Category: Ethics

Back in 2016 Colin Kaepernick created controversy by protesting racial oppression in America during the national anthem. While most of his critics acknowledged that he was within his legal rights, they believed he should not have exercised them in this way. I will review some of the objections against Kaepernick and address some of the broader moral issues raised by this sort of protest.

One tactic used against Kaepernick’s protest is to assert that his protest was invalidated because, as a rich and privileged NFL player, he was not personally oppressed. This approach is flawed in at least two ways. If the intent is to reject his claim that oppression exists by attacking him, then this is an ad hominem fallacy. This is a fallacy in which an attack on something about a person is taken as refuting a claim made by the person. This is a fallacy because the truth of a claim is independent of the person making it, although a person’s expertise (or lack) is relevant to assessing credibility.

This attack can also be seen as based on the view that only a victim of oppression or harm has the moral right to protest that oppression or harm. While this might have some appeal, it is flawed. To illustrate, if this principle were accepted, then it would follow that only those killed by abortions would have the moral right to protest abortion. This would be absurd on the grounds that no protest of abortion would be possible. If the principle were taken somewhat more broadly, it would follow that only victims of cancer could try to raise awareness of cancer. As such, the claim that he is not himself oppressed has no bearing on the truth of his claims or his right to protest. This same general principle applies beyond this historical example.

Another line of attack was against his character to allege  he was not sincere: he was protesting only to gain attention and bolster his flagging career. This approach can have merit if the goal is to determine whether someone is a virtuous. If a protestor is not sincere and using the protest for personal gain, then they can be justly criticized on moral grounds. However, this sort of attack has no logical bearing on the truth of assertions or the merit of a protest. This would be just another ad hominem attack.

To use an analogy, a person who uses an opportunity to focus attention on cancer to selfishly promote themselves is not a virtuous person, but this is irrelevant to whether cancer is a real problem. As such, a protestor’s motivations are irrelevant to the validity of their protest.

There are those who take the approach that his protest was invalid because there is no oppression of blacks. Those who believe that oppression exists point to objective data regarding income, wealth, educational opportunities, hiring, sentencing, and so on that show that oppression is real and systematic.

Those who deny it either deny the data or explain it away. For example, the disproportionate arrest rates and harsher sentences are explained by alleging that blacks commit more and worse crimes than whites. Since this is an ideological issue tied to political identity, the lines are solidly drawn: those who strongly deny the existence of oppression will generally never be convinced by any amount of data. Since they do not experience systematic oppression based on race, they also tend to claim that it does not exist because they have not experienced it, although some will claim that they have been mistreated for being white.

The evidence for oppression is convincing, but those who disagree with me will not be convinced by any evidence or argument I can offer. Instead, they will attribute my belief to a distorted ideology. That said, perhaps an appeal can be made to the white people who believe that they are oppressed as they might be willing to admit that blacks are not excluded from this oppression. For example, Trump supporters often speak of how the system is rigged by the elites and they should be able to accept that there are many blacks who are also victims of these elites.  This might allow for some common ground in regard to accepting the existence of oppression in the United States. I now turn to the broader issue of whether it is morally acceptable to protest during the national anthem.

Critics of Kaepernick contended that protesting during the national anthem was disrespectful and most asserted that this action was especially insulting to the troops. When considering the matter, it is worth noting that the national anthem was first played at games as a means of attracting more paying customers. Given its use in this manner, it would be odd to attack Kaepernick for using it as an opportunity to protest. After all, he is using the opportunity to bring attention to injustice in America while it was introduced to make more money. In this regard, he seems to have held moral high ground.

It could be replied that although it began as a marketing tool, it evolved into a sacred ritual that would be besmirched by protest. One line of criticism is that to protest during the national anthem is to disrespect the troops who died for the freedom of expression. This requires the assumption that the purpose of playing the anthem at games is to honor the troops. Which might be the case. However, if the troops did die for, among other rights, the freedom of expression then the exercise of that right would be a legitimate means of honoring these troops. Endeavoring to silence people would be insult to those who are said to have died for the right of free expression. That said, there is a reasonable moral concern about decorum during the national anthem, just as there are also such concerns about behavior at any time. Kaepernick’s protest was a very polite and respectful protest and did not seem problematic. Others, of course, disagreed.

Some of the critics merely wanted him to stop protesting in this manner. Others such as Trump, went beyond this and engaged in a classic reply to those who criticize America: if you do not like how things are, then leave the country.

On the one hand, it could be argued this is a reasonable response. To use an analogy, if a person does not like their marriage or neighborhood, then leaving would be a good idea. Likewise, if a person does not like their country, then they should simply depart in search of one more to their liking. This view fits with the idea that one should be for their country “wrong or right” and not be critical. True patriotism, one might say, is simply accepting one’s country as it is and not engaging in protest. It is, of course, weirdly ironic that Trump is telling Kaepernick to leave, given that Trump relentlessly spews about how awful things are in America and how it needs to be made great again. Ironically, Trump can be seen as engaging in a form of protest: he uses his office to criticize what he hates about America and rambles about what should be done to fix all these problems.

