories and how they impact their views. As should those who agree with me.

After each eruption of gun violence, there is also a corresponding eruption in the debates over gun issues. As with all highly charged issues, people are primarily driven by their emotions rather than by reason. Being a philosopher, I like to delude myself with the thought that it is possible to approach an issue rationally. Like many other philosophers, I am irritated when people say things like “I feel that there should be more gun control” or “I feel that gun rights are important. Because of this, when I read student papers I strike through all “inappropriate” uses of “feel” and replace them with “think.” This is, of course, done with a subconscious sense of smug superiority. Or so it was before I started reflecting on emotions in the context of gun issues. In this essay I will endeavor a journey through the treacherous landscape of feeling and thinking in relation to gun issues. I’ll begin with arguments.

As any philosopher can tell you, an argument consists of a claim, the conclusion, that is supposed to be supported by the evidence or reasons, the premises, that are given. In the context of logic, as opposed to that of persuasion, there are two standards for assessing an argument. The first is an assessment of the quality of the logic: determining how well the premises support the conclusion. The second is an assessment of the plausibility of the premises: determining the quality of the evidence.

On the face of it, assessing the quality of the logic should be an objective matter. For deductive arguments (arguments whose premises are supposed to guarantee the truth of the conclusion), this is the case. Deductive arguments can be checked for validity using such things as Venn diagrams, truth tables and proofs. If a person knows what she is doing, she can confirm beyond all doubt whether a deductive argument is valid or not. A valid argument is an argument such that if its premises were true, then its conclusion must be true. While a person might stubbornly refuse to accept a valid argument as valid, this would be as foolish as stubbornly refusing to accept that 2+2= 4 or that triangles have three sides. As an example, consider the following valid argument:

 

Premise 1: If an assault weapon ban would reduce gun violence, then congress should pass an assault weapon ban.

Premise 2: An assault weapon ban would reduce gun violence.

Conclusion: Congress should pass an assault weapon ban.

 

This argument is valid; in fact, it is an example of the classic deductive argument known as modus ponens or affirming the antecedent. As such, questioning the logic of the argument would just reveal one’s ignorance of logic. Before anyone gets outraged, it is important to note that an argument being valid does not entail that any of its content is true. While this endlessly confuses students, though a valid argument that has all true premises must have a true conclusion, a valid argument need not have true premises or a true conclusion. Because of this, while the validity of the above argument is beyond question, one could take issue with the premises. They could, along with the conclusion, be false although the argument is unquestionably a valid deductive argument. For those who might be interested, an argument that is valid and has all true premises is a sound argument. An argument that does not meet these conditions is unsound.

Unfortunately, there is usually no perfect, objective test for the truth of a premise. In general, premises are assessed in terms of how well they match observations, background information and credible claims from credible sources (which leads to concerns about determining credibility). As should be expected, people tend to prefer premises that match their feelings. This is true for everyone, be that person the head of the NRA or a latte sipping liberal academic who trembles at the thought of even seeing a gun. Because of this, a person who wants to fairly and justly assess the premises of any argument must be willing to understand their own feelings and work out how they influence their judgment. Since people, as John Locke noted in his classic essay on enthusiasm, tend to evaluate claims based on the strength of their feelings, doing this is difficult. People think they are right because they feel strongly about something and are least likely to engage in critical assessment when they feel strongly.

While deductive logic allows for perfectly objective assessment, it is not the logic that is commonly used in debates over political issues or in general. The most used logic is inductive logic.

Inductive arguments are arguments, so an inductive argument will have one or more premises that are supposed to support a conclusion. Unlike deductive arguments, inductive arguments do not offer certainty and instead deal in likelihood. A logically good inductive argument is called a strong argument: one whose premises, if true, would probably make the conclusion true. A bad inductive argument is a weak one. Unlike the case of validity, the strength of an inductive argument is judged by applying the standards specific to that sort of inductive argument to the argument in question. Consider, as an example, the following argument:

 

Premise 1: Tens of thousands of people die each year as a result of automobiles.

Premise 2: Tens of thousands of people die each year as a result of guns.

Premise 3: The tens of thousands of deaths by automobiles are morally acceptable.

Conclusion: The tens of thousands of deaths by gun are also morally acceptable.

 

This is a simple argument by analogy in which it is argued that since cars and guns are alike, if we accept automobile fatalities then we should also accept gun fatalities. Being an inductive argument, there is no perfect, objective test to determine whether the argument is strong or not. Rather, the argument is assessed in terms of how well it meets the standards of an argument by analogy. The gist of these standards is that the more alike the two things (guns and cars) are alike, the stronger the argument. Likewise, the less alike they are, the weaker the argument.

While the standards are reasonably objective, their application admits considerable subjectivity. In the case of guns and cars, people will differ in terms of how they see them in regard to similarities and differences. As would be suspected, the lenses through which people see this matter will be deeply colored by their emotions and psychological backstory. As such, rationally assessing inductive arguments is especially challenging: a person must sort through the influence of emotions and psychology on her evaluation of both the premises and the reasoning. Since arguments about guns are generally inductive, it is no wonder it is a messy, even on the rare occasions when people are sincerely trying to be rational and objective.

The lesson here is that a person needs to think about how she feels before she can think about what she thinks. Since this also applies to me, my next essay will be about exploring my psychological backstory in regard to guns.

 

Each new mass shooting throws gasoline on the political fire of gun control. While people on the left and right both agree that mass shootings should be prevented, they disagree about what steps should be taken to reduce the chances that another one will occur.

As would be expected, people on the left favor efforts focused on guns. While this is normally called “gun control”, this is a phrase that should no longer be used. This is not as a matter of duplicity in order to present proposals under a false guise. Rather, this is because “gun control” is so emotionally charged that the use of the phrase interferes with a rational discussion of proposals. If a proposal is labeled as “gun control”, this will tend to trigger immediate opposition from people who might otherwise support a specific proposal, such as one aimed precisely at preventing criminals and potential terrorists from acquiring guns.

Coming up with a new phrase might be problematic. “Gun safety” is already taken and deals with the safe handling of weapons. “Gun regulation” is a possibility, but “regulation” has become an emotional trigger word as well. The right professes to dislike regulation, except for the regulation that they like. The phrase should certainly not be a euphemism or sugar coated, as we should speak in good faith and leave lying to the liars. Since I do not have a good enough phrase, I will continue to use the loaded “gun control” and hope that the reader is not too influenced by the connotation of the phrase.

Positions on gun control are largely set by emotions rather than logical analysis. In my case, I am emotionally pro-gun. This is because, as a boy in Maine, I grew up with guns. All my gun experiences are positive: hunting with my dad and target shooting with friends. I understand guns are lethal, but I have no more fear of guns than I have of other lethal machines, such as automobiles and table saws. No close friend or relative has been a victim of gun violence. Fortunately, I have enough empathy that I can feel for people who loath guns because of some awful experience in their life. But, as with all complicated problems, one cannot feel a way to a solution. This requires rational thought.

Being a professional philosopher, I have some skill at considering the matter of gun control in rational terms. While there are many possible approaches to gun control, I will discuss two options in this essay.

One idea involves banning people on the infamous no-fly list from purchasing guns. On the face of it, this seems to make sense: people who are evaluated as too much of a threat to fly would seem to also be too much of a threat to buy guns. There are, however, a few problems with this proposal. The first is that the no-fly list has been a mess, with people ending up on the list who should not be there. This can be addressed by improving the quality of list management, though there will always be mistakes. The second problem is a matter of rights. While there is no constitutional right to fly, there is the Second Amendment and banning a person from buying guns because they have been put on such a list is problematic. It could be countered that felons and mentally incompetent people are denied the right to buy guns, so it is no more problematic to ban potential terrorists. The problem is, however, that a person can end up on the no fly list without going through much in the way of due process. That is, a basic constitutional right can be denied far too easily. This can, of course, be addressed by making the process of being on the list more robust or developing an alternative list with stricter requirements and far better management. There would still be the legitimate concern about denying people a right based on suspicion of what they might do rather than as a response to what they have done. There is also the fact that most of the gun violence in the United States is committed by people who are not on that list. So, this proposal would have a rather limited impact.

Another option is to bring back the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity clips (what a friend of mine calls “the ‘scary gun’ ban”). This proposal is based on the belief that if shooters cannot acquire a semiautomatic assault rifle and high-capacity clips, then the casualties of their mass shootings would be reduced.

For those not familiar with weapons, a semiautomatic fires one round with each pull of the trigger and will do so until the magazine is exhausted. Each shot “cocks” the gun again, allowing rapid fire. This is in contrast with, for example, a bolt, pump or lever action weapon. These weapons require the operator to manually move a round from the magazine to the chamber for each shot. These weapons fire slower than semiautomatics, although a skilled user can still fire rapidly. There are also weapons that fire in bursts (firing a certain number of rounds with each trigger pull) and those that are fully automatic (firing for as long as the trigger is held and ammunition remains).

While many people believe otherwise, it is legal to buy certain automatic weapons. A person just has to go through a complicated process including a thorough background check. I know people who own such weapons legally and above board. The strict process of acquisition and high cost of such weapons generally keeps them out of the hands of most people. As such, this could serve as a model for placing stronger limitations on other weapons.

While many people fear what are called “assault rifles” because they look scary to them (merely firing one gave timid journalist Gersh Kuntzman PTSD), the appearance of a gun does not determine its lethality. Many assault rifles fire a 5.56mm round (though some fire the 7.62mm round) and they are less powerful than the typical hunting rifle. This is not surprising: assault rifles were developed to kill medium sized mammals (humans) and many hunting rifles were designed to kill larger mammals (such as moose and bears). But while assault rifles are generally not “high powered”, they do suffice to kill people.

Assault rifles are more of a threat than other rifles for two reasons. The first is that the assault rifle is semi-automatic, which allows a far more rapid rate of fire relative to lever, bolt and pump action weapons. The slower a person fires, the slower they kill, thus allowing a greater chance they can be stopped. However, there are also plenty of semiautomatic non-assault rifles, which leads to the second factor, magazine size. Assault rifles of the sort sold to civilians typically have 20 or 30 round magazines, while typical hunting rifles (non-assault) hold far less. Maine, for example, sets a legal magazine limit of 5 rounds (plus one in the chamber) for hunting rifles. Reloading time on a weapon varies. For example, shotguns and some rifles have tubular magazines built into the weapon and these are slow to reload. Assault rifle magazines almost always have box magazines that can be rapidly swapped.

A ban on semiautomatic rifles sales could have an impact on mass shootings, provided that the shooter had to purchase the rifle after the ban and did not already have access to a semiautomatic weapon. While some hunters do prefer semiautomatic weapons, it is possible to hunt effectively with pump, lever and bolt action weapons. When I went duck hunting, I used a pump shotgun (which I prefer, having seen semiautomatic shotguns jam from time to time) and for deer hunting I used a bolt action rifle.

The main impact of such a ban would be that shooters who must acquire new weapons for their shooting would have weapons with a lower rate of fire. They could still kill many people, but the kill rate would be slower, thus the death toll should be lower in such cases.

A ban on high-capacity clips would also have an impact on the kill rate of shooters who have to buy new clips for their mass shooting. If magazines were limited to 10 rounds, a shooter would need to reload more often, and reloading time would afford a chance to stop the shooter.

Combining the two bans would mean that shooters who had to acquire new weapons for their mass shooting would be limited to lower capacity, slower firing weapons. This could significantly reduce the death toll of future shootings.

As has been noted, these sorts of bans would only affect a shooter who needs to acquire a new weapon or magazines. Shooters who already have their weapons would not be impacted by the ban. As such, what would be needed would be to remove existing semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity clips—something that seems politically impossible in the United States. 

 

 

Modern agriculture deserves praise for the good it does. Food is plentiful, relatively cheap and easy to acquire. Instead of having to struggle with raising crops and livestock or hunting and gathering, many Americans can go to the grocery store and get the food we need to stay alive. However, as with all things, there is a price.

The modern agricultural complex is highly centralized and industrialized, which has advantages and disadvantages. There are also the harms of practices aimed at maximizing profits. While there are many ways to maximize profits, two common ones are to pay the lowest wages possible and to shift costs to others. I will look, briefly, at one area of cost shifting: the widespread use of antibiotics in meat production.

While most think of antibiotics as a means of treating diseases, healthy food animals are routinely given antibiotics. One reason is to prevent infections: factory farming techniques, as might be imagined, vastly increase the chances of a disease spreading. Antibiotics, it is claimed, can help reduce the risk of bacterial infections (antibiotics are useless against viruses). A second reason is that antibiotics increase the growth rate of healthy animals, allowing them to pack on more meat in less time and time is money. These uses allow the industry to continue factory farming and maintain high productivity, which initially seems laudable. The problem is, however, the use of antibiotics comes with a high price that is paid for by everyone else.

Eric Schlosser wrote “A Safer Food Future, Now”, which appeared in the May 2016 issue of Consumer Reports. In this article, he noted that this practice has contributed significantly to the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Each year, about two million Americans are infected with resistant strains and about 20,000 people die. The healthcare cost is about $20 billion. To be fair, the agricultural industry is not the only contributor to this problem: improper use of antibiotics in humans has also added to this problem. That said, the agricultural use of antibiotics accounts for about 75% of all antibiotic usage in the United States, thus converting the factory farms into farms for resistant bacteria.

The harmful consequences of this antibiotic use have been known for years and there have been attempts to address this through legislation. It is no surprise that our elected leaders have failed to act. One likely explanation is the lobbying power of corporations. In the United States, both parties prioritize profits over the people. But it could be contended that lawmakers are ignorant of the harms, doubt there are harms from antibiotics or honestly believe that the harms arising are outweighed by the benefits. That is, the lawmakers have credible reasons other than the money they are paid to do the will of the wealthy. This is a factual matter, but no professional politician who has been swayed by lobbying will attribute her decision to anything other than good intentions.

This matter is one of ethical concern and, like most large-scale ethical matters involving competing interests, is one best approached by utilitarian considerations. On the side of using antibiotics, there is the increased productivity (and profits) of the factory farming system. This allows more and cheaper food to be provided for the population, which can be regarded as pluses. The main reasons to not use the antibiotics, as noted above, are that they contribute to the creation of antibiotic-resistant strains that sicken and kill people. This imposes costs on those who are sickened and killed as well as those who care about them. There are also the monetary costs in the health care system (although the increased revenue can be tagged as a plus for health care providers). In addition to these costs, there are also other social and economic costs, such as lost hours of work. As this indicates, the cost (illness, death, etc.) of the use of the antibiotics is shifted: the industry does not pay these costs, they are paid by everyone else. Including other industries.

Using a utilitarian calculation requires weighing the cost to the general population against the profits of the industry and the claimed benefits to the general population. Put roughly, the moral question is whether the improved profits and greater food production outweigh the illness, deaths and costs suffered by the public. Most politicians seem to believe that the answer is “yes.”

If the United States were in a food crisis in which the absence of the increased productivity afforded by antibiotics would cause more suffering and death than their presence, then their use would be morally acceptable. However, this does not seem to be the case. While banning this sort of antibiotic use would decrease productivity (and impact profits), the harm of doing this would seem to be vastly exceeded by the reduction in illness, deaths and health care costs. However, if an objective assessment of the matter showed that the ban on antibiotics would not create more benefits than harm, then it would be reasonable and morally acceptable to continue to use them. This is partially a matter of value (in terms of how the harms and benefits are weighted) and partially an objective matter (in terms of monetary and health costs). I am inclined to agree that the general harm of using the antibiotics exceeds the general benefits, but I could be convinced otherwise by objective data.

 

In response to a growing general acceptance of LGBT rights, some states have passed laws requiring a person to use the bathroom (and similar facilities) for the sex on their birth certificate.

Being a veteran runner, I am generally fine with people using whatever bathroom they wish to use, if they do not otherwise engage in immoral or criminal activity. Almost anyone who has run a major race probably has a similar view based on pure practicality. Also, like any mature adult, I go to the bathroom to do my business and if everyone else is minding their business, I could care less about who is in the next stall. Or urinal. Obviously, I do hold that assault, rape, harassment, stalking, and so on should not be allowed, but all these misdeeds are already covered by existing law.

Being a philosopher does require that I consider opposing arguments and that they are entitled to whatever merit they earn through the quality of the reasoning and the plausibility of the premises. As such, I will consider a few arguments in favor of bathroom bills.

One of the most compelling arguments is the one from harm. The gist of the argument is that allowing people to use facilities based on their gender identity will allow rapists, molesters, pedophiles and peepers easy access to women and girls, thus putting them in danger. The bathroom bills, it is claimed, will protect women and girls from this danger.

Since I also accept the principle of harm, I accept the basic reasoning conditionally: if the law did protect women and girls from harm (and did not inflict a greater harm), then it would be a sensible law. The main problem with the argument lies in the claim that the bills will protect women and girls from harm. Many states and localities have long prohibited discrimination in public facilities and there has not been an increase in sexual assault or rape. As such, the claim that the bills are needed to protect the public is untrue. The imposition of law should, as a matter of principle, be aimed at addressing significant harm.

This is not to deny that a person might pretend to be transgender to commit nefarious deeds in a bathroom. However, such a determined attacker could just attack elsewhere (it is not as if attacks can only occur in public facilities) or could just disguise himself as a woman (the law does not magically prevent that). There also = seems to be an unwarranted fear that bathrooms are ideal places for attacks, which does not seem true. That said, if it turns out that allowing people to use facilities based on their gender identity did lead to a significant harm, then the bathroom bills would need to be reconsidered.

A second argument that has been advanced is the privacy argument. The gist of it is that allowing people in facilities based on their gender identification would violate the privacy of other people. One common example of this is the concern expressed on the behalf of schoolgirls in locker rooms: the fear that a transgender classmate might be in the locker room with them.

While our culture does endeavor to condition people to be ashamed of their nakedness and to be terrified that someone of the opposite sex might see them naked, the matter of privacy needs to be discussed a bit here.

On the face of it, gender restricted locker rooms are not actually private. While I am not familiar with the locker room for girls and women, the men’s locker room in my high school had a group shower and an open area for lockers. So, every guy in the locker room could see every other guy while they were naked. Some boys found this lack of privacy too much and would put their normal clothes on over their gym clothes without showering. Or they would try to cover up as much as possible. As such, the concern about privacy is not about privacy in the general sense. In space, everyone can hear your scream. In the locker room, everyone can see your junk.

As such, the concern about privacy in locker rooms in regard to the bathroom bills must be about something other than privacy in the usual sense. The most reasonable and obvious interpretation is privacy from members of the opposite sex: that is, girls not being seen by boys and vice versa. This could, I suppose, be called “gender privacy.”

Those favoring transgender rights would point out that allowing people to use facilities based on gender identity would not result in boys seeing girls or vice versa. It would just be the usual girls seeing girls and boys seeing boys. Since the main worry is transgender girls in girls’ locker rooms, I will focus on that. However, the same discussion could be made for transgender boys.

The obvious reply to this would be to assert that gender identification is not a real thing: a person’s gender is set by biological sex. So, a transgender girl would, in fact, be a boy and hence should not be allowed in the girls’ locker room. This is presumably, based on the assumption that a transgender girl is still sexually attracted to girls because they are still a boy. There seem to be three possibilities here.

The first is that transgender girls really are boys and are sexually attracted to girls (that is, they are just faking) and this grounds the claim that a transgender girl would violate the privacy of biological girls. This entails that lesbian girls would also violate the privacy of biological girls and since about 10% of the population is gay, then any locker room with ten or more girls probably has some privacy violation occurring. As such, those concerned with privacy would presumably need to address this as well. The worry that a “hidden homosexual” might be violating privacy could be addressed by having private changing rooms and closed shower stalls. However, this would be costly and most public schools and facilities would not have the budget for this. As such, a more economical solution might be needed: no nakedness in locker rooms at all to ensure that privacy is not being violated. People could wear bathing suits while showering and then wear them under their clothes the rest of the day. Sure, it would be uncomfortable, but that is a small price to pay for privacy.

The second is that transgender girls are not sexually attracted to girls and hence do not violate their privacy: they are just girls like other girls. It could be objected that what matters is biology: a biological boy seeing a biological girl in the locker room violates her privacy. Arguing for this requires showing how biology matters in terms of privacy. That being seen non-sexually by biological girls is no privacy violation but being seen non-sexually by a biological boy who is just going about their business is a privacy violation. That is, if the person looking does not care about what is being seen, then how is it a privacy violation? The answer would need to differentiate based on biology, which could perhaps be done.

The third is that transgender girls are just girls. In which case, there is no privacy violation since it is just girls seeing girls.

While the harm and privacy arguments do have some appeal, they do not seem to stand up well under scrutiny. However, there might be other arguments for the bathroom bills worth considering, although I have yet to see one.

All professions have their problem members, and the field of medicine is no exception. Fortunately, the percentage of bad doctors is low—but this small percentage can do considerable harm. After all, when your professor is incompetent, you might not learn as much as you should. If your doctor is incompetent, they could kill you.

Back in 2016 Consumer Reports published an article by Rachel Rabkin Peachman covering bad doctors and the difficulty patients face in learning whether a physician is a good doctor or a disaster. Unfortunately, not much has changed since then.

There are three main problems. The first is that there are bad doctors. The article presented numerous examples to add color to the dry statistics, and this includes such tales of terror as doctors molesting patients, doctors removing healthy body parts, and patient deaths due to negligence, impairment or incompetence. These are obvious all moral and professional failings on the part of the doctors, and they should clearly not be engaged in such misdeeds. For more recent examples, John Oliver provides disturbing coverage of the dangers presented by med spas.

The second is that, according to Peachman, the disciplinary actions tend to be rather less than ideal. While doctors should enjoy the protection of a due process, the hurdles are, perhaps, too high. There is also the problem that the responses are often very mild. For example, a doctor whose negligence has resulted in the death of patients can be allowed to keep practicing with minor limitations. As another example, a doctor who has been engaged in sexual misconduct might continue practicing after a class on ethics and with the requirement that someone else be present when he is seeing patients. In addition to the practical concerns about this, there is also the moral concern that the disciplinary boards are failing to protect patients.

One possible argument against harsher punishments is that there is always a shortage of doctors and taking a doctor out of practice would have worse consequences than allowing a bad doctor to keep practicing. This would be the basis for a utilitarian argument for continuing mild punishments. Crudely put, it is better to have a doctor who might kill a patient or two than no doctor at all because that would result in many more deaths.

This argument does have some appeal. However, there is the factual question of whether the mild punishments do more good than harm. If they do, then one would need to accept that this approach is morally tolerable. If not, then the argument would fail. There is also the response that consequences are not what matters and people should be reprimanded based on their misdeeds and not based on some calculation of utility. This also has some intuitive appeal.

It could also be argued that it should be left to patients to judge if they want to take the risk. If a doctor is known for sexual misdeeds with female patients but is fine with male patients, then a man who has few or no other options might decide that the doctor is his best choice. This leads to the third problem.

The third problem is that it is very difficult for patients to learn about bad doctors. While there is a National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), it is off limits to patients and is limited to law enforcement, hospital administration, insurance and a few other groups.

The main argument against allowing public access to the NPDB is based on the premise that it contains inaccurate information which could be harmful to innocent doctors. This makes it similar to the credit report data which is notorious for containing harmful inaccuracies that can plague people.

While the possibility of incorrect data is a matter of concern, that premise best supports the conclusion that the NPDB should be reviewed regularly to ensure that the information is accurate. While perfect accuracy is not possible, surely the information can meet a reasonable standard of accuracy. This could be aided by providing robust tools for doctors to inform those running the NPDB of errors and to inform doctors about the content of their files. As such, the error argument is easily defeated.

Patients do have some access to data about doctors, but there are many barriers in place. In some cases, there is a financial cost to access data. In almost all cases, the patient will need to grind through lengthy documents and penetrate the code of legal language. There is also the fact that this data is often incomplete and inaccurate.  While it could be argued that a responsible patient would expend the resources needed to research a doctor, this is an unreasonable request, and a patient should not need to do all this just to know that the doctor is competent. One reason for this is that someone seeking a doctor is likely to be sick or injured and expecting them to add on the burden of a research project is unreasonable. Also, a legitimate role of the state is to protect citizens from harm and having a clear means of identifying bad doctors would seem to fall within this.

Given the above, it seems reasonable to accept that a patient has the right to know about her doctor’s competence and should have an easy means of acquiring accurate information. This enables a patient to make an informed choice about her physician without facing an undue burden. This will also help the profession as good doctors will attract more patients and bad doctors will have a greater incentive to improve their practice.

Isis, my husky, joined the pack in 2004. She was a year old, and her soul was filled with wildness and a love of destruction. I channeled that wildness into running and that (mostly) took care of her love of destruction. We ran together for years, until she could no longer run. Then we walked on our adventures with a stately saunter rather than a mad dash. One day in March, 2016 she collapsed, and I thought that was the end. But steroids granted her a reprieve, and our adventures continued. But time ends all things.

As the months went by, she hit a plateau of recovery and then began her second decline. She could not walk as far; she had to be supported while doing her business and was sometimes confused about where she was. This worsened as November progressed. She required ever more support, walked ever less distance, and had trouble distinguishing between the outside and inside of the house. Since she was my dog and I was her human, I accepted all this. I stocked up on carpet cleaner and ran the steam cleaner regularly. Since she could not handle the smooth floors, I put down yoga mats for her. I had tried carpet runners, but they become urine sponges. Yoga mats can be hosed off, dried and put back in place.

Though she suffered a physical and mental decline, her will remained unimpaired. When she decided that she wanted to walk someplace, she would overcome her weakened legs and force her way through vegetation and up hills. If she could not make it on her own, she would look at me and would not move until I helped her to power up that hill. She had the spirit of a true runner; never giving up in the face of a challenge. But in the face of time will and love are not enough.

She suffered a sudden decline and lost her ability to walk. I would carry her to do her business, but even with my support she had difficulty. On November 22, her suffering peaked and neither of us slept that night. I wanted her to make it through Thanksgiving (she loved turkey), but on the morning of the 23rd I saw the pain in her eyes and knew what had to be done. Courtney, a friend of mine from Maine, had sent us some Christmas dog treats and a dog toy. I unwrapped those and hand fed her, placing the toy between her paws. After we had our early Christmas, I carried her to my truck and drove to Oakwood Animal Hospital. While no one really knows what is in the heart of another, I could tell that she had absolute trust in me as I carried her into the office. She knew that I would, as I have always done, do the right thing for her.

Her regular vet was on duty and, after we talked, Isis was put on an IV. As the vet, vet tech and I comforted her and cried, she passed away gently and peacefully. This was the hardest decision of my life, choosing the death of my friend.

Since I teach ethics, I have thought a great deal about this situation in the abstract. But the theoretical context of the classroom is different from the harsh reality of deciding if your friend should keep living. While some doubt the use of philosophy, thinking about this matter proved  helpful and even comforting.

While people are said to own dogs, I never saw our relationship as matter of owning property. Rather, we had reached a mutual understanding and formed a team. Huskies are supervillains when it comes to escape, so they can (and do) end their relationships with humans when they wish. By accepting her, I took on many moral responsibilities. Some of these were like those to my human friends, others are more like those of a parent to a child. These included the usual obligations of keeping her healthy and safe; but they also included the obligation to ensure her well-being and happiness.

When she collapsed in March, I had to make the decision whether to try treatment or let her go. While she was suffering, the vet said she had a chance to recover. Knowing her stubborn will, I believed she would want to take that chance and power through the pain. I could not be certain; but I went with what I thought she would want. It turned out it was the right call; she recovered and returned to enjoying life.

As I got to know her, I learned that she had a look that meant “I need you to do something for me.” In the past, this usually meant playing with her, getting her a snack or letting her into the backyard to menace the lesser creatures (to a husky, almost all other creatures are lesser).  These things made her happy, and I was pleased to oblige. After all, I had a moral responsibility to her wellbeing because she was my dog and I was her human.

When she had declined to her worst, she stared at me intently with that look. Since she could not talk, she could not say what she wanted. She, I believed, wanted an end to her pain. I might just think that to feel better about my decision and perhaps she was doing nothing of the sort. But I knew that to keep her alive and suffering would not be a choice for her wellbeing or happiness. Medicine is quite good these days; I probably could have kept her going for a few months more with painkillers and other medications. But that would be a dull and drugged life, not a life suitable for a soul so full of wildness and a love of destruction. I wanted her to end her life as my beloved wolf and not dissipate to nothing in a sea of pharmaceuticals. So, I said goodbye to my good girl.