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While the American right favors tax cuts, the left sometimes proposes tax increases. One argument advanced by the right against increasing taxes is the demotivation argument. The gist of the argument is that if their taxes are increased, the rich will become demotivated and this will have negative consequences. Since these negative consequences should be avoided, the conclusion is that taxes should not be increased.

In assessing this reasoning, there are two major points of concern. One is whether a tax increase would destroy the motivation of the upper class. The other deals with the negative consequences, their nature, their likelihood of occurring and the extent and scope of the harm. I will begin with the alleged consequences.

The alleged consequences are many and varied. One is based on the claim that the top economic class includes the top innovators of society and if they are demotivated, then there will be less innovation. This could range from there being no new social media platforms to there being no new pharmaceuticals. While this is a point of concern, this assumes that innovation arrives primarily out of the top economic class—which can be tested. While some top earners are innovators, innovation also come from the lower economic classes—such the people doing research and engineering. The idea that the rich are the innovators does match the fiction of Ayn Rand but seems to miss the way research and development usually occurs.

Another alleged consequence rests on the claim that the upper class serves as the investors who provide the capital that enables the economy to function. Since they control the capital, this is a reasonable concern. If Americans with the most money decided to reduce or stop investing, then the investment economy would need to rely on foreign capital or what could be provided by the lower classes. Since the lower classes have far less money (by definition), they would not be able to provide the funds. There are, of course, foreign investors who would happily take the place of the wealthy Americans, so the investment economy would probably still roll along. Especially since American investors might find the idea of losing out to foreign investors sufficient motivation to overcome the demotivation of a tax increase.

There is also the claim that the upper class contains the people who do the important things, like brain surgery and creating the new bubble that will be the destroy the world economy next time around. While this has some appeal, much of the important stuff is done by people who are not in the upper class. Again, the idea that the economic elite are doing all the really important stuff while the rest of  us are takers rather than makers is yet another Randian fantasy.

Fairness does, however, require that these concerns be properly investigated. If it can be shown that the upper class is as critical as its defenders claim, then my assertions can be refuted. Of course, it worth considering that much of the alleged importance of the upper class arises from the fact that it has a disproportionate share of the wealth and that it would be far less important if the distribution were not so grotesquely imbalanced. As such, a tax increase could decrease the importance of the economic elites. I will now turn to the matter of whether a tax increase would demotivate the rich.

An easy and obvious response to the claim that a relatively small tax increase would demotivate the rich is that the rest of us work jobs, innovate, invest and do important things for vastly less money than those at the top. Even if the rich paid slightly more taxes, their incomes would still vastly exceed ours. And if we can find the motivation to keep going despite our low incomes, then the rich can also do so. When I worked at a minimum wage job, I was motivated to go to work. When I was an adjunct making $16,000 a year, I was still motivated to go to work. Now that I am a professor, I am still motivated to go to work.

It could be replied that those of us in the lower classes are motivated because we need the income to survive. We need to work to buy food, medicine, shelter and so on. Those who are so well off that they do not need to work to survive, it could be claimed, also have the luxury of being demotivated by an increase in their taxes. Whereas someone who must earn her daily bread at a crushing minimum wage (or less) job must get up and go to work, the elite can allow themselves to be broken by a slight tax increase and decide to stop investing, stop innovating, and stop doing important stuff.

One reply is that it seems unlikely that the rich would be broken by a tax increase. Naturally, a crushing increase would be a different story—but the American left does not seriously suggest imposing truly crushing tax burdens on the rich. After all, crushing burdens are for the poor. Another reply is that if the current rich become demotivated and give up, there are many who would be happy to take their place—even if it means paying slightly higher taxes on a vastly increased income. So, we would just get some new rich folks to replace the demotivated slackers. The invisible hand of the market to the rescue again.

 

One popular narrative on the American right is that the West is engaged in a “clash of civilizations” with Islam. Some phrase it in terms of Islam being at war with the West. Not surprisingly, the terrorist groups that self-identify as Muslim would also like it to be a war between all of Islam and the West.

There are various psychological reasons to embrace this narrative. Seeing oneself on the side of good in an epic struggle is appealing. This provides meaning and a sense of significance often lacking in life. There is also the sickly-sweet lure of racism, bigotry and religious intolerance. These are strong motivating factors to see others as an implacable enemy—inferior in every way, yet also somehow demonically dangerous and devilishly clever.

There are also powerful motivations to get others to accept this narrative. Leaders can use it as political fuel to gain power and justify internal oppression and external violence. It also makes an excellent distraction from other problems. As such, it is no surprise that both American politicians and terrorist leaders are happy to push the West vs. Islam narrative. Doing so serves both their agendas.

While the psychology and politics of the narrative are both important, I will focus on the idea of the West being at war with Islam. One obvious starting point is to try to sort out what this might mean.

It might seem easy to define the West—this could be done by listing the usual suspects, such as the United States, France, Germany, Canada and so on. However, it can get a bit fuzzy in areas. For example, Turkey is predominantly Muslim but is part of NATO and considered by some to be part of the Western bloc. Russia is not part of the classic West but has been the target of terrorist groups. But perhaps it is possible to just go with Classic West and ignore the finer points of this war.

Establishing the war is easy. While many terrorist groups that claim to be fighting for Islam have declared open war on the West, most Muslims have not done so. As such, the West is only at war with some Muslims and not with Islam. Likewise, Islam is not at war with the West, but some Muslims are. Muslims are also at war with other Muslims—after all, Daesh killed more Muslims than it killed Westerners. The West could, of course, establish a full war on Islam on its own. For example, President Trump could get Congress to declare war on Islam. Or just start launch a vast not-war on Islam by himself.