On the other hand, the criticism can be perceived as aimed at silencing criticism without considering whether the it has merit. Going back to the analogies to marriage and a neighborhood, a person who believes there are problems with either could be criticized for simply abandoning them without making any attempt to solve the issues. A true patriot, it could be argued, would no more remain silent in the face of problems with their country than a true friend would remain silent when their friend needed an intervention. This view is, of course, not original to me. Henry David Thoreau noted that “A very few—as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men—serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.” I do not, of course, know what Kaepernick’s true motivations were. But his calling attention to the problems of the United States with the expressed desire to improve America can be reasonably regarded as a patriotic act. That is, after all, what a true patriot does: they do not remain silent in the face of evil and defects, they take action to make their country both good and great.

 

The venerable Wells Fargo bank made the news in 2016 for financial misdeeds on a massive scale. Employees of the company, to meet the quotas set by management, created accounts without the permission of the clients. In response over 5,300 lower level employees were fired. Initially, CEO John Stumpf and former head of retail banking Carrie Tolstedt were to keep their rather sizable compensation for leading the company to a great financial “success” based on this fraud. However, the backlash from the public and the shareholders resulted in Stumpf and Carrie losing some of their financial compensation.

As would be expected, there were no plans for criminal charges of the sort that could result in jail time. This is consistent with how most financial misdeeds by the ruling elites are handled: some fines and, at worst, some forfeiture of ill-gotten gains. While I do not generally agree with Trump, he was not wrong when he pointed out that the system is rigged in favor of the elites and against the common people. The fact that Trump is one of the elites and has used the system does not prove him wrong (that would be fallacious reasoning); rather he also serves as more evidence for the rigging. Those who loath wealthy Democrats can also include them.

It is instructive to compare the punishment for other misdeeds to those imposed on Wells Fargo. Shoplifting is usually seen as a minor crime,  but a person who shoplifts property with a combined value of less than $300 can pay a fine up to $1000 or be sentenced to up to a year in jail. Shoplifting property with a combined value over $300 is a felony and can result in a sentence between one and ten years in jail. Wells Fargo robbed people through the use of fees and other charges that arose from the creation of unauthorized accounts.

While there are differences between the direct theft of shoplifting and the indirect robbery of imposing charges on unauthorized accounts, there is little moral distinction: after all, both are means of robbing someone of their rightful property.  Because of this, there would appear to be a need to revise the penalties so that they are properly proportional.

One option is to bring the punishment for major financial misdeeds in line with the punishment for shoplifting. This would involve changing the fine for financial misdeeds from being a fraction of the profits (or damages) of the misdeeds to a multiple of the profits (perhaps three or more times greater). It could be argued that such a harsh penalty could financially ruin an elite who lacked adequate assets to pay for their misdeed; however, the exact same argument can be advanced for poor shoplifters.

Another option is to bring the punishments for shoplifting in line with those for the financial elites. This would change the fine for shoplifting from likely being more than the value of what was stolen to a fraction of what was stolen (if that). For example, if someone stole a $1,000 video card, then their punishment might be paying a $100 fine. The obvious objection to this proposal is that if shoplifters knew that their punishment would be a fraction of the value they had stolen, then this punishment would have no deterrent value. Shoplifting would be, in effect, shopping at a discount. It is thus hardly shocking that the financial elite are not deterred by the present system of punishment since they profit greatly if they do not get caught and do very well even if they are caught and “punished.”

It could be objected that the financial elite would be deterred on the grounds that they would still be better off using legal means to profit. That way they would keep 100% of their gain rather than a fraction. The easy and obvious reply is that this deterrent value is contingent on the elite believing that the legal approach would be more profitable than the illegal approach (with due consideration to the chance of getting caught and fined). Since punishment is often a fraction of the gain and the potential gain from misdeeds can be huge, this approach to punishment has far less deterrent value than a punishment in which the punished comes out at a loss rather than a gain. If a corporation could, for example, make 200% more by doing illegal things and they risk only losing a fraction of that gain, then doing illegal things is a smart move.

It is also interesting to compare the punishment for identity theft and fraud with the punishment of Wells Fargo. Conviction of identity theft can result in a sentence of one to seven years. Fraud charges also have sentences that range from one to ten years and beyond. While some do emphasize that Wells Fargo was not engaged in traditional identity theft, what they did was morally similar. As an example of traditional identity theft, a thief steals a person’s identity and gets a credit card under that name to use for their own gain. What Wells Fargo did was open accounts in people’s names without their permission so that the company could profit from this misuse of their identity. As such, the company was stealing from these people and doing the same sorts of harm inflicted by identity theft.

From a moral standpoint, those involved in these actions should face the same criminal charges and potential punishments that individuals acting on their own would face. This is morally required for consistency. Obviously enough, the laws are not consistent. We all know that the misdeeds of the elite and corporations are usually punished lightly or not at all. Nothing new, as the history of law is also the history of its unfair application. The injustice of justice, one might say.  However, this approach is problematic.

Seem from a certain moral perspective, the degree to which I am obligated to accept punishment for my misdeeds is proportional to the consistency and fairness of the system of justice. If others can walk away from the consequences of their misdeeds or enjoy light punishments for misdeeds that would result in harsh penalties for me, then I have little moral reason to willingly accept any punishments that might be inflicted on me. Naturally, the state has the power to inflict its punishments whether I accept them or not, but it seems important to a system of justice that the citizens accept the moral legitimacy of the punishment.

To use an analogy, imagine a professor who ran their class like the justice system is running. If an elite student cheated and got an initial grade of 100, they might be punished by having the grade docked to an 80 if caught. In contrast, the commoner students would fail and be sent before the academic misconduct board for such a misdeed. The commoner students who cheated would be right to rebel against this system and refuse to accept such punishments, though they did wrong, justice without consistency is but a mockery of real justice.

In light of this discussion, Wells Fargo was yet another example of the inherent injustice and inequality in the legal system. If we wish to have a just system of justice, these disparities must be addressed. These disparities also warrant moral disobedience in the face of punishment. Why should a shoplifter accept a fine that vastly exceeds what they steal when a financial elite can pay but a fraction of their theft and profit well from their misdeeds? They should not.

The war on drugs is one of the longest and least successful wars waged by the United States. The biggest problem is, as Walt Kelley said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Which is to say that the war on drugs is primarily a civil war and most casualties are Americans.

While some see the war on drugs as a battle of virtue against vice, most drug laws were motivated by racism. For example, San Francisco’s 1875 law against opium was based on the fear that Chinese men were luring white women into opium dens to have sex with them. This was followed by laws against cocaine (motivated largely by racism towards blacks) and then by laws against marijuana (motivated largely by biases against Mexicans). The war on drugs proper began in 1971 with Richard Nixon’s declaration and following presidents followed suit with varying degrees of enthusiasm. President Bill Clinton, eager to appear tough on crime, escalated the war in a manner that has led directly to the present problems of mass incarceration and the disproportionate incarceration of minorities. This serves as another reminder that while we should be wary of false equivalences, the elites of the Democratic party are not our friends.

Some might argue that drug laws do not specifically target minorities. After all, as one might point out, it is as illegal for a white person to use cocaine as it is for a black person. While this is a point worth considering, the application of the laws and the approach to their enforcement is strongly influenced by race. As one example, minority communities are policed more aggressively than white communities—despite the fact that blacks are no more likely to use drugs than whites (and whites are apparently more likely to deal drugs). This is one of the causes of the disproportionate incarceration rates. As another example, sentencing is often also disproportional, with the difference in sentences between crack and powder cocaine serving as an excellent illustration.

One counter to these assertions is to claim that minorities commit drug crimes at a higher rate than whites and thus the arrest rate correctly reflects this. The challenge is to support this claim with evidence. In some cases, the “evidence” offered is the arrest rate itself, creating a circle of reasoning: minorities have a higher arrest rate because they commit crimes at a higher rate and this is proven because minorities have a higher arrest rate. Unfortunately, for some the crime rates are a matter of ideology and hence they perceive the matter through that lens, and this makes discussing the issue challenging. While an analysis of the data provides what seems to be objective evidence of disparity, there are those who interpret the data rather differently. My own view is that the disparity does exist and is shown by the statistical data. Naturally, those who disagree might be inclined to claim that my view is due to ideology as well.

What is not in dispute is that the war on drugs has resulted in a mass incarceration thus making the United States the world leader in terms of the percentage of its population behind bars. While the left has long been concerned with the incarceration rate, conservatives also expressed some concern. What seemed to shift in was the opioid epidemic’s impact across racial and class lines. While the American middle and upper classes have used drugs throughout American history, they have not been the focus of law enforcement. This has enabled the maintenance of the illusion (or delusion) that drugs are a problem for the poor and minorities. Due to the attention paid to the opioid caused deaths, this illusion has been dispelled. As such, it is was recognized that there was a drug epidemic sweeping white America—and not just poor whites, but whites of the middle and upper classes.

Recognition of the whiter and wealthier nature of the epidemic seems to have motivated a shift in how drug use is being policed, at least for certain classes of people. This epidemic was treated by many as a health crisis and not a crime wave. Instead of focusing on arresting and incarcerating people, effort was focused on helping people overcome their addiction and mitigate the harm caused by this addiction. This is not to say that no one previously regarded the drug problem as a health issue, just that this represented a change in the mainstream view.

While this change in attitude centered on opioids has had some trickle-down effect on other drugs, this change has yet to spread broadly. There is still aggressive policing aimed at other drugs despite the fact that the logic that presents opioid addiction as a health issue also entails other forms of drug addiction are also health issues. However, there is some hope that this approach will spread to drug use in general.

There are compelling reasons to accept this shift. The first is that the approach of criminalizing drugs, whatever its intent, failed to address the problem. As such, there is a need for change and the health angle seems a sensible approach. The second is to use Mill’s principle of harm: the use of drugs hurts the drug user; thus people should have the liberty to use drugs, even though they are a poor life choice. This is consistent with treating them as a medical problem and people have the choice to accept or reject treatment.

The principle of harm does justify laws that criminalize drug related activity that harms others. Under this principle, the state has the moral right to impose on a person’s liberty to prevent harm to others. These justified impositions would include such things as making it illegal to operate a vehicle under the influence of drugs. Under this principle, the selling of drugs should be treated as the selling of any other product and regulated as such. For example, selling tainted or contaminated drugs should be punished in the same manner as the selling of tainted or contaminated food. As another example, the selling of dangerous drugs should be treated like the selling of any dangerous product (such as lead paint, rigged financial products, tobacco, and alcohol) and punished appropriately. And, of course, drug-motivated murder and theft should be treated, as always, as murder and theft. Treating drug use as a health issue is thus a better approach and is consistent with still treating some drug related activities as criminal activities.

 

Back in 2016 the Dallas police used a remotely operated robot to kill a suspect with a bomb. While this marked a new use for robots in the realm of domestic policing, the decision-making process was conventional. That is, humans decided to use the machine and then a human operator controlled it for the attack. As such the true policebot is still a thing of science fiction. That said, considering policebots provides an interesting way to discuss police profiling in a speculative setting. While it might be objected that the discussion should focus on real police profiling, there are advantages to discussing controversial matters within a speculative context. One important advantage is that such a setting can help dampen emotional responses and enable a more rational discussion. The speculative context helps make the discussion less threatening to some who might react with greater hostility to discussions focused on the actual world. Star Trek’s discussion of issues of race in the 1960s using science fiction is an excellent example of this sort of approach. Now, to the matter of policebots.

The policebots under consideration are those that would be capable of a high degree of autonomous operation. At the low end of autonomy, they could be deployed to enforce traffic laws on their own, such as tracking speeding and issuing tickets. On the higher end, they could operate autonomously to conduct arrests of suspects who might resist arrest violently. Near the highest end would be robotic police at least as capable as human beings. Beyond that would be supercops.

While there are legitimate worries that policebots could be used as unquestioning servants of the state to oppress and control elements of the population (something we will certainly see), there are also good reasons for using advanced policebots. One obvious advantage is that policebots would be more resilient and easier to repair than human officers. Policebots that are not people would also be more expendable and thus could save human lives by taking on the dangerous tasks of policing (such as engaging armed suspects). Another advantage is that robots will probably not get tired or bored, thus allowing them to patrol around the clock with maximum efficiency. Robots are also unlikely to be subject to the corrupting factors that influence humans or suffer from personal issues, such as going through a divorce. There is also the possibility that policebots could be more objective than human officers. This is, in fact, the main concern of this essay.

Like a human office, policbots would need to identify criminal behavior. In some cases, this would be easy. For example, an autonomous police drone could easily spot and ticket most speeding violations. In other cases, this would be incredibly complicated. For example, a policebot patrolling a neighborhood would need to discern between children playing at cops & robbers and people engaged in actual violence. As another example, a policebot on patrol would need to be able to sort out the difference between a couple having a public argument and an assault in progress.

In addition to sorting out criminal behavior from non-criminal behavior, policebots would also need to decide on how to focus their attention. For example, a policebot would need to determine who gets special attention in a neighborhood because they are acting suspicious or seem to be out of place. Assuming that policebots would be programed, the decision-making process would be explicitly laid out in the code. Such focusing decisions would seem to be, by definition, based in profiling and this gives rise to important moral concerns.

Profiling that is based on behavior would seem to be acceptable, provided that such behavior is clearly linked to criminal activities and not to, as an example, ethnicity. For example, it would seem perfectly reasonable to focus attention on a person who tries to stick to the shadows around houses while paying undue attention to houses that seem to be unoccupied at the time. While such a person might be a shy fellow who likes staring at unlit houses as a pastime, there is a reasonable chance he is scouting the area for a robbery. As such, the policebot would be warranted in focusing on him.

The most obviously controversial area would be using certain demographic data for profiles. Young men tend to commit more crimes than middle-aged women. On the one hand, this would seem to be relevant data for programing a policebot. On the other hand, it could be argued that this would give the policebot a gender and age bias that would be morally wrong despite being factually accurate. It becomes vastly more controversial when data about such things as ethnicity, economic class and religion are considered. If accurate and objective data links such factors to a person being more likely to engage in crime, then a rather important moral concern arises. Obviously enough, if such data were not accurate, then it should not be included.

Sorting out the accuracy of such data can be problematic and there are sometimes circular appeals. For example, the right often defends the higher arrest rate of blacks by claiming that blacks commit more crimes than whites. When it is objected that higher arrest rate could be partially due to bias in policing, the reply is often that blacks commit more crimes and the proof is that blacks are arrested more than whites. That is, the justification runs in a circle.

But suppose that objective and accurate data showed links between demographic categories and crime. In that case, leaving it out of the programing could make policebots less effective. This could have the consequence of allowing more crimes to occur. This harm would need to be weighed against the harm of having the policebots programmed to profile based on such factors. One area of concern is public perception of the policebots and their use of profiling. This could have negative consequences that could outweigh the harm of having less efficient policebots.

Another area of potential harm is that even if the policebots operated on accurate data, they would still end up arresting people disproportionally, thus potentially causing harm that would exceed the harm done by the loss of effectiveness. This also ties into higher level moral concerns about the reasons why specific groups might commit more crimes than others and these reasons often include social injustice and economic inequality. As such, even “properly” programmed policebots could be arresting the victims of social and economic crimes. This suggests an interesting idea for a science fiction story: policebots that decide to reduce crime by going after the social and economic causes of crime rather than arresting people to enforce an unjust social order.

In Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” Rekal, Incorporated offers clients a virtual vacation: for a modest fee, memories of a vacation are implanted. The company also provides mementos and “evidence” of the trip. In the story (and the movie, Total Recall, based on it) things go terribly wrong.

While the technology of the story does not yet exist, a very limited form of virtual reality has  become something of a reality. Because of this, it is worth considering the matter of virtual vacations. Interestingly, philosophers have long envisioned a form of virtual reality; but they have usually presented it as a problem in epistemology (the study or theory of knowledge). This is the problem of the external world: how do I know that what I think is real is real? In the case of the virtual vacation, there is no such problem: the vacation is virtual and not real. Perhaps some philosopher will be inspired to try to solve the problem of the virtual vacation: how does one know that it is not real?

Philosophers have also considered virtual reality in the context of ethics. One of the best-known cases is Robert Nozick’s experience machine. Nozick envisioned a machine that would allow the user to have any experience they desired. Some philosophers have made use of this sort of a machine as a high-tech version of the “pig objection.” This objection, which was used by Aristotle and others, is against taking pleasure to be the highest good. The objection is often presented as a choice: you must pick between continuing your current life or living as an animal, but with the greatest pleasures of that beast guaranteed.  The objector, of course, expects that people will choose to remain people, thus showing that mere pleasure is not the highest good. In the case of the experience machine variant, the choice is between living a real life with all its troubles and a life of ultimate pleasure in the experience machine. The objector hopes, of course, that our intuitions will still favor valuing the real over the virtual.

Since the objection is generally presented as a choice of life (you either live life entirely outside the machine or entirely inside of it) it is worth considering there might be a meaningful difference if people took virtual vacations rather than living virtual lives.

On the face of it, there would seem to be no problem with virtual vacations in which a person either spends their vacation time in a virtual world or has memories implanted. People already take virtual vacations of a sort when they play immersive video games and watch movies. Before this, people took “virtual vacations” in books, plays and in their own imagination. That said, a true virtual vacation might be sufficiently different to require arguments in its favor. I now turn to these arguments.

The first reason in favor of virtual vacations is their potential affordability. If virtual vacations eventually become budget alternatives to real vacations (as in the story), they would allow people to have the experience of a high-priced vacation for a modest cost. For example, a person might take a virtual luxury cruise in a stateroom that, if real, might cost $100,000.

The second reason in support of virtual vacations is that they could be used to virtually visit places where access is limited (such as public parks that can only handle so many people), where access would be difficult (such as very remote locations), or places where access would be damaging (such as environmentally sensitive areas).

A third reason is that virtual vacations could allow people to have vacations they could not really have, such as visiting Mars, adventuring in Middle Earth, or spending a weekend as a dolphin.

A fourth reason is that virtual vacations could be much safer than real vacations: no travel accidents, no terrorist attacks, no disease, and so on for the dangers that can be encountered in the real world. Those familiar with science fiction might point to the dangers of virtual worlds, using Sword Art Online and the very lethal holodecks of Star Trek as examples. However, it would seem easy enough to make the technology so that it cannot kill people. It was always a bit unclear why the holodecks had the option of turning off the safety systems, that is like having an option for your Xbox, PlayStation or Switch to explode and kill you when you lose a game.

The fifth reason is convenience. Going on a virtual vacation would be easier than going on a real vacation. There are other reasons that could be considered, but I now turn to an objection and some concerns. The most obvious objection against virtual vacations is that they are, by definition, not real.

The idea is that the pig objection would apply not just to an entire life in a virtual world, but to a vacation. Since the virtual vacation is not real, it lacks value and hence it would be wrong for people to take them in place of real vacations. Fortunately, there is an easy reply to this objection.

The pig objection does seem to have some strength when a person is supposed to be doing significant things. For example, a person who spends a weekend in virtual reality treating virtual patients with virtual Ebola would not merit praise and would not be acting in a virtuous way. However, the point of a vacation is amusement and restoration rather than engaging in significant actions. If virtual vacations are to be criticized because they merely entertain, then the same would apply to real vacations. After all, their purpose is to entertain. This is not to say that people cannot do significant things while on vacation, but to focus on the point of a vacation as vacation. As such, the pig objection does not seem to have much bite here.

It could be objected that virtual vacations would fail to be as satisfying as actual vacations because they are not real. This is certainly an objection worth considering. If a virtual vacation fails as a vacation, then there is a practical reason not to take one. However, this is something that remains to be seen. Now, to the concerns.

One concern, which has been developed in science fiction, is that virtual vacations might prove addicting. Video games can be addicting; there are even a very few reported cases of people gaming to death. While this is a legitimate concern and there will no doubt be a Virtual Reality Addicts Anonymous in the future, this is not a special objection against virtual reality, Unless, of course, it proves to be destructively addicting on a significant scale. But even if it were addictive, it would presumably do less damage than drug or alcohol addiction. In fact, this could be another point in its favor. If people who would otherwise be addicted to drugs or alcohol self-medicated with virtual reality instead, there could be a reduction in social woes and costs arising from addiction.

A second concern is that virtual vacations would have a negative impact on real tourist economies. My home state of Maine and adopted state of Florida both have tourism-based economies and if people stopped real vacations in favor of virtual vacations, their economies would suffer. One stock reply is that when technology kills one industry, it creates a new one. In this case, the economic loss to real tourism would be offset to some degree by the economic gain in virtual tourism. States and countries could even create or license their own virtual vacation experiences. Another reply is that there will presumably still be f people who will prefer real vacations to virtual vacations. Even now people could spend their vacations playing video games; but most who have the money and time still choose to go on a real vacation.

A third concern is that having wondrous virtual vacations will increase peoples’ dissatisfaction with the tedious grind that is life for most under the cruel lash of the ruling class. An obvious reply is that most are already dissatisfied. Another reply is that this is more of an objection against capitalism than an objection against virtual vacations. In any case, amusements eventually wear thin, and most people eventually want to return to work.

Considering the above, virtual vacations seem like a good idea. That said, many disasters are later explained by saying “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Back in 2016, my original essay on felons and voting received an interesting comment from A.J. McDonald, Jr. He was worried about having rapists, robbers and murders voting. One initial reply is that there are many other types of felonies, most of which are non-violent. As such, any discussion of felons and voting needs to consider not just the worst felonies, but all the felonies. And, in the United States, there are many. That said, I will address the specific concern about felons convicted of rape, robbery and murder.

On the face of it, it is natural to have an immediate emotional reaction to the idea of rapists, robbers and murderers voting. After all, these are presumably very bad people and it is offensive to think of them exercising the same fundamental right as other citizens. While this reaction is natural, it is generally unwise to try to settle complex moral questions by appealing to an immediate emotional reaction. I will begin by considering arguments for disenfranchising such felons.

The most plausible argument, given my view that voting rights are foundational rights in a democratic state, is that such crimes warrant removing or at least suspending a person’s status as a citizen. After all, when a person is justly convicted of rape, murder or robbery they are justly punished by suspension of their liberty. In some cases, they are punished by death. As such, it seems reasonable to accept that if the right to liberty (and even life) can be suspended, then the right to vote can be suspended as well. I certainly see the appeal here. However, I think there is a counter to this reasoning.

Punishment by imprisonment is generally aimed at protecting the public from the criminal by removing them from society and to serve as a deterrent to others.  This could be used to justify taking away the right to vote by arguing that felons are likely to vote in ways that would harm society. The easy and obvious reply is that there is little reason to think that felons could do harm through voting. Or any more harm than non-felon voters. For felons to do real harm through voting, there would need to be harmful choices and these would need to be choices that felons would pick because they are felons and they would need to be able to win the vote.  It could be claimed that, for example, there might be a vote on reducing prison sentences and the felons would vote in their interest to the detriment of others. While this is possible, it seems unlikely that the felons would be able to win the vote on their own. If there were so many felons that they could decide elections, then society has a fundamental problem.

There is also the obvious counter that non-felons are just as likely to vote in harmful ways as well, as the history of voting shows. As such, denying felons the vote to protect the public from harm is not a reasonable justification. If there are things being voted for that could do serious harm, then the danger lies with those who got such things on the ballot and not with felons who might vote for it.

Another way to justify disenfranchisement is by making it park of the punishment, which is often justified in terms of retribution. This does have some appeal, assuming the felon wants to vote. However, most Americans do not vote, so it would not be much of a punishment for most people. There is also the question of whether the denial of the right to vote is a suitable punishment for a crime. Punishments should be relevant to the crime. While paying restitution would fit for a robbery, being denied the right to vote would not seem to fit.

Criminals are also supposed to be reformed so they can return to society (assuming the sentence is not death or life). Denying voting rights would have the opposite effect as they would be even more disconnected from society. As such, this would not justify removal of the voting rights. 

Because of these considerations, even rapists, murderers and robbers should not lose their right to vote. I do agree, as argued in my previous essay, that crimes that are effectively rejections of the criminal’s citizenship (like rebellion and treason) would warrant stripping a person of citizenship and the right to vote. Other crimes, even awful ones, would not suffice to strip away citizenship.

Another approach is to make the case that rapists, murderers and robbers are morally bad or bad decision makers and should be denied the right to vote on moral grounds. While it is true that rapists, murderers and robbers are generally very bad people, the right to vote is not grounded in being a good person (or even just not being bad) or making good (or at least not bad) decisions. While it might seem appealing to have moral and competency tests for voting, there is the obvious problem that many voters would fail such tests. There is also the practical problem of designing a fair ethics test. Such tests would, as history shows, simply be political tools for disenfranchising people.

It could be countered that the only test that would be used is the legal test of whether a person is convicted of a felony. While obviously imperfect, it could be argued that those convicted are probably guilty and probably bad people and thus should not be voting. While it is true that some innocent people will be convicted and denied the right to vote and true that many bad people will be able to avoid convictions, this is acceptable.

A reply to this is to inquire as to why such a moral standard should be used to determine the right to vote. After all, the right to vote (as I have argued before) is not predicated on moral goodness or competence. It is based on being a citizen, good or bad. As such, any crime that does not justly take away citizenship would not warrant removing the right to vote. Yes, this does entail that rapists, murderers and robbers should retain the right to vote. This might strike some as offensive or disgusting, but these people remain citizens. If this is too offensive, then such crimes would need to be recast as acts of treason that strip away citizenship. This seems excessive. And there is the fact that there are always awful people voting, they just have not been caught or got away with their awfulness or are clever and connected enough to ensure that the awful things they do are not considered felonies or even crimes. I am just as comfortable allowing a robber to vote as I am to allow Trump and Hillary to vote. After all, we know Trump is a felon and we know Hillary is Hillary.

Back in 2016 Martin Shkreli became the villain of drug pricing when he increased the price of a $13.50 pill to $750. While buying up smaller drug companies and increasing prices products is a standard profit-making venture, the scale of the increase and Shkreli’s attitude drew attention to this incident. Unfortunately, while the Shkreli episode briefly caught the public’s attention, drug pricing is an ongoing problem.

For consumer, the main problem is that drugs are priced extremely high, sometimes high enough to bankrupt patients. In the face of public criticism, drug companies attempt to justify the high prices. One reason they give is that they need to charge these prices to pay the R&D costs of the drugs. While a company does have the right to pass on the cost of drug development, the facts tell another story about the pricing of drugs.

First, about 38% of the basic research science was funded by taxpayer money.  Thus, the public was paying twice: once in taxes and again for the drugs. This, of course, leaves a significant legitimate area of expenses for companies, but hardly enough to warrant absurdly high prices. As the federal budget for this research is cut, companies will be able to make a better argument based on the cost of research as they will need to spend more of their profits for research.

Second, most large drug companies spend almost twice as much on promotion and marketing as they do on R&D. While these are legitimate business expenses, this undercut using R&D expenses to justify excessive drug prices. Saying that pills are expensive because of the cost of marketing pills would not be a very effective strategy. There is also the issue of the ethics of advertising drugs, which is another matter entirely.

Third, many “new” drugs are just slightly modified old drugs. Common examples including combining two older drugs to create a “new” drug, changing the delivery method (from an injectable to a pill, for example) or altering the release time. In many cases, the government will grant a new patent for these minor tweaks, and this will grant the company up to a 20-year monopoly on the product, preventing competition. This practice, though obviously legal, is sketchy. To use an analogy, imagine a company holding the patents on a wheel and on an axle. Then, when those patents expired, they patented wheel + axle as a “new” invention. That would be absurd.

Companies also try other approaches to justify the high cost, such as arguing that the drugs treat serious conditions or can save money by avoiding a more expensive treatment. While these arguments do have some appeal, it is morally problematic to argue that the price of a drug should be based on the seriousness of the condition it treats. This seems like a protection scheme or coercion amounting to “pay what we want, or you die.” The money-saving argument is less odious but is still problematic. By this logic, car companies should be able to much more for safety features since they protect people from expensive injuries. It is, of course, reasonable to make a profit on products that provide significant benefits, but there need to be moral limits to the profits.

The obvious counter to my approach is to argue that drug prices should be set by the free market: if people are willing to pay large sums for drugs, then the drug companies should be free to charge those prices. After all, companies like Apple and Porsche sell expensive products without (generally) being demonized for making profits.

The easy response is that luxury cars and Macbooks are optional luxuries that a person can easily do without and there are many cheaper (and better) alternatives. However, drug companies sell drugs that are necessary for a person’s health and even survival. They are usually not optional products. There is also the fact that drug companies enjoy patent protection that precludes effective competition. While Apple does hold patents on its devices, there are many competitors. For example, if you don’t want to pay a premium for an Apple computer, you have your pick of thousands of options. But, if you need certain medications, your options can be much more limited.  

While defenders of drug prices laud the free market and decry “government interference”, their ability to charge high prices depends on the “interference” of the state. As noted above, the United States and other governments issue patents to drug companies that grant them exclusive ownership. Without this protection, a company that wanted to charge $750 for a $13.50 pill would find competitors rushing to sell the pill for far less. After all, it would be easy enough for a competitor to analyze a drug and produce it. By accepting the patent system, the drug companies accept that the state has a right to engage in legal regulation in the drug industry, to replace the invisible hand with a very visible hand of the state. Once this is accepted, the door is opened to allowing additional regulation on the grounds that the state will provide protection for the company’s property using taxpayer money in return for the company agreeing not to engage in harmful pricing of drugs. Roughly put, if the drug companies expect people to obey the social contract with the state, they also need to operate within the social contract. Companies could, of course, push for a truly free market: they would be free to charge whatever they want for drugs without state interference, but there would be no state interference into the free market activities of their competitors when they duplicate the high price drugs and start undercutting the prices. But, as always, companies want a free market when freedom benefits them and a nanny state when it benefits them.

In closing, if the drug companies want to keep the patent protection they need for high drug prices, they must be willing to operate within the social contract. After all, citizens should not be imposed upon to fund the protection of the people who are, some might claim, robbing them.

I, along with some other philosophers, was interviewed in 2016 about voting for an article by Olivia Goldhill of Quartz. While I still stand by what I said, interviews do have inherent problems. One common thing is the lack of depth. In some cases, this is due to the interview being short. For the Quartz piece, I spoke to the author for about five minutes. In other cases, the interview might be longer, but the content must be slashed down to fit in a limited amount of time or space. An interview I did about D&D and the real world was about thirty minutes long; but only about a minute was used in the broadcast. Another problem is that complex material aimed at the public must be simplified because most people are not experts. As such, I need to expand on my quote in the article.

After briefly discussing the difference between deontological and utilitarian approaches to voting, I presented my soundbite view of the issue:

 

 “As a citizen, I have a duty to others because it’s not just me and my principles, but everybody. I have to consider how what I do will impact other people. For example, if I was a die-hard Bernie supporter, I might say my principles tell me to vote for Bernie. But I’m not going to let my principles condemn other people to suffering.”

 

My position can be taken as either a deontological approach or a utilitarian approach. For the deontologist, an action is right or wrong in and of itself—the consequences are not what matter morally. For the utilitarian, the morality of an action is determined by its consequences. Looked at from a deontological perspective, acting on a duty to the general good would be the right thing to do. The fact that doing so would have good consequences is not what makes the action good. From the utilitarian perspective, the foundation of my duty would be utility: I should do what brings about the greatest good for the greatest number.

In 2016 I followed my principles. While I voted for Sanders in the primary and preferred him over Hillary, I thought that a Trump presidency would be much worse for the country than another Clinton presidency.  I saw her as competent business as usual politician. I predicted, correctly, that Trump would be bad for most Americans. I had the view in 2020 and 2024. When Trump runs in 2028, I’ll probably vote against him.  As such, I take the classic approach of choosing the lesser evil and the devil I know. If I was voting for the greater evil, Cthulhu would have my vote.

It might be objected that my approach is flawed. After all, if someone votes based on a rational assessment of the impact of an election on everyone, then she might vote against her own self-interest. What a person should do, it could be argued, is consider the matter selfishly and vote based on what is in her interest regardless of the general good.

This approach has considerable appeal and is based on an established moral philosophy which is ethical egoism. This is the view that a person should always take the action that maximizes her self-interest. Roughly put, for the ethical egoist, she is the only one with moral value. The opposing moral view is altruism; the view that other people count morally (to at least some degree). Ayn Rand is probably the best-known proponent of ethical egoism and the virtue of selfishness. This ideology was embraced by Paul Ryan and she was beloved by the American Tea Party before it was assimilated by MAGA.

While supporters of selfishness claim that the collective result of individual selfishness will be the general good (a view attributed to Adam Smith), history and reason show the opposite. Everyone being selfish has exactly the result one would suspect, and most people would be worse off than if people were more altruistic. To use an analogy, everyone being cruel does not make the world a kinder place. More people being kind makes kinder.

This is not to say that people should not consider their interests, just that they should also consider the interests of others. This is, after all, what makes civilization possible. Pure selfishness without regulation, as Hobbes argued, is the state of nature and the state of war and is not in anyone’s interest.

It can also be objected that my approach is flawed because it perpetuates the two-party lockdown of the American political system. While most people didn’t know this, there were many third party candidates running in 2016. Perhaps the best known was libertarian Gary Johnson. He received 1% of the popular vote in 2012 and managed to reach double digits in some polls. As he did not win, a vote for Johnson helped either Trump or Hillary get elected (depending on whether the person would have otherwise voted for one of them). Many claim that Nader’s ill-fated bid for president enabled Bush to win the election. While voting for a third-party candidate can be seen as, at best, throwing away one’s vote a case can be made for voting this way.

Like the approach I took in the interview, the argument for voting third party can be based on utilitarian considerations (one can also make a deontological argument based on the notion of a duty to vote one’s conscience). The difference is that the vote for the third party would be justified by the hope of long-term consequences. To be specific, the justification would be that voting for a third-party candidate could allow the greater evil to win this election. And the next election. And probably several more elections after that. But, eventually, the lockdown on politics by Democrats and Republicans could be broken by a viable third party. If the third party is likely to be better than the Democrats or Republicans, then this could be a good utilitarian argument.  It could also be a good argument if having a viable third party merely improved things for the population. The deciding factor would be whether the positive consequences of eventually getting a viable third party would be worth the cost of getting there. Naturally, the likelihood of viability is also a factor.

I am still split on this issue, though Trump’s two victories have pushed me towards favoring voting for the lesser evