Category: Ethics

In a clever bit of rhetoric, people who opposed mask and vaccine mandates during the last pandemic used pro-choice terms. For example, a person opposed to getting vaccinated might say “my body, my choice.” This phrase is, of course, a standard part of pro-choice language. While some who did this were no doubt engaged in bad faith rhetoric or trolling, the analogy between abortion rights and the right to refuse vaccination is worth considering.

An argument by analogy will typically have two premises and a conclusion. The first premise establishes the analogy by showing that the things (X and Y) in question are similar in certain respects (properties P, Q, R, etc.).  The second premise establishes that X has an additional quality, Z. The conclusion asserts that Y has property or feature Z as well. The form of the argument looks like this:

 

           Premise 1: X and Y have properties P, Q, R.

           Premise 2: X has property Z.

           Conclusion: Y has property Z.

 

X and Y are variables that stand for whatever is being compared, such as chimpanzees and humans or apples and oranges. P, Q, R, and are also variables, but they stand for properties or features that X and Y are known to possess, such as having a heart. Z is also a variable, and it stands for the property or feature that X is known to possess. The use of P, Q, and R is just for the sake of illustration-the things being compared might have more properties in common.

One simplified way to present the anti-vaccine (or pro-vaccine choice) analogy is as follows:

 

Premise 1: The right to choose an abortion is analogous to the right to choose to not be vaccinated.

           Premise 2: The right to choose an abortion is supported by the left.

           Conclusion: The right to choose to not be vaccinated should also be supported by the left.

 

While this analogy seems appealing to many anti-mask mandate folks, a key issue is whether it is a strong argument. The strength of an analogical argument depends on three factors. To the degree that an analogical argument meets these standards it is a strong argument.

First, the more properties X and Y have in common, the better the argument. This standard is based on the notion that the more two things are alike in other ways, the more likely it is that they will be alike in some other way. Second, the more relevant the shared properties are to property Z, the stronger the argument. A specific property, for example P, is relevant to property Z if the presence or absence of P affects the likelihood that Z will be present. Third, it must be determined whether X and Y have relevant dissimilarities as well as similarities. The more dissimilarities and the more relevant they are, the weaker the argument. So, is the analogy between the restrictive voter laws and mask mandates strong? To avoid begging the question by making a straw man, I will endeavor to make the best analogy I can—within the limits of truth.

The right to choose an abortion is often based on a principle of bodily autonomy; often expressed as “my body, my choice.” For the pro-choice, this principle warrants a person’s choice to have an abortion: it is their body, so it is their choice. While there is debate over the moral status of the aborted entity, an entity which might (or might not) be a person is killed by abortion. As such, the principle of bodily autonomy allows a person to kill another entity.

The right to forgo vaccination on the principle of bodily autonomy would seem to work in a similar manner. For those who are pro-choice about vaccines, this principle warrants a person’s choice to forgo vaccination: it is their body, so it is their choice. So far, so good. But, as with abortion, the choice does not just affect the person making the choice.

A person who forgoes vaccination willingly puts themselves and others in avoidable risk of infection and death. But, if a person can justly abort another entity as a matter of their choice, then one could infer that a person could thus put others at risk of illness and death as a matter of choice. But does the comparison hold here? I contend that because of critical differences, it does not.

First, while an abortion kills an entity there is good faith moral debate about whether the entity is a person. In contrast, a person who did not get vaccinated during the pandemic put those who are indisputably people at risk and, in many cases, without their choice or consent. One can, of course, argue that the aborted entity is a person and start up the anti-abortion debate. But this would have an interesting consequence.

If it is argued that the aborted entity is a person (or otherwise has sufficient moral status) and thus its right to life overrides the person’s right to bodily autonomy, then the same reasoning would apply to the pro-vaccine choice argument. Their bodily autonomy does not give them the right to put others at risk. As such, a person who argues in good faith that being pro-choice about abortions is like being pro-choice about vaccines must be for both or opposed to both. So, anti-abortion folks can only use the pro-choice bodily autonomy argument for vaccine choice in bad faith (or from confusion). In contrast, a pro-choice person need not be pro-vaccine choice. They can accept that the aborted entity is not a person or has a lower moral status than the person while accepting the obvious fact that the people who were harmed by the unvaccinated are people.

Second, an abortion kills a single entity while forgoing vaccination during pandemic puts everyone the person contacts at risk of illness and even death. Since those at risk are indisputably people, forgoing vaccination in a pandemic is far worse than an abortion. One can, of course, get into a debate about assessing harm in terms of probabilities and other considerations. For example, a person who forgoes vaccination might not infect anyone and if they do, no one they infect might get ill, and if they do get ill, then they might not die. In contrast, an abortion always kills the aborted entity. This becomes a debate about the right to harm other entities and assessing harm. But, if someone argues that a person does not have the right to harm another entity based on bodily autonomy, then this would apply to both abortion and vaccination: there should be no choice in either case.

Third, there is a difference in the cost for not being able to make the choice. If a person cannot choose an abortion, they can face great economic and social hardships. Our society is unkind to women, and it is especially unkind to mothers who lack support and resources. In contrast, the COVID vaccines are incredibly safe.  Much safer than giving birth in the United States. Once again, if someone accepts the pro-vaccine choice reasoning, then they would also need to accept the pro-choice reasoning in the context of abortion.

As such, the attempt to use pro-choice language and draw an analogy between reproductive rights and anti-vaccine rights fails logically. However, some might see it as having rhetorical value or as a bit of fun in trolling the libs with their own slogans.

 

Because of the psychological power of rhetoric, words do matter. Words have both a denotation (the meaning) and a connotation (the emotions and associations invoked). Words that have the same denotation can have very different connotations. For example, “police officer” and “pig” (as slang) have the same denotation but different connotations. As would be expected, the ongoing fight over vaccines involves rhetoric. One interesting example of this was presented by Ben Irvine: “People who don’t want the vaccine aren’t “refusing” it. You don’t say a person is “refusing” to take anti-depressants. Or “refusing” to get married. You can decline without refusing. You decide what’s best for you. Refuse is a manipulative term, loaded with unfair moral pressure.”

As Irvine indicates, while “refuse” and “decline” have similar meanings, they differ in rhetorical loading. As Irvine sees it, “refuse” is negatively loaded with “unfair moral pressure.” Presumably “decline” lacks this quality.  So, what is the difference between them?

In a moral context, “refuse” implies active rejection, and context determines whether its connotation is negative or positive. While not always the case, “refuse” sometimes implies that there is an expectation to accept rather than reject. As would be expected, if what is being refused is seen as morally wrong, then using “refuse” suggests something positive. For example, “Sergeant Jane Doe refused to obey an illegal order” suggests something positive, that Doe actively rejected the order and that there is an expectation that soldiers will obey. Interestingly, people who believe that requiring vaccinations is morally wrong should embrace the language of refusal as refusing something you think is wrong is the right thing to do. But “refuse” can also be negative.

As Irvine noted, to say those who choose not to get vaccinated are refusing the vaccine asserts they actively reject something rightfully expected of them. To illustrate, to say “Jane Doe refused to stop drinking and smoking while pregnant” suggests Doe should be condemned: there is a moral expectation that Doe should not put her unborn child at risk. “Decline” works differently.

In general, “decline” means to pass on something. It seems more passive, more polite, and less forceful than “refuse.” There is also (usually) no implied expectation of acceptance. In a moral context, there is usually the assumption that there is no (or little) moral weight involved. To illustrate, “when offered dessert by the waiter, Joe declined” indicates that Joe passed on dessert and was under no obligation or expectation to order it. It would be odd to say that Joe refused the dessert, unless he was particularly forceful in his rejection or was for some reason expected to eat it. In contrast, it would make sense to say, “Joe refused to pay for the dessert he did not order or receive and demanded it be removed from his bill.” This is because Joe would be actively rejecting paying and, of course, there is a general expectation that one will pay the bill. Obviously, I am not claiming to be the word police: people can and do use “decline” as they would use “refuse” and vice versa; I am just noting that Irvine has made a reasonable distinction between how we often use these words rhetorically. But is he right?

On the one hand, he seems correct: when people talk about vaccine refusal, they are likely condemning the decision. Their moral expectation is that people should get vaccinated and hence to not accept it would be a refusal (like refusing to stop drinking while pregnant) rather than declining it (like a slice of pie). But his point seems to be that this is wrong: people should not use “refuse” because it is “unfair moral manipulation.” He seems to suggest we should use “decline” instead. If true, then he would be assuming that there is not a legitimate moral expectation for people get vaccinated and thus it is acceptable to decide to remain unvaccinated. For those who disagree with his position, this might seem to be a rhetorical trick.

As discussed above, “decline” implies that the rejection is more passive, less forceful, and of something for which there is no or little expectation of acceptance. To accept that people are declining rather than refusing the vaccine would be to (probably) agree that they are doing nothing wrong or not failing in a moral obligation. That is, they are not refusing to protect others, they are merely declining a shot. This, some might contend, would trivialize their decision: declining to be vaccinated is like declining a slice of pie after dinner and not like refusing to stop drinking while pregnant.  This seems a reasonable point: to use “decline” would be to use a term that lacks moral pressure and thus assumes that those who do not get vaccinated are acting morally (or at least not acting wrongly).

While I think people should get vaccinated, discussing the moral issue without begging the question requires using neutral language: language that neither assumes nor refuses condemnation. As such, when discussing the moral issue of whether people should get vaccinated, we should not use “refuse” or “decline” but should use a neutral description such as “decide to not get vaccinated.” Then the ethics of the decision can be debated. It might turn out, as I believe, that there is a moral obligation to get vaccinated. In which case, the use of “refuse” would be warranted. But it might be the case that there is no such obligation, then the use of “decline” would be warranted.

When it comes to pollution, people respond with a cry of NIMBY and let loose the dogs of influence. This shows that everyone gets what is obviously true: pollution is unsightly, unpleasant, and unhealthy. Air pollution alone is deadly, killing millions of us each year. It is also obviously true that our civilizations flood our home with pollution, and we must decide where this pollution goes.

As one would expect, the cost of pollution is regularly shifted onto those with less influence. The wealthy and politically influential use this power to ensure that pollution is concentrated in places where the poor and uninfluential live. To illustrate, we do not see incinerators or coal burning power plants constructed near the residences of Nancy Pelosi, Ted Cruz, Bill Gates, or Oprah.

In the United States (and elsewhere) race is also a factor: pollution is concentrated along racial lines, even accounting for disparities of income. To illustrate, highways tend to run through minority neighborhoods and industrial plants tend to be located near minority residences. While some might rush to point out that white Americans are also subject to horrific levels of pollution, this is hardly the devasting riposte that one might think it is. After all, pollution is distributed disproportionally to wealth and there are many poor white people in America. Also, pointing out that white people are also heavily exposed to pollution only shows how widespread the problem is. As with most harms in America, pollution hurts the poor, the children, and minorities the most.

In some cases, sources of pollution are intentionally inflicted on the poor and minorities.  In other cases, the same result arises without conscious intention. To illustrate, if a company proposed to build a refinery near a wealthy white neighborhood, the residents would use their influence to block it. The company would keep trying to find a location and would, of course, end up somewhere where the inhabitants lacked the power to prevent it from being built in their backyard. This would be a poorer area that is also likely also to have a minority population. It can be argued that the wealthy white folks have no desire to inflict pollution on these poor people, it just happens because of the disparity in power. After all, that refinery must go somewhere, just not in their backyard. While the folks who make the decisions probably care little about ethical theory, it can and should be applied to this decision making, be it direct or indirect.

One obvious approach to such large-scale moral decision making is to use a form of utilitarianism: the pollution should be located where it does the least harm to those who matter morally. Deciding who (and what) matters and how much they matter involves sorting out the scope of morality. There is also the problem of sorting out the calculation of value: what is the measure of the good and the evil? There are many ways to address matters of scope and value, which can lead to good faith moral debate. Interestingly, a solid argument can be made for the common practice of dumping the most pollution on those with the least power.

As John Kenneth Galbraith said, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” Utilitarianism provides an easy way to do just that by adjusting the scope of morality. As noted above, determining the scope of morality is a matter of determining who has moral worth and to what degree they have it. One extreme example is ethical egoism. On this consequentialist view,  each person limits the scope of morality to themselves. Ayn Rand is a good example of an ethical egoist. On her view, everyone should be selfish and do what maximizes their self-interest. In terms of the scope of morality, the ethical egoist sees themself as the only one with moral worth. The opposing view is altruism. This is the view that at least some other people count morally.

An ethical egoist can easily provide a moral justification for shifting the cost of pollution onto others: only they count, so the right thing to do is to ensure that someone else is exposed to pollution. Obviously enough, this view entails that everyone will be selfishly striving to push the pollution onto someone else and they are all morally right to do so. The matter would, from a practical standpoint, be settled by strength: the strong will do as they wish, the weaker will suffer as they must. This is likely to strike some as being fundamentally unethical or even an absence of ethics. But one can expand the scope of morality while still pushing pollution onto others.

One obvious approach is to argue that the people in the upper classes have more moral worth than those in the lower classes. How the scope is set can vary greatly. One might, for example, claim that only the elites have any moral worth at all. One could be more “generous” and grant all classes moral status, but have the moral status correspond to the class status. On this sort of view, the poor would have some moral worth, but they would matter far less morally than the elites. This seems to be a commonly held view: only the most heartless would claim that the poor have no value, but our civilizations treat the lower classes as having far less moral worth. They are generally less honest about this these days; but it is evident upon even a cursory examination of countries like the United States and China.

One can also bring race in as a factor in setting the scope of morality. The United States provides a clear example of this: while many racists would accept that people outside of their group have some moral worth, a racist regards their group as having greater moral worth than others. This allows an easy “justification” of shifting the harms of pollution onto minorities: for the racist, these people have less worth and thus it makes moral sense to have them suffer the harms.  There are utilitarians, such as J.S. Mill, who have a broader scope of morality, taking all humans and even much of “sentient creation” to count morally.

For those who consider all people to have moral worth, then shifting pollution onto the poor and onto minorities becomes more morally difficult. One could still make a case for doing so, but it would be harder than simply adjusting the scope of morality to devalue the poor and minorities.

 

During the last pandemic, some organizations mandated vaccination against COVID-19. As another pandemic is inevitable, it is worth revisiting the moral issue of mandatory vaccination in response to a pandemic.

Schools have a well-established precedent for requiring students to be vaccinated, although there have been ways to opt out.  The moral justification is usually a utilitarian one: while there is a cost and possible harm arising from mandatory school vaccinations, this is outweighed by the harm these vaccinations prevent. Students are in close contact in closed spaces for long periods of time, putting them at risk. As such, allowing students (or, rather, their parents) to opt out of vaccines would put themselves and others at greater risk. Exemptions can, and should, be granted in cases where a person would be medically harmed by vaccination; but these are extremely rare cases. During a pandemic, the moral argument is even stronger as the risk and harm would be greater than in normal circumstances.

In terms of a moral objection to mandatory vaccinations at schools during a pandemic is that the long-term effects of a new vaccine on children and teens would not be known. As such, one could claim that possible harmful effects of the vaccine might outweigh the harms of being unvaccinated. While this is a legitimate concern, it is not unique: all past vaccines have raised the same concern. So far, the benefits have consistently outweighed the harms of vaccination. So unless there is evidence that a new vaccine presents a special problem, then it is as morally acceptable to require it during a pandemic as it was, for example, to require the polio vaccine when it was developed. This is not to deny that things can go wrong, but that we always must make such decisions without having certainty.

Employers requiring vaccination is more controversial. While some professions, such as healthcare workers and military personnel, are usually required to get vaccinated these are exceptions rather than the rule. Most professions, even those that involve working closely with other people, do not require vaccinations, even during a pandemic. There are also moral questions about what employers can compel their employees to do.

In general, the American right supports granting considerable power to employers over their employees. One example is at will employment which allows employers to fire employees at will. For example, if an employee refused to stop smoking (outside of the workplace) they could be fired. As another example, if an employee expresses political views on their own time that their boss dislikes, they can be fired. Given that the right generally supports employers having great power over their employers, one might think they  would accept that employers could mandate vaccination on the pain of being fired. While workers would be free to refuse, few can afford to quit their jobs and companies have great coercive power.

But the right has made vaccines part of their political war. While they would normally favor employers imposing what they wish on their employees, the anti-vaxxers on the right have opposed this mandate. They have shown that when corporations do not side with them in their manufactured culture war battles, they will turn against these businesses. This is presumably because they believe the political points they gain will outweigh a conflict with the corporations who help fund their re-elections.

While the right professes to be anti-vax because of their love of freedom, this is a bad faith claim. The right has been busy passing restrictive laws to “solve” problems that do not exist. For example, the right has been busy limiting access to voting based on their “big lie” about the 2020 election. If they cared about freedom, they would not be doing this. They have also been busy passing laws aimed at trans people, claiming that strict restrictions must be in place to protect people from (imaginary) dangers. Again, if they believed that freedom is so important, they would not be passing such laws. And if they really believed in protecting people from real harm, they would not be anti-vax.

The left generally favors workers’ rights and often seeks to at least slightly reduce the power disparity. As such, it would make sense for the left to generally hold that workers could refuse to be vaccinated without being fired. That said, the left also has concerns beyond the workplace, so some leftists might favor mandatory vaccination imposed by the state. This would typically be morally justified on utilitarian grounds: the state is supposed to use its coercive powers to protect citizens, and this could include requiring vaccination during the next pandemic.

My own view is, to state the obvious, that this issue is complicated. On the one hand, people have the moral right to control their bodies. This provides a moral foundation for arguing against vaccine mandates. On the other hand, all rights should be morally limited by the harm that might be done to others in exercising them. To use a silly example, I have the right to run as fast as I wish. But I do not have the right to charge into other people. This is because my actions could hurt them. As another example, while I do have the right to remove the brakes from my truck, I do not have the right to drive it on public roads after doing this. This is because I would hurt other people. In the case of the next pandemic, the harms would likely warrant mandatory vaccination just as people are required to have working brakes on their vehicles and forbidden from charging other people like deranged bulls.

While the rich have long enjoyed luxury cars, mansions and yachts, their newest luxury vehicle is the spaceship. Musk has the most useful rockets as his SpaceX vessels can put satellites into orbit and reach the International Space Station. While they do make some innovations, they are more of an evolution of existing rockets rather than a revolution in space travel.

Virgin Galactic has a spaceplane, which can be likened to a passenger version of the old X-15. While spaceplanes have potential, Virgin Galactic seems mostly focused on space tourism. Bezos has a conventional rocket that shot him and later, Katy Perry, into space. Because of its limited reach, it seems suitable mostly for space tourism.  As would be expected, critics see these billionaire space vessels as wasteful excesses: resources are being expended for ego trips to space that would be better used to address serious problems here on earth.

Bezos has acknowledged the validity of this criticism, saying “Well, I say they’re largely right. We have to do both. You know, we have lots of problems here and now on Earth and we need to work on those, and we always need to look to the future. We’ve always done that as a species, as a civilization. We have to do both.” He claimed that his mission is aimed at “building a road to space for the next generations to do amazing things there, and those amazing things will solve problems here on Earth.” Is Bezos right?

He is right that the critics are largely right: while Musk can claim his SpaceX ships put cargo into space, Branson and Bezos have been joyriding (just barely) into space. Vast resources were expended to for these joyrides, and, in the case of Bezos, it can be argued that his flight was enabled by his brutal exploitation of his workforce. As is well known, Amazon workers have been pushed so hard that they need to pee in bottles to meet the requirements of their job. Amazon’s leadership has also been busy crushing unions, thus enabling Bezos to expand his wealth to the point that he has his own rocket ship. This creates a powerful symbol for use in arguing about taxing the rich and increasing the minimum wage. In the glare of rocket engines, it seems absurd to argue the rich would be hurt by having to pay more taxes or that business like Amazon would be meaningfully harmed if they had to provide workers with better pay and benefits. After all, if a company is so well off that its owner has his own rocket ship, it is absurd to argue against treating employees better on the grounds that the company cannot afford to do so. Bezos could have forgone some of that rocket ship money and eased up on his employees so that they would not have needed to pee in bottles. Given his bountiful wealth, he could easily have done both. But he decided not to. He also could have used all those resources to address problems here on earth while still maintaining a lavish lifestyle including multiple yachts.  His counter is, as mentioned above, that he is building a road to space.

For sci-fi fans, it is obvious that Bezos is probably thinking of Heinlein’s novella The Man Who Sold the Moon. This novella recounts the machinations of Harriman, “the last of the robber barons”, to get to the moon. In the story, Harriman manipulates and schemes to get backing for his plan and uses the money to acquire talented people to solve the technical problems. The story includes a successful flight the moon and ends with the plans to establish a colony on the moon. But Harriman is never allowed to go to the moon: he is seen as too important to risk. Heinlein does present a plausible tale, and it is still well worth reading today. But, of course, the actual world turned out differently.

Like most other huge endeavors, the moon was reached as part of a collective effort by a state when the United States put the first person on the moon. This public development of technology laid the foundation of billionaire space flight, just as their businesses were built on public foundations.  For a while, it seemed like a version of Heinlein’s vision might come to pass. But a moon colony was never established and humanity’s expansion into space has been slow and limited for many reasons.

We do have the technology to create a moon base and plans have long existed to do just that. As such, Bezos and his fellows are not really in the business of overcoming technological hurdles for a moon base or space expansion. As noted above, Musk and Bezos have rockets and Branson has a spaceplane. They have offered some evolution of technology that, in Musk’s case, has been heavily subsidized by the taxpayers.

Also, while they are extremely wealthy, they do not have the resources to establish a significant moon base, let alone a Mars colony. But one could argue that they can shape public policy towards space. To use an obvious analogy, the United States government has heavily subsidized railroads, fossil fuels and interstate highways. This has usually been done at the behest of the wealthy. This public investment has provided infrastructure and, of course, vast fortunes for some. As such, the space billionaires might be planning something similar with space: a vast public investment gets them into a position where they can make private profit. Musk is already doing the best here; he has been getting contracts from the state to provide space vessels and services.  Bezos and Branson are behind here, but they seem to be aiming at space tourism. They, it seems, are adopting the model of selling their services to the wealthy.

In terms of billionaires building the road to space, the highway system and railroads provide good analogies: they were built by public funds and now the billionaires are cashing in. It is debatable whether paying billions to billionaires for space is superior to using those billions to fund public space operations. While there is the myth that the private sector is magically better than the public sector, there is the obvious question of how billionaires will make a profit while somehow also being cheaper and better than what could be done by NASA. The answer, as is usually the case, will probably be to simply lie.  

In terms of the road to space leading to amazing things that will solve problems here on earth, a case can be made for this. One example is asteroid mining. Asteroids contain resources and space mining would seem to avoid the usual environmental harms of mining on earth. However, there is the obvious concern about how those resources will be used and who they will benefit. If this just leads to space trillionaires while most people remain poor, then this will only solve the problem of not being a space trillionaire. One would need to go through and assess all the plausible benefits to make (or break) this claim, which is beyond the scope of this short essay.

In closing, an obvious critical consideration is what would be the best investment for problem solving. Sci-fi fans find the idea of space as the solution appealing. But we need to be realistic about this. For example, while a Mars colony sounds cool, those resources could be used to address problems on earth. For example, the failing infrastructure of the United States could be repaired and upgraded, and this would solve many problems. It would not be as cool as a Mars colony but would certainly solve more problems.

Because of my love of sci-fi, I want humanity to go into space. But moral considerations point to focusing more on solving problems here on earth. As Bezos said, we can do both. But this would require the billionaires to decide to use some of their billions to solve these problems. Many of which they themselves have created and thus could often easily fix by simply ceasing to cause harm.

While most states have hate crime statutes, only  about five include law enforcement officers as a protected category. Utah is one of these states. After a 2021 traffic stop for speeding, Lauren Gibson is alleged to have stomped on a “Back the Blue” sign while “smirking in an intimidating manner” at a deputy. She was charged with a hate crime for her actions. These leads to two issues. The first is a specific matter: did her actions constitute a hate crime? The second is a general matter: should law enforcement be a protected category in the context of hate crime?

While the legal debate is best left to legal experts, I can consider the text of the law and assess whether it seems reasonable to interpret her actions as a hate crime. According to the Utah law, a hate crime occurs when a person commits an offense “with the intent to intimidate or terrorize another person or with reason to believe that his action would intimidate or terrorize that person.” And, of course, the person must be in a protected category. So, for example, if I went to Utah and was recognized as a philosophy professor and a crowd attempted to terrorize or intimidate me because of this, it would not be a hate crime, since philosophy professors are not a protected category. If the same crowd did the same sort of thing to a police officer who was with me, then that would be a hate crime. That is how protected categories work.

Given that Gibson was a 19-year-old unarmed woman at the time of the incident, it seems unlikely she believed she could intimidate an armed deputy. While she probably did not know it at the time, the deputy is a veteran of the department and had seen combat duty while serving in the military. One could, of course, argue that she did think she could intimidate and terrorize him by stomping on a sign and smirking; but those would be rather odd ways to try to intimidate and terrorize an armed deputy.

Determining intent can be tricky since as this requires speculating on internal psychological states. Naturally, a person can make their alleged intent clear by words or deeds. But stomping on a sign and smirking in this context seem to be based on an intention to express anger and displeasure rather than expressing an intention to intimidate and terrorize. One can, of course, say that she exercised poor judgment in antagonizing the deputy, but she probably did not expect to be charged with committing a hate crime. Smirking, after all, is generally not a crime. In the case of the sign, it had apparently been found abandoned by the side of the road. Stomping on an abandoned sign is also usually not a crime. While ignorance of the law is not an excuse, unless she was aware of the statute, she would have no reason to think that her actions would constitute a hate crime. After all, her actions are not what a person would intuitively think of as falling under a hate crime. While the legal judgment was up to the judge, it would be absurd to convict her of a hate crime—even under the statute. This leads to the question of whether law enforcement should be considered a protected category in the context of hate crimes.

While people can and do hate the police, hate crimes are not defined based on the emotion. After all, if a mob in Utah tried to kill me because they hate my ontological commitments, then they would be acting from hate but not committing a hate crime. As noted above, a hate crime involves intimidation and terrorizing aimed at a protected category. From a moral standpoint, a reasonable justification for focusing on intimidation and terrorizing is to distinguish crimes that might be committed against a person who just so happens to be in a certain category and crimes aimed at a person because they are in that category. So, if Ted embezzles money from Sally because he hates her for being a cruel boss, and Sally is in a protected category, then that would generally not be a hate crime. After all, Ted is not trying to intimidate or terrorize her. He is trying to steal money and just happens to hate her. But if Ted attacks Sally because she is in a protected category and intends to intimidate or terrorize her because of that category, then that could be a hate crime. As far as why a hate crime would be worse than a normal crime, one moral factor is that a hate crime also harms other members of the category. This is because the hate crime is not aimed just at intimidating or terrorizing a person but also aimed at intimidation and terrorizing them because they are within that category. So, if Ted commits a crime against Sally aimed at intimidating and terrorizing her because she is a woman, then he is also acting against other women and thus the consequences are usually greater than for a “normal” crime. Or so one might argue.

In the case of law enforcement, it is true that a person can be targeted for a crime because of their profession. While it is fortunately a rare occurrence, there are cases where police are targeted for assassination. But this is also true of many other professions. For example, journalists are subject to attacks because they are journalists (sometimes by the police). Thanks to Trump and his fellows, these attacks increased and are still an ongoing concern. Speaking of Trump and his fellows, their lies also contributed to increased attacks on public health officials. As such, if law enforcement should be protected by hate crime laws, then the same protection should be extended to other professions as well, especially journalists and public health officials. In this case, one might see an interesting case in which a journalist commits a hate crime against a police officer by “intimidating” them by filming them committing a hate crime by intimidating and terrorizing the journalist by shooting them with “less than lethal” munition and whacking them in the face with a club. One could, of course, argue that professions should not be the basis for being in a protected category.

Also from a moral standpoint, hate crime definitions often tend to focus on intimidation and terrorizing because of ethical concerns about power disparities between categories of people and not just between individuals. While individuals do vary in power, certain categories enjoy relative power advantages over others. To use an obvious example, men as a category have more power than women as a category. I, as a man can run through the park in the dark with no fear; the same is not true for most women. While there are individual women who can physically intimidate and overpower individual men, men as a category have the advantage when it comes to terrorizing and intimidating.   As another example, white Americans as a category have more power than other Americans. This is not to deny that an individual white American can be intimidated or terrorized by, for example, an African American. But white Americans generally have the advantage here when it comes to inflicting terror and intimidation. For example, Amy Cooper seemed to know exactly what she was doing when she attempted to use the police to intimidate Christian Cooper. In this specific case, her efforts backfired, and she got in trouble, but this is because the encounter was recorded. In other cases, the intimidation works as intended.

While an individual law enforcement officer could be intimidated or terrorized by someone outside of the profession, as a category law enforcement has an absurd level of advantage over civilians. Police are armed, often with military grade equipment, they usually wear some form of armor, and they have at least basic training in combat. They also have the advantage of being able to call on the power of the state, both in the form of reinforcements and in inflicting punishment through the legal system. They also often get away with using excessive, even lethal violence. There have been, of course, some famous exceptions that show if the violence is recorded and witnessed by many people and the incident gains national and international attention during the right phase of public opinion, then an officer might be held accountable. As such, law enforcement as a category is unlikely to be intimidated or terrorized by civilians. The weight of terror and intimidation is entirely on their side. As such, there seems to be no moral need to single out law enforcement for special protection under hate crime laws. To pre-empt likely straw man attacks, I am obviously not claiming that police should not be protected by the law; a crime against a person who is in law enforcement is still a crime but would not be a hate crime. So, why are their such statutes?

The easy and obvious answer is that the intention is to, ironically, intimidate and terrorize people who might come into conflict with the police. This could be during an arrest or during a protest. On the face of it, one could argue that a person who resists arrest is committing a hate crime under this statute. If stomping on a sign and smirking count as threats or intimidation, then protesting the police would also fall under this category. Protesting anything while police are merely present could fall under this sort of statute. An officer might, for example, see a protestor smirking at them and decide that was an attempt to intimidate them.

I must, of course, grudgingly admit that the right is devilishly clever to repurpose hate crime laws intended to protect marginalized communities and vulnerable groups. They are weaponizing these laws against these communities and groups; just as they have weaponized free speech. In closing, while law enforcement does deserve the full protection of the law, making them a protected category is obviously intended to weaponize hate crime statutes and do so largely against the people they were originally intended to protect.

 

It might seem like woke madness to claim that medical devices can be biased. Are there white supremacist stethoscopes? Misogynistic MRI machines? Extremely racist X-Ray machines? Obviously not, medical devices do not have beliefs or ideologies (yet). But they can still be biased in their accuracy and effectiveness.

One example of a biased device is the pulse oximeter. This device measures blood oxygen by using light. You have probably had one clipped on your finger during a visit to your doctor. Or you might even own one. The bias in this device is that it is three times more likely to not reveal low oxygen levels in dark skinned patients than light skinned patients.  As would be expected, there are other devices that have problems with accuracy when used on people who have darker skins. These are essential sensor biases (or defects). In most cases, these can be addressed by improving the sensors or developing alternative devices. The problem is, to exaggerate a bit, is that most medical technology is made by white men for white men. This is not to claim such biased devices are all cases of intentional racism and misogyny. There is not, one assumes, a conspiracy against women and people of color in this area but there is a bias problem.  In addition to biased hardware, there is also biased software.

Many medical devices use software, and it is often used in medical diagnosis. People are often inclined to think software is unbiased, perhaps because of science fiction tropes about objective and unfeeling machines. While it is true that our current software does not feel or think, bias can make its way into the code. For example, software used to analyze chest x-rays would work less well on women than men if the software was “trained” only on X-rays of men. The movie Prometheus has an excellent fictional example of a gender-biased auto-doc that lacks the software to treat female patients.

These software issues can be addressed by using diverse training groups for software and taking steps to test software for bias by using a diverse testing group. Also, having a more diverse set of people working on such technology would probably also help.

Another factor is analogous to user error, which is user bias. People, unlike devices, do have biases and these can and do impact how they use medical devices and their data. Bias in healthcare is well documented. While overt and conscious racism and sexism are rare, sexism and subtle racism are still problems. Addressing this widespread problem is more challenging than addressing biases in hardware and software. But if we want fair and unbiased healthcare, it is a problem that must be addressed.

As to why these biases should be addressed, this is a matter of ethics. To allow bias to harm patients goes against the fundamental purpose of medicine, which is to heal people. From a utilitarian standpoint, addressing this bias would be the right thing to do: it would create more positive value than negative value. This is because there would be more accurate medical data and better treatment of patients.

In terms of a counterargument, one could contend that addressing bias would increase costs and thus should not be done. There are several easy and obvious replies. One is that the cost increase would be, at worst, minor. For example, testing devices on a more diverse population would not seem meaningfully more expensive than not doing that. Another is that patients and society pay a far greater price in terms of illness and its effects than it would cost to address medical bias. For those focused on the bottom line, workers who are not properly treated can cost corporations some of their profit and ongoing health issues can cost taxpayer money.

One can, of course, advance racist and sexist arguments by professing outrage at “wokeness” attempting to “ruin” medicine by “ramming diversity down throats” or however Fox news would put it. Such “arguments” would be aimed at preserving the harm done to women and people of color, which is an evil thing to do. One might hope that these folks would be hard pressed to turn, for example, pulse oximeters into a battlefront of the culture war. But these are the same folks who professed to lose their minds over Mr. Potato Head and went on a bizarre rampage against a grad school level theory that has been around since the 1970s. They are also the same folks who have gone anti-vax in during a pandemic, encouraging people to buy tickets in the death lottery. But the right thing to do is to choose life.

A few years ago, PragerU tried to push back on Twitter (now X) against arguments by young Americans about racism. In general, getting involved in social media battles is a bad idea. To use an AD&D analogy, these fights are like punching green slime: the more you attack, the more you hurt yourself. And you end up covered in slime. It is usually best to avoid rather than engage. 

In the case of PragerU, they fired off what they presumed would be a sick burn of the youth: “Young people are enamored with ‘anti-racist’ rhetoric because they think they are fighting racist systems in America.  The TRUTH is they are fighting America itself and the very values the country was founded on.” Ironically, PragerU could have used some schooling in clear writing.

Their intended meaning, given the ideology evident in their videos, is that the youth think they are fighting racism, but they are wrong about this. Instead, they are fighting America and its founding values. Which are supposedly not racist. However, the tweet as written states that the youth think they are fighting racist systems in America, but they do not realize that the racist systems are America itself and its founding values. That is, PragerU seems have tweeted openly what they were supposed to keep quiet: they believe that America was founded on racism and that the racist systems are America. Sometimes they are willing to acknowledge that there were a few racist things in America’s past, but quickly rush to explain that they were not so bad and, of course, have no meaningful consequences for the present day.

 These are the same people who defend “Civil War” statues on the grounds that history must be preserved. This is a bad faith argument for obvious reasons. While a statue can be an historical artifact, a statue is not history. As comedians have noted, we do not have statues of Bin Laden in New York City, even though he is historically significant to the city. We do not do this because such statues are political statements. There is also the obvious problem that the history presented by PragerU and its ilk generally try to whitewash the past and ignore the truth. Attacking Critical Race Theory has become a key part of this strategic attack on history and facts. This is a fight that the right is currently winning, a backlash from a time when Black Lives Mattered.

 Ironically, PragerU (and those who share their ideology) agree with key factual claims accepted by most Critical Race Theorists about racism. These include the fact that the United States political, economic, and social systems have been dominated by white Americans to their advantage.  The difference is that Critical Race Theorists generally see the racism (systematic and otherwise) as morally wrong and something that needs to be addressed. PragerU and their fellows see these systems as generally good, although they were reluctant to openly assert this claim. Instead, they have engaged in revisionist history and take great effort to block criticism of the existing system.

PragerU is (as is usually the case) is mistaken in its key claims. While the United States founding values include racist values (they are explicitly laid out in the Constitution, political philosophy, and laws) there are other professed values that are not racist and some are even anti-racist. As Dr. King noted, the Declaration of Independence makes promises to all Americans, whether those promises were sincere or not. While America is racist, it is also anti-racist as America is not monolithic, and we have a complicated moral history. There are those, like PragerU, who fight for racist elements of the system and those, like the young Americans they tried to attack, who are fighting racism. In the face of the backlash, anti-racism is fighting a defensive battle with open racism in the ascendence. But as the racism becomes more open and extreme, America will probably push back towards the center. Probably.

PragerU, like many other right-wing propaganda engines, is engaged in a project worthy of a comic book villain, but all too real. While they do admit America had some racism in the past, they contend that it was not that bad. They take special pains to present slavery in a positive light and present many Confederates as heroic figures. They refuse to accept that past racism has had any significant systematic effect on the present. While sometimes willing to admit that there might a racist bad apple or two, they refuse to accept that racism exists in a significant and systematic form. They do all this while defending and enhancing racism, even “cleverly” accusing those critical of racism of being “the real racists.” As always, I am unsure if ordinary citizens who profess to believe these things are unwitting victims or accomplices who know the lies are lies but pretend to believe. One must thus either think them ignorant or dishonest; neither of which is a pleasant. I prefer to think that many believe out of ignorance, if only because ignorance is easier to overcome than dishonesty.

In the previous essay, I looked at the question of whether a good person could be a billionaire. I concluded that, in general, the two are not compatible. The gist of the argument is that if a person is good and they have vast resources, then they would use those resources to do good. I, of course, also used an analogy: could a good person on a derelict ship sit on a giant pile of supplies while other people suffered and died from lack? The answer is obvious: a good person would not do that.   In thinking a bit more about this matter, I realized I had omitted some important ethical considerations.

In moral philosophy, philosophers make an important moral distinction between doing harm and not doing good. As philosophers such as J.S. Mill have argued, we generally consider harming others to be wrong (although there are exceptions). So, a billionaire who becomes rich by doing harm to others or uses their wealth to cause harm would usually be a bad person, or at least not good. But one can make a case that people have no moral obligation to help others and can withhold their assistance while still being good.

Immanual Kant considers this possibility. He asks us to imagine a person who is well off and could easily help others. This person considers their options and elects to avoid harming people but also decides to withhold all assistance. Kant considers this person more honest than those who speak of good will and charity but do nothing. But Kant being Kant, he believes they would be acting immorally.

Kant seems to appeal to the Golden Rule here: he asks us to imagine what the person would want if they found themselves in dire straits and in need of assistance. Kant claims they would want help and thus must accept there is an obligation to help others. This sort of reasoning can, and has, been countered.

A hard-core approach a person can take is to insist they would not want help.  If they were in need, then they think they should be left to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This is easy enough for a well-off person to claim. But even if it were true this is hardly a decisive refutation: what some would or would not want doesn’t seem sufficient to show what is good or bad. This also applies to Kant’s case: even if everyone would want help, this seems to be just a fact of psychology rather than proof of what is right. That said, the Golden Rule is a good starting place as it can be useful in considering the morality of actions. After all, thinking about why you would not want something done unto you can help in sorting out why you, perhaps, should not do it to others.

Another classic distinction in ethics is between killing (or doing harm) and letting die (or allowing harm to come to others). In the case of the billionaire, if they acquired their wealth by or used it to cause harm, then they would be doing active harm and thus would not be a good person (in general). But if they merely allowed harm to come to others, then one could contend they are not doing wrong as they are merely allowing wrong to occur. Going back to the ship analogy, someone who is killing other people and taking their supplies is doing wrong actively. But if they sit on their vast stockpile, they are merely letting people die. One could argue that a good person could do this, since they are not doing evil.

One can, of course, argue that letting people die is a form of active evil. In the analogy of the ship, the person who stockpiles the supplies is actively denying other people what they need to survive. They are killing rather than letting die. Likewise, a billionaire who stockpiles wealth is denying others what they need, thus they are actively doing harm. To use a more extreme analogy, think of a derelict spaceship and imagine someone who is stockpiling air cannisters and have such a vast supply it would take them centuries to use it all. They are thus actively killing the other people on the ship by taking away air they need. They cannot be a good person. Likewise, a billionaire is actively harming people by taking away resources.

One could, of course, argue that there is plenty for people if they would just work hard and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But that is simply not true; a person cannot be a billionaire in a meaningful sense unless other people are poor. So there are no good billionaires.

Billionaires are often lauded in America, but some condemn them as evil simply for being billionaires. This raises the moral issue of whether a person can be morally good and a billionaire. The issue is whether, in general, you could be a billionaire and still plausibly be a good person. Proper resolution of this issue requires determining which moral theory (if any) is correct. But we can rely to some degree on our moral intuitions and some basic logic.

A key concern is the way the billionaire acquires their wealth. Virtue theorists, such as Confucius, generally agree that acquiring wealth is not inherently evil. Their concern is with how the wealth is obtained and the impact on the person’s virtues. As Confucius says, “Wealth and rank are what every man desires; but if they can only be retained to the detriment of the Way he professes, he must relinquish them. Poverty and obscurity are what every man detests; but if they can only be avoided to the detriment of the Way he professes, he must accept them.”

While we could debate endlessly about ethical and unethical ways of becoming wealthy, we can probably agree that there are some ways of acquiring wealth that are inconsistent with being a good person. As an appeal to intuition, I ask you to imagine something you regard as being the evilest thing a person could do. Now imagine someone who finds a way to monetize that and manages to become a billionaire. You would probably agree that they would not be a good person. We can also probably agree that there are ethical ways to become a billionaire that no sensible person would see as evil. For example, imagine a writer of such incredible appeal that they sell billions of reasonably priced books. No one gets exploited or hurt; people just love to buy those reasonably priced books.  While unlikely, it is not impossible.  As such, merely becoming a billionaire need not make a person evil.

The second key concern is what the billionaire does with their wealth. Obviously, a billionaire could use their wealth to do evil, but this is not unique to billionaires. Someone with little wealth could use it for evil ends. For example, someone could pay another person $10 to commit murder. The special concern about billionaires is, obviously, the extent of the evil they could do with all that wealth. Once again, simply imagine a billionaire using their wealth to bring about things that you regard as evil, this should suffice to show that they could be evil. This can, of course, get complicated when one starts to consider various factors such as character, motives, and consequences.

A billionaire could also use their wealth to do good things. Simply think of what you regard as good and then imagine a billionaire using their wealth to bring that about. One can certainly raise concerns about the billionaire’s motives and other factors when wondering whether they are good even when they do things you believe to be good. But you can simply imagine a billionaire doing things you think are good for reasons you think are good and so on. This should be easy enough to do. Unless, of course, you think that billionaires are inherently bad (with one general exception). Which I do. I will need to argue for this and will do so by analogy and appealing to your intuitions.

If a person is a billionaire, then this entails that they have at least $1 billion in wealth. This is distinct from merely being in control of such wealth. The President of the United States has effective control over billions in military equipment yet need not be a billionaire. This wealth can take various forms: cash, stocks, yachts, helicopters, mansions, spaceships, and so on. This means that the typically billionaire has vast resources.

We know that many people, including many in the United States, suffer greatly from a lack of resources. People go hungry, struggle with contaminated water supplies (like in Flint, Michigan), go without adequate medical care, go without shelter and so on. There are so many who have so little that they suffer so much because of it. You can certainly guess where I am going with this.

A billionaire has such vast wealth that all their needs and are met many times over. Some even have a support yacht for their main yacht. They can own many mansions. This means that they could share their resources without putting a noticeable dent in the quality of their existence.  Jeff Bezos could, for example, easily fund the replacement of failing pipes in many towns. Elon Musk could, for example, properly fund many public schools. Bill Gates could, for example, fund animal shelters across America.

At this point, one might point out that billionaires do engage in philanthropy; they do give some money to causes and charity. Bill Gates, for example, is famous for his foundation. But there is the stock criticism that billionaires “give” away millions to make billions. For example, while Bill Gates did fund the development of a vaccine, he did not do so for the good of humanity but to profit Bill Gates. The conspiracy theorists who hate Gates are right to be critical of him, but they hate him for the wrong reason: he is not microchipping vaccines, he is monetizing vaccines.

I do admit the obvious: yes, it is morally better for a billionaire to do some good rather than doing all evil. But this doesn’t  show that billionaires are good because they sometimes give away a little bit of their wealth. The moral problem is that they are still billionaires in the face of so much suffering and need. And now comes the analogy.

Imagine people on a derelict ship drifting in the ocean. One person has supplies that would last them a thousand years. Other people have enough supplies to survive comfortably until they are rescued. Many people, however, do not have enough supplies to meet their basic needs. They are suffering, and some will die long before any possibility of rescue. Even if the person with the vast supplies somehow earned their supply cache, could they be a good person if they simply let the others suffer and die when they could easily help them? Intuitively, they would not: they could help people in need and still be completely fine themselves.

They need not give up all their supplies and could even retain much more than they would ever need. If they sit atop a pile of supplies they will never need while other people die, then they cannot be a good person. To see this, imagine you and your family on that ship without adequate supplies while someone looks down upon your suffering from their throne of supplies.

The obvious stock reply to my analogy would be that the people who lack supplies have no right to those held by the super hoarder. They need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get their own supplies, perhaps by laboring for the hoarder. Maybe if they made him supplies for 10 or 100 days, he would graciously allow them 1 day of supplies. If this would not suffice for their well-being, one might say that they need to pull those bootstraps even harder and find a way to be a supply creator before they die from lack of supplies. This sort of hoarder would, of course, be the obvious villain in a movie, but they are often the hero in real life.

I mentioned above that there is one general exception. If a billionaire is, in fact, using their resources to create more good than they would create by sharing these resources, then they would be a good person. To use a simple and silly example, a person who owned a five billion-dollar factory (hence they would still be a billionaire) but used it to provide good jobs while supplying critical infrastructure components at cost could be a good person.  To close, I must emphasize that I do not advocate stripping people of all their wealth; I have no moral objection against people living well or in some luxury. There is, of course, a complicated moral issue here about how much a person can keep to themselves in the face of the suffering and need of others. I also do not advocate just giving people things in cases where people could easily do well by their own efforts; what I am against is cruel hoarding when so many are in need and could easily be helped.