There are  practical concerns about taking the notion of a war on Islam seriously. One concern is the fact that while the are some predominantly Muslim nations that are hostile to the United States (such as what is left of Iran), there are others that are nominal allies (such as Jordan, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) and even one that is part of NATO (Turkey). As such, a war against Islam would entail a war against these allies. That seems morally and practically problematic.

A second concern is that many friendly and neutral countries have Muslim populations. These countries might take issue with a war against their citizens. There is also the fact that the United States has Muslim citizens and waging a war on United States citizens could also prove somewhat problematic both legally and practically. Although, as the numerous apparent crimes committed show, the Trump regime appears to have little regard for the law and practical concerns.

Donald Trump has shared his various thoughts on this matter. He once considered requiring Muslims to be registered in a special database and to identify their faith. Religious freedom, one suspects, is seen as applying to only the right religions.

A third practical concern is determining the victory conditions for such a war. “Classic” war typically involves trying to get the opposing country to surrender or agree to conditions that end the war. However, a war against a religion would be inherently different. One horrific victory condition might be the elimination of Islam, either through extermination or conversion. This sort of thing has been attempted against faiths and people in the past; we now usually call this genocide.

However, such exterminations are morally wicked—to say the least. Alternatively, Muslims might be rounded up, as happened to Japanese Americans in WWII and kept in concentrated areas. In addition to being impractical, this is also morally horrifying.

Victory might be defined in less extreme ways, such as getting Islam to surrender and creating agreements to behave in ways that the West approves. This is, after all, how traditional wars end. There are, of course, many practical problems here. These would include the logistics of Islam’s surrender (since there is no unified leadership of Islam) and working out the agreements across the world. It is unclear what it would be for an entire religion to surrender.

Or perhaps there is no intention to achieve victory: the war on Islam is used to justify internal suppression of rights and liberties, to manipulate voters, to ensure that money keeps flowing into the military-security complex, and to provide pretexts for military operations. As such, the war will continue until another opponent can be found to fill the role of adversary.  The USSR once served ably in this role, but Trump seems to like Putin too much to use Russia as an enemy. China has some potential, but our economies are bound together.

One reasonable counter to the above is to insist that although the ideas of a war with Islam and a clash of civilizations are real, a more serious approach is a war with radical Islam rather than all of Islam. This narrower approach could avoid many of the above practical problems, assuming that our Muslim allies are not radicals and that our and allied Muslim citizens are (mostly) not radicals. This would enable the West to avoid having to wage war on allies and its own citizens, which would be  awkward.

While this narrowed scope is an improvement, there are still some obvious concerns. One is working out who counts as the right (or wrong) sort of radical. After all, a person can hold to a radical theology yet have no interest in harming anyone else. But perhaps “radical Islam” could be defined in terms of groups that engage in terrorist and criminal acts that also self-identity as Muslims. If this approach is taken, then there would seem to be no legitimate justification for labeling this a war on Islam or even radical Islam. It would, rather, be a conflict with terrorists.

There are some practical reasons for avoiding even the “war on radical Islam” phrasing. One is that using the phrase provides terrorist groups with propaganda: they can claim that the West is at war with Islam, rather than being engaged in conflict with terrorists who claim to operate under the banner of Islam. The second is that the use of the phrase alienates and antagonizes Muslims who are not terrorists, thus doing harm in the efforts to win allies (or at least  keep people neutral).

It might be objected that refusing to use “radical Islam” is a sign of political correctness, DEI, wokeness or cowardice. While this is a beloved talking point for some, it has no merit as serious criticism. As noted above, using the term merely serves to benefit the terrorists and antagonize potential allies. Insisting on using the term is a strategic error that is often driven by bravado, ignorance and intolerance. As such, the West should not engage in a war on Islam or even radical Islam. Fighting terrorists is, of course, another matter entirely.

While the classic anti-migrant playbook focuses on falsely accusing migrants of spreading disease, doing crimes, stealing jobs, and using resources, there is also the more recent addition of accusing migrants of being terrorists, especially Muslim migrants.  This is then used to “justify” anti-migrant actions.

On the one hand, it is tempting to dismiss this as political posturing and pandering to fear, racism and religious intolerance. On the other hand, it is worth considering legitimate worries under the posturing and the pandering. One worry is that terrorists could masquerade as refugees. Another worry is that refugees might be radicalized and become terrorists.

In politics, it is unusual for people to operate based on consistently held principles. Instead, views usually reflect how a person feels or what they think about the political value of a position. However, a proper moral assessment requires considering migration in terms of general principles and consistency.

In the case of the refugees, the general principle justifying excluding them would be something like this: it is morally acceptable to exclude groups who might include people who might pose a threat. This principle seems, in general, reasonable. After all, excluding people who might present a threat serves to protect people from harm.

Of course, this principle is incredibly broad and would justify excluding almost anyone and everyone. After all, nearly every group of people (tourists, refugees, out-of-staters, men, Christians, atheists, cat fanciers, football players, and so on) include people who might pose a threat.  While excluding everyone would increase safety, that would be absurd. As such, this general principle should be refined. For example, considering the odds that a dangerous person will be in the group, the harm such a person is likely to do, and the likely harms from excluding that group.

According to Cato institute, “A total of 237 foreign-born terrorists were responsible for 3,046 murders on US soil from 1975 through the end of 2024. The chance of a person perishing in a terrorist attack committed by a foreigner on US soil over those 50 years was about 1 in 4.6 million per year. The hazards posed by foreigners who enter in different ways vary considerably. For instance, the annual chance of being murdered in an attack committed by an illegal immigrant terrorist is zero.” Thus, arguing against immigration based on an alleged threat of terrorism is absurd. This is not to say that we should not be vigilant, just that if the goal is to protect Americans, then the resources could be better used in other ways. Such as funding health care.

It might be countered, using hyperbolic rhetoric, that if even one terrorist gets into the United States, that would be too many. While one bad thing is one too many, would it be reasonable to operate on a principle that the possibility of even one bad outcome warrants strict regulation? That would generally seem to be unreasonable. This principle would justify banning guns, peanuts, swimming pools and cars. It would also justify banning tourists and visitors from other states. After all, tourists and people from other states do bad things in states from time to time. It would also seem to justify banning birth. After all, we can be sure at least one person born in the future will be a murderer. As such, the idea of basing policy on the notion that one is too many is absurd.

There is, of course, concerns about political risk. A politician who supports allowing Muslim migrants to come to America will be savaged by the right if even a single incident happens. This, of course, would be no more reasonable than vilifying a politician who supports the Second Amendment just because a person is shot to death in their state.  But reason is usually absent in the realm of political punditry.

Another factor to consider is the harm that would be done by excluding such migrants, especially refugees. If they cannot be settled someplace, they will be condemned to live as involuntary nomads and suffer all that entails. There is also the ironic possibility that excluded refugees will become, as pundits like to say, radicalized. After all, people who are deprived of hope and are treated as pariahs tend to become a resentful and some might become terrorists. There is also the fact that banning Muslim refugees and migrants provides propaganda for terrorist groups.

Given that the risk is very small and the harm to the refugees and migrants would be significant, the moral thing to do is to allow migrants and refugees into the United States. Yes, one of them could be a terrorist. But so could a tourist. Or some American coming from another state. Or already in the state. While some right-winger might accuse me of thus supporting open borders, nothing I say entails that. Refugees and migrants need to be properly vetted, especially after our attack on Iran. While I am not an expert on terrorism, I would expect Iran to step up its efforts against the United States.

In addition to utilitarian calculation, an argument can also be based on moral duties to others, even when acting on such a duty involves risk. In terms of religious-based ethics, a standard principle is to love thy neighbor as thyself, which requires helping refugees and migrants even at a slight risk. There is also the golden rule.

As a closing point, we Americans love to make claims about the moral superiority and exceptionalism of our country. Talk is cheap, so if we want to prove our alleged superiority and exceptionalism, we must act in an exceptional way. Excluding people and refusing to help them because we are afraid shows a lack of charity, compassion and courage. This is not what an exceptional nation would do.

Thanks to The Time Machine, Dr. Who and Back to the Future, it is easy to imagine what time travel might look like: people get into a machine, cool stuff happens (coolness is proportional to the special effects budget) and the machine vanishes. It then reappears in the past or the future (without all that tedious mucking about in the time between now and then).

Thanks to philosophers, science fiction writers and scientists, there are enough problems and paradoxes regarding time travel to keep thinkers pontificating until after the end of time. I will not endeavor to solve any of these problems or paradoxes here. Rather, I will add another time travel scenario to the stack.

Imagine a human research team has found a time gate on a desolate alien world. The scientists have figured out how to use the gate, at least well enough to send people back and forth through time. They also learned that the gate compensates for motion of the planet in space, thus preventing potentially fatal displacements.

As is always the case, there are nefarious beings who wish to seize the gate for their own diabolical purposes. Perhaps they want to go and change the timeline so that rather than one good Terminator movie, there are just very bad terminator movies in the new timeline. Or perhaps that want to do even worse things

Unfortunately for the good guys, the small expedition has only one trained soldier, Sergeant Vasquez, and she has limited combat gear. What they need is an army, but all they have is a time gate and one soldier.

The scientists consider using the gate to go far back in time in the hopes of recruiting aid from the original inhabitants of the world. Obvious objections are raised against this proposal, such as the fear the original inhabitants might be worse than the current foe or that the time travelers might be arrested and locked up.

Just as all seemed lost, the team historian recalled an ancient marketing slogan: “Army of One.” He realized that this marketing tool could be made into a useful reality. The time gate could be used to multiply the soldier into a true army of one. The team philosopher raised the objection that this sort of thing should not be possible, since it would require that a particular being, namely Vasquez, be multiply located: she would be in different places at the same time. That sort of madness, the philosopher pointed out, was something only metaphysical universals could pull off. One of the scientists pointed out that they had used the gate to send things back and forth in time, which resulted in just that sort of multiple location. After all, a can of soda sent back in time twenty days would be a certain distance from that same soda of twenty days ago. So, multiple location was obviously something that particulars could do—otherwise time travel would be impossible. Which it clearly was not. In this story.

The team philosopher, fuming a bit, raised the objection that this was all well and good with cans of soda, because they were not people. Having the same person multiply located would presumably do irreversible damage to most theories of personal identity. The team HR expert cleared her throat and brought up the practical matter of paychecks, benefits, insurance and other such concerns. Vasquez’s husband was caught smiling a mysterious smile, which he quickly wiped off his face when he noticed other team members noticing. The philosopher then played a final card: if we had sent Vasquez back repeatedly in time, we’d have our army of one right now. I don’t see that army. So, it can’t work. Because it didn’t.

Vasquez, a practical soldier, settled the matter. She told the head scientist to set the gate to take her well back before the expedition arrived.  She would then use the gate to “meet herself” repeatedly until she had a big enough army to wipe out the invaders.

As she headed towards the gate with her gear, she said “I’ll go hide someplace so you won’t see me. Then I’ll ambush the nefarious invaders. We can sort things out afterwards.” The philosopher muttered but secretly thought it was a pretty good idea.

The team members were very worried when the nefarious invaders arrived but were very glad to see the army of Vasquez rush from hiding to shoot the hell out of them.  After cleaning up the mess, one of the Vasquez asked “so what do I do now? There is an army of me and a couple of me got killed in the fight. Do I try to sort it out by going back through the gate one me at a time or what?”

The HR expert looked very worried—it had been great when the army of one showed up, but the budget would not cover the entire army. But, the expert thought, Vasquez is still technically and legally one person. She could make it work…unless Vasquez got mad enough to shoot her.

The avoidance argument against increasing taxes on the rich is that doing so is pointless because they will find ways to nullify the increase. They might use established methods or develop new ones, but (the argument goes) they will manage to avoid paying more taxes. Therefore, there is no point in wasting time trying to make them pay more.

This argument has a certain appeal in that there is little sense doing ineffectual things. As such, it would seem reasonable to leave things as they are, since this change would do just that—only at the cost of enacting ineffective legislation.

Despite this appeal, there are two factual issues that need to be addressed. The first is the issue of whether the rich would try to avoid a tax increase. Some of the wealthy have at least claimed to favor higher tax rates, so they might accept the increase. However, most people (be they rich or not) generally prefer not to pay more taxes. There is also the fact that many of the rich already do all they can to minimize their tax burden. There is no reason to think that a tax increase would change this behavior. As such, it is reasonable to infer that most of the rich would try to minimize the impact of any tax increase.

The second factual issue is whether the rich would be able to nullify a tax increase and to what degree. One approach is to consider that if the rich are concerned about a tax increase, then this indicates that it would affect them. After all, people generally do not worry about things they believe will not affect them.

A reasonable counter is that while the rich will be affected by the tax increase, their concern is not that they will be paying more taxes, but that avoiding the increase will come with a cost. For example, they might have to pay lawyers or accountants more to enable them to neutralize the increase.  Or they might need to lobby or “donate” to politicians. It makes sense that the rich would be willing to expend resources to mitigate any tax increase. As if the expenditure would be lower than what paying the increase would cost them, then this approach could be rational. It could even be claimed that some might be willing to pay more to avoid the taxes than the taxes would cost them, perhaps as a matter of principle. While this sounds odd, it is not inconceivable.

Another approach is to consider how effectively the rich avoid existing taxes. Even if they are somewhat effective at doing so, the increase could still impact them and thus generate more tax revenue (which is the point of a tax increase). As such, an increase could be effective in regard to the stated goal of increasing revenue.

In addition to the factual issues, there is also the issue of whether the principle that underlies this argument is a good principle. The principle is that if people will be able to avoid a law (or policy), then the law should not be passed.

This principle does have a pragmatic appeal: it seems irrational to waste time and resources creating laws  that will simply be avoided. This sort of avoidance argument is also used against proposed bills aimed at gun control. Interestingly, most who use the avoidance argument against gun control do not accept this same argument about abortion laws or drug laws. This is as should be expected: people tend to operate based on preferences rather than on consistent application of principles.

One possible response is that if a law is worth having, then steps should be taken to ensure that people cannot just avoid it. If some people can get away with murder, then the morally right reaction would not be to give up on the law. The correct reaction would be to ensure that they could not get away with murder. Naturally, it can be argued that the tax increase would not be a law worth having—but that is a different argument from the avoidance argument.

A second possible response is to reject the consequentialist approach and argue that the fact that people will be able to avoid a law is not as important as the issue of whether the law is right. Some people take this approach to drug laws: they accept that the laws are ineffective, but contend that since drug use is immoral, it should remain illegal. As always, consistency is important in these matters: if the principle that moral concerns trump the pragmatic concerns is embraced, then that principle needs to be applied consistently in all relevantly similar cases. If the principle that the pragmatic should trump the moral is accepted, then that needs to be applied consistently as well. While the issue of whether such a tax increase is morally right or not is important, my concern here is with the avoidance argument. But, if the tax increase is not the right thing to do and the rich would just avoid it, then imposing it would be both wrong and a poor  pragmatic choice.

One way to argue against increasing taxes (or having any taxes at all) is to contend that to increase the taxes of the wealthy against their wishes would be coercion. There are more hyperbolic ways to make this sort of argument, such as asserting that taxes are robbery by the state. However, I will use a more neutral definition of “coercion.” While “coercion” has a negative connotation, those of “theft” and “robbery” are even more negative.

If coercion is always morally wrong, then coercing the wealthy into paying more taxes would be wrong. As such, a key issue is whether coercion is always wrong. On the face of it, the morality of an act of coercion would depend on many factors, such as the goal and nature of the coercive act and the parties involved. An important factor is whether the coerced consented to the system of coercion. For example, it can be argued that criminals consented to the use of coercive force against them by being citizens of the state and so they (in general) cannot claim they are being wronged when they are arrested and punished for crimes they committed.

It could be claimed that by remaining citizens of the United States and participating in a democratic political system, the rich consent to the decisions made by the legitimate authorities of the state. So, in the unlikely event that Congress increases the taxes of the rich, then the rich are obligated to go along. They might not like the decision, but that is how a democratic system (supposedly) works. The state is supposed to use its coercive power to ensure that the laws are followed—be they laws against murder, laws against infringing the patents of pharmaceutical companies or laws increasing the tax rate.

A reasonable response to this is that although the citizens of the state have agreed to be subject to the coercive power of the state, there are moral limits on the power. Returning to the example of the police, there are moral limits on what sort of coercion they should use—even when the law and common practice might allow them to exceed them. Returning to the matter of laws, there are clearly unjust laws. As such, agreeing to be part of a coercive system does not entail that all the coercive actions of that system or its laws are morally acceptable. Given this, it could be claimed that the state coercing the rich into paying more taxes might be wrong.

It could be countered that if the taxes on the rich are increased, this would be after the state and the rich have negotiated the taxes. The rich have organizations, such as corporations, that enable them to present a unified front to the state. One might even say that these are unions of the wealthy. The rich can also pay lobbyists to negotiate with the people in the government and, of course, the rich also have the usual ability of any citizen to negotiate with the government.

If the rich fare poorly in their negotiations, perhaps because those making the decisions do not place enough value on what the rich have to offer, then the rich must accept this result until they have the chance to change the law. After all, that is how the free market of democratic politics is supposed to work. If the rich do not like the results, they should have brought more to the table or been better at negotiating. They can also find another country—and some do just that. Or create or take over their own state.

It could be objected that negotiations between the state and the rich will be unfair for the rich. While the rich can have great power, the state (probably still) has greater power. After all, the United States has trillions of dollars, police, and the military. This imbalance of power makes it impossible for the rich to fairly negotiate with the state—unless there are rules and regulations governing how the rich can be treated by the greater power of the state. There could be, for example, rules about how much the state should be able to tax the rich and these rules should be based on a rational analysis of the facts. This would allow a fair maximum tax to be set that would allow the rich to be treated justly.

The relation between a state intent on maximizing tax income and the rich can be seen as analogous to the relation between employees and businesses intent on maximizing profits. If it is acceptable for the wealthy to organize corporations to negotiate with the more powerful state, then it is also be acceptable for employees to organize unions to negotiate with the more powerful corporations. While the merits of individual corporations and unions can be debated endlessly, the basic principle of organizing to negotiate with others is essentially the same for both and if one is acceptable, so is the other.  Unions are the corporations of the poor and corporations are the unions of the rich.

Continuing the analogy, if it is accepted that the state’s freedom to impose taxes should be limited, then it would also be reasonable to think that there should be limits, regulations and restrictions on the economic freedom of employers in regards to how they treat employees. After all, employees are almost always in the weaker position and thus usually negotiate at a marked disadvantage. While workers, like the rich, could try to find another job, create their own business or go to another land, the options of most workers are far more limited.

To use a specific example, if it is morally right to set a rational limit to the maximum tax for the rich, it is also morally right to set a rational limit on the minimum wage that an employee can be paid. Naturally, there can be a wide range of complexities in regard to both the taxes and the wages, but the basic principle is the same in both cases: the more powerful should be limited in their economic impositions on the less powerful. There is also the shared principle of how much a person has a right to, be it the money they keep or the money they are paid for work.

Like any argument by analogy, this can be challenged by showing the relevant similarities between the analogues are outweighed by the relevant dissimilarities. There are various ways this could be done.

One obvious difference is that when the state imposes taxes on the rich, the state is using political coercion. In the case of the employer imposing on the employee, the coercion is economic (although some employers do have the ability to get the state to use its coercive powers in their favor). It could be argued that this difference is strong enough to break the analogy and show that although the state should be limited in its imposition on the rich, employers should have great freedom to employ their economic coercion against employees. The challenge is showing how political coercion is morally different from economic coercion in a way that breaks the analogy.

Another obvious difference is that the state is imposing taxes on the rich while the employer is not taxing their employees. The employer is setting their wages, benefits, vacation time, work conditions and so on.  So, while the state can reduce the money of the rich by taxing them, it could be argued that this is relevantly different from an employer reducing the money of employees by paying low wages. As such, it could be argued that this difference is sufficient to break the analogy.

As a final point, it could be argued that the rich differ from employees in ways that break the analogy. For example, it could be argued that since the rich are of a better economic class than employees, they are entitled to better treatment, even if they happen to be unable to negotiate for that better treatment. The challenge is, of course, to show that the rich being rich entitles them to a better class of treatment.

Like most people, I do not enjoy cleaning but see living in filth unacceptable. Some years ago, I complained about cleaning and was asked why I did not hire someone to do it for me. Being a philosopher, I thought it though and concluded that I would keep doing my own cleaning. To be honest, my main reason then was financial. But now that I have more income and less time left to live, I thought it worthwhile to reconsider my past decision. In general, it is wise to do this about life choices. After all, you don’t want to be stuck living yesterday tomorrow. To lead with the spoiler, I decided to keep doing my own cleaning. Being a philosopher, I naturally have needlessly complicated reasoning about this.

Some of my reasons are psychological and probably not particularly interesting to others. Most involve the fact that my mother would have made Aristotle proud: she made sure that I had an abundance of character-building opportunities and I (as per Aristotle’s theory of moral education) find it less irksome to do these chores.  I am also quite a character. As a kid, of course, I found such tasks less tolerable—but that is what habituation is all about.

Some of these factors are also due to influence of my interpretation of the (alleged) American ideals of responsibility, egalitarianism, and a classless society: no person should be so full of himself to think they are too good to clean their own toilet. But psychological reasons are not philosophically interesting. So, I now turn to the ethics of cleaning one’s own toilet.

Going back to our good, dead friend Aristotle, an excellent reason why a person should do their own cleaning is to form proper habits. There is the good habit of keeping things clean, but also the deeper impact on a person’s character. While I am sure that not everyone has been affected in the same way, doing my own cleaning (and other such work) has had two main impacts on my character. The first, to put it bluntly, is that it is hard to be too full of yourself when you are scrubbing your toilet or toweling up some dog vomit. My detractors will imagine how arrogant I would be if I did not engage in regular ego-reducing activities.

To pre-empt a likely criticism, I do not think that cleaning is a “lowly” activity that beats down the ego because it is worthy only of disdain or contempt. Rather, I think that it is doing my own cleaning that helps me not see it as something worthy of contempt. It is usually not a pleasant activity, but it is both necessary and worthy of respect. As such, it is not that the cleaning helps me remember that I am not too good to clean, it is that such work should not be held in contempt. This helps keep the ego under some degree of control.

The second is that cleaning up my own messes (and those of various pets) has taught me to be more considerate of others. Knowing how much fun it is to clean up a mess, I am not inclined to make messes for others to deal with. I do not litter and I am respectful of public places. Unfortunately, there are people who are fine with creating awful messes. I have had to clean up a few of those myself. I have, for example,  cleaned up discarded diapers left by trespassers beside the homeowners’ association pool. I had no issue with their using our pool on a hot Florida day, but I did take issue with the filth they left behind for someone else to clean.

I know  there are people who do not learn such lessons from cleaning—but that is true for all lessons. You can lead the person to the mop, but you cannot make him learn from mopping up dog vomit.

In addition to the character-building value of such tasks, there is also the matter of moral responsibility. When I was an infant, I was not accountable for my actions—I lacked both the knowledge and control to be responsible for the messes I produced. However, once I had both knowledge and control, I became accountable. This accountability includes taking care of  the messes I create—be it mud tracked in from a run or screwing up something at work. To not clean up my own messes would be morally irresponsible and should be condemned Despite being sensible, my view does face some reasonable objections. I will focus on moral arguments aimed at showing that it is morally acceptable for a competent adult to have others do their cleaning for them.

While I now live alone, I have lived with people, and I am familiar with the challenge of sharing chores. I am fine with sharing chores based on my responsibility argument. However, one can argue in favor of having one partner doing the cleaning. Consider, if you will, a situation in which one person makes much more money than her partner. Her time is thus more  financially valuable than that of her partner, especially if the time she would otherwise spend cleaning is spent earning money. Since the partner’s time is literally worth less, it makes more economic sense for the partner to do the cleaning.

This does have considerable appeal and can be seen as analogous to the smart use of employee resources. For example, if the toilet overflows at a small law firm, it makes sense for the least valuable employee to deal with the toilet while the more valuable employees keep racking up those billable hours.

A counter to this, at least in the case of people who are in a relationship, is that the moral value of each partner’s time as a person is not a function of their work salary. While this is an ideal, a person should value their partner’s time on par with their own—or someone should re-consider that relationship. There is also the matter of respect—to regard a person as being worth less simply because they make less money is to fail to respect that person as a person. As such, chores should be divided fairly. This can include dividing the chores based on each person’s cleaning skills, preferences and level of mess creation. For example, if one person has a habit of creating muddy messes on the floor, then that should be their responsibility. But, to the degree that each person contributes to the mess, each should contribute to the cleaning. There can, of course, be some “exchange” of chores—but the responsibilities should be shared based on the principle of fairness.

As mentioned above, what caused me to initially reflect on this was being asked why I did not hire someone to clean for me. Obviously enough, hiring a person to do the cleaning is morally different from having one’s partner do the work. The easy and obvious moral justification for this is one of utility. If a person values avoiding cleaning more than what it would cost to hire someone to clean, then it would make sense to do so and would seem, in general, morally on par with hiring someone to perform a root canal or argue a legal case. This assumes that the person is not coerced and is paid a fair wage—if this is not the case, then other moral concerns arise.

This is a reasonable view. I do hire people to do work for me, such as replacing the tires on my truck.  I have also hired people to take care of my pets when I am out of town, thus paying someone to take care of my responsibilities. However, in these cases I am hiring people to perform tasks that I cannot perform (or cannot perform as well). I am not paying someone to avoid something I am responsible for, namely my messes. As such, I think part of the cost of hiring someone else to clean up after me would include a moral cost: failing in my responsibility when I could fulfil my obligation and engaging in behavior that is not good for my character. I think that the lesson that you can make whatever messes you want if you have enough money to pay others to clean it up is the wrong sort of lesson.

A sensible reply to this is that any alleged moral harm done to the person doing the hiring is offset by the good done at creating a job for someone. After all, there are people who make their living cleaning up other people’s messes and if everyone had my view, these people would need to find new jobs. That is certainly an appealing argument. At some point, probably when I finally get sick of scrubbing toilets and mopping up pet puke, I might let it convince me. But until then, I will keep making my mother proud and build character by cleaning my own toilet.  

Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game was my gateway drug to H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction. His works shaped my concept of horror and put me on the Mi-Go haunted path of writing adventures and monographs for Chaosium. I am proud that one of my creations is now included among the Great Old Ones. I even co-authored a paper on Lovecraft with physicist Paul Halpern. While Lovecraft is well known for the horrors of his Cthulhu Mythos, he is also now well known for another sort of horror, racism.

When I was a kid, I was blind to the prejudices expressed in Lovecraft’s writings—I focused on the strange vistas, sanity blasting beings, and the warping of space and time. As I grew older, I became aware of the casual prejudices expressed towards minorities and his special horror of “mongrel races.” However, I was unsure whether he was truly a racist or merely expressing a common world view of his (and our) time. Which can also be seen as racist. As I like Lovecraft’s writings, I was disturbed as revelations about his racism piled up.

For forty years the World Fantasy Convention had awards in the form of a bust of Lovecraft. Nnedi Okorafor won a WFA in 2011 and was disturbed when they learned Lovecraft had written a racist poem. While not as surprising as the revelation that Dr. Seuss  drew racist cartoons,  such evidence of blatant racism altered my view of Lovecraft as a person.

As should be expected, some have tried to defend Lovecraft. A notable defender was S.T. Joshi, a leading authority on the author. The defense of Lovecraft follows a well-worn approach to address the issue of whether and artists’ personal qualities or actions are relevant to the merit of their art. I turn now to considering some of these stock arguments.

One stock response is the “product of the times” defense: although Lovecraft was racist, it is claimed that most people were racist, so this is not a special flaw of the artist. This defense has some merit as it is reasonable to consider the social and moral setting in which an artist lived. After all, artists have no special immunity to social influences. To use an analogy, consider feminist arguments about the harmful influence of the patriarchal culture, sexist imagery, sexist language and unrealistic body images on young women. The argument is that young woman are shaped by these forces and develop low self-esteem, become more likely to have eating disorders, and develop unrealistic images of how they should look and behave. If these cultural influences can have such a devastating impact on young women, it is easy enough to imagine the damaging impact of a culture awash in racism upon the young Lovecraft. Just as a young woman inundated by photoshopped and AI images of supermodels can develop a distorted view of reality, a young person exposed to racism can develop a distorted view of reality. And, just as one would not hold the young woman responsible for her distorted self-image, one should not hold the young racist accountable for his distorted images of other people.

It can be countered that the analogy fails. While young women can be mentally shaped by the patriarchal influences of the culture and are not morally accountable for this, people are responsible for accepting racism even in a culture flooded with racism, such as the United States in the 1900s (and today). As such, Lovecraft can be blamed for his racist views, and his condemnation is thus justified. The challenge is to work out how some cultural factors can shape people in ways that excuse them of responsibility and others leave people morally accountable. This does point towards a general problem of moral accountability and the issue of the extent to which we are responsible for our beliefs. One can certainly argued that Lovecraft should have been aware of the arguments against racism (which date back to the invention of racism) and should have been able to overcome the racism of his time. After all, other people did so.

Another reply is that this argument is a version of the appeal to common practice fallacy—a fallacy that occurs when a practice is defended on the grounds that it is (or was) commonly done. Obviously, the mere fact that a practice is common does not justify it. So, although racism was common in Lovecraft’s day, this does not serve as a defense of his views or an excuse for his racism.

A second standard defense of artists is to argue they have other traits that offset the negative qualities. In the case of Lovecraft, the defense is that he was intelligent, generous and produced works of considerable influence and merit. This defense has some appeal—after all, everyone has negative traits and a person should be assessed by the totality of her being, not her worst quality taken in isolation.

While this is a reasonable reply, it only works to the degree that a person’s good qualities offset the negative qualities. After all, there are awful people who are kind to their own pets or treat the few people they love well. As such, consideration of this defense would require weighing the evil of Lovecraft with the good. One factor worth considering is that although Lovecraft wrote racist things and thought racist thoughts, there is the question of whether his racism led him to harm anyone. While it might be claimed that racism is harm enough, it does seem to matter whether he acted on this racism to the detriment of others. This, of course, ties into the broader philosophical issue of the moral importance of thoughts versus the moral importance of actions.

Another concern with this defense is that even if a person’s positive traits outweigh their negative, this does not erase the negative traits. So even if Lovecraft was a smart and generous racist, he was still a racist. And this would be grounds for condemnation. 

A third, and especially intriguing defense against a specific moral flaw is to argue that the flaw is subsumed in a greater flaw. In the case of Lovecraft, it could be argued that his specific racism is subsumed into his general misanthropic view of humanity. While there is some debate about the extent of his (alleged) misanthropy, this has some appeal. After all, if Lovecraft disliked humans in general, his racism against specific ethnic groups would be part of that overall view and not racism in the usual sense. Many of Lovecraft’s stories (such as in “the Picture in the House”, “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, ‘the Rats in the Walls”, and “the Dunwich Horror”) feature the degeneracy and villainy of those of European stock. The descriptions of the degenerated whites are every bit as condemning and harsh as his descriptions of people of other ethnicities. As such, one could argue that Lovecraft cannot be accused of being a racist—unless his racism is towards all humans.

One counter to this defense is to point out that being awful in general is not a defense of being awful in a particular way. Another counter is that while Lovecraft did include degenerate white people, he also wrote in very positive ways about some white characters—something he did not seem to do for other ethnicities. This, it could be argued, does support the claim that Lovecraft was racist.

A final standard defense is to argue that the merits of an artist’s works are independent of the personal qualities of the artist. What matters, it can be argued, is the quality of the work itself in terms of such factors as aesthetic value and contributions to the field. One way to argue for this is to use an analogy from my own past.

Years ago, when I was a young cross-country runner, there was a very good runner at another college. This fellow regularly placed in and even won races. He was one of the best runners in the conference. However, he was almost universally despised by other runners and some joked that the only reason no one punched him in the face was because they could not catch him. Despite his being hated, his fellow runners had to acknowledge he was a good runner and merited all his victories. The same would seem to apply in the case of an artist like Lovecraft: his works should be assessed on their own merits and not on his personal traits.

This sort of reasoning can be enhanced by noting that an artist’s non-artistic qualities do not seem to make their art better. A person might be exceptionally kind and generous, but this does not mean that her guitar playing skill will be exceptional. A person might be kind to animals and devoted to the well-being of others, but this does not mean that his verses will flow like magical wine. So, if the positive traits of an artist do not improve an aesthetic work, it should follow that negative traits do not make the work worse.

This then leads to the reasonable concern that an artist’s negative qualities might corrupt a work. To go back to the running analogy, if the despised runner was despised because he cheated at the races, then the personality traits that made him the object of dislike would be relevant to assessing the merit of his performances. Likewise, if the racism of a racist author infects his works, then this could be regarded as reducing their merit because they are infected with racism. This leads to the issue of whether such racism detracts from the aesthetic merit of a work, which is a lengthy issue for another time.

I think that Lovecraft’s racism made him a worse person. However, the fact that he was a racist does not impact the merit of his works—except to the degree that the racist elements in the stories damage their artistic merit (which is an issue worth considering). As such, Lovecraft should be condemned for his racism but given due praise for the value of his work and his contribution to modern horror.

When attacking DEI efforts, folks on the right usually make vague remarks about merit. While the right seems to have abandoned philosophy, let us imagine a good faith argument against DEI efforts based on an appeal to merit.

While the right is unclear what they mean by “merit”, the common usage is that a person receives something, such as a position, based on earning it through being worthy. For example, when people talk about meritocracy, they usually speak of people earning positions, jobs, scholarships or promotions based on their skills, abilities and effort. In contrast, receiving such things because of factors such as wealth, social class, or family connections would not be the result of merit. There are obvious philosophical questions about what factors should count as merit in terms of determining what people earn and what they merely receive. For example, a person who gets into college because of their academic ability might seem to have earned it by merit. But what if they have that ability because of the genetic lottery and years of expensive tutoring and schooling paid for by wealth inherited by their parents? They did not earn their genes, tutoring, and schooling and this would, it seems to diminish claims of merit. But let us return to constructing a merit argument against DEI efforts. I will then use that merit argument against inheritance.

To build a merit argument against DEI efforts, one must begin with the assumption that DEI is either not needed or unfair. For it not to be needed, it must be assumed that those who benefit from DEI do not face significant discrimination or unfair obstacles and have equal opportunity to succeed on their merits. For it to be unfair, it must be assumed that those who benefit from DEI gain an unfair, unmerited advantage over others.

While those who oppose DEI often seem to do so from racism, sexism and similar bigotry, one could take the view that women and minorities are just as capable as white men (and have equal opportunities) but that DEI efforts provide its beneficiaries unfair advantages over equally qualified white men. If it is also assumed that things such as jobs and scholarships should be earned by merit, then it would follow that DEI is bad. Obviously, I do not think that most folks on the right are advancing good faith arguments against DEI but let us take the merit argument seriously and hold them to their professed view that laws should be crafted to ensure that success is merit based and that unfair advantages are eliminated. This entails that the inheritance laws should be changed to eliminate the unfair, unearned advantages conferred by inherited wealth. If one is exceptionally devoted to merit, one could even push for laws aimed at creating equality of opportunity for everyone—but I will just focus on inheritance.

Inherited wealth, by definition, is unearned and thus anything it is used to acquire would be unmerited to the degree the wealth purchased it. Such wealth can confer significant advantages in terms of such things as influence, opportunities and resources. As a minor example, a family with sufficient inherited wealth can own property in the best school district, provide tutoring and other support for their children, enroll them in special programs and so on. If one is a stickler about merit, children obviously do not earn or merit such advantages even if their parents did not inherit their wealth and to the degree the children gain from them, they would not be earning whatever they receive from them. Ironically, the anti-DEI President Trump received millions from his father, and this provided him with a massive, unearned advantage over everyone who choose their parents less wisely. Family members can also inherit businesses and gain unearned ownership and positions in those businesses. And so on, for all that can be inherited and can yield unfair advantages. None of these are earned or merit based. So, those who reject DEI based on the merit argument must also oppose inheritance on the same basis. If laws should be passed to forbid DEI to ensure that success is based on merit, then laws should also be passed to eliminate or severely restrict inheritance to ensure that success is based on merit.

It might be objected that inherited wealth is not like DEI efforts, but the challenge is to show how they different in relevant ways. One could argue that there is an obvious difference: DEI is linked to such factors as gender, ethnicity and veteran status, whereas inheritance is usually just a matter of birth. But objections of this sort would be based on the idea that merit should apply to DEI factors but not otherwise, which would not be a merit-based argument. If merit is what matters and the law must ensure this, then merit is what matters and the law must ensure this.

While few, if any, on the right would accept the above reasoning and consistency arguments obviously have no effect on the right (or most people), we should always remember that their merit arguments against DEI are made in bad faith unless they also argue against inheritance. When they speak of merit, they should be asked about inheritance and other unfair advantages they favor.

While the right’s war on history is distinct from its war on DEI, the two are connected. To justify the extermination of DEI efforts, the right is crafting a faerie tale version of history. One part of the strategy is to eliminate or downplay the history of racism, sexism and classism in the United States. If pressed, folks on the right might allow that slavery did exist or that, at one time, women could not vote. But they will also claim that slavery was not that bad (and even had good features) and some would even claim that it was good that women could not vote and that we should return to that practice. Those who admit the existence of past wrongs will assert that most (if not all) of the negative consequences remain in the past and that everything is mostly fine now. Crudely put, the narrative is that racism and sexism (if they ever existed or were even bad) have been solved. As an example, my adopted state of Florida passed a law restricting what schools can teach about systematic racism and a law forbidding General Education classes from teaching that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the U.S. “and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.” Ironically, one might point out that these laws serve as more evidence that what they seek to deny is true. These efforts are aimed at whitewashing history.

The second part of the war on history is to downplay the success, accomplishments and contributions of minorities and women. For example, people at the Pentagon purged thousands of images showing minority and women war heroes and military firsts. As if to illustrate the absurdity of the purge, images of the Enola Gay (the name of the B-29 that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan) were purged, perhaps because the plane was seen as woke. Under Hegseth (who has been accused of domestic violence), the Pentagon has also been purging the ranks of minorities and women. These efforts are aimed at creating an illusory “history” in which women and minorities lack ability and merit. If pressed, some will allow rare exceptions, such as Dr. King and Madam Curie. To be fair and balanced, the right does allow that a few women (such as Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem) and a few minorities (such as Clarence Thomas and Stephen Miller) can have merit.

When these two fronts of this war on history are combined, it creates a counterfactual history in which any discrimination or oppression lie in the past (and were not really all that bad) and women and minorities have accomplished little, if anything. This narrative can then be used to attack DEI efforts. The “reasoning” is that there is no meaningful legacy of discrimination to address, no current discrimination to rectify, and that women and minorities have always received fair consideration. With the successes, accomplishments and contributions of women and minorities purged, it appears that they simply lacked merit. And, of course, still lack merit. Again, to be fair and balanced, those erasing history do allow that some select women and minorities do have merit, but they are the rare exceptions. They are either safely dead or, if alive, exist to serve and praise Trump.

Under this fiction, DEI was, at best, trying to solve non-existent problems and, at worst, aimed at discriminating against white men. And thus, the elimination of DEI is “justified” by a fictionalized history in which past discrimination against and the success of women and minorities is erased. The myth of merit is then advanced, with the Trump regime making the patently absurd claims that people like Trump and Hegseth earned their way through life by merit. Trump, of course, received millions from his father and Hegseth is widely regarded as unqualified by experts. One can also point to Dr. Oz, RFK Jr. and Linda McMahon as woefully unqualified officials in a regime that harps about “merit.”  In closing, if there was any merit to their anti-DEI arguments, the right would not need to whitewash and erase history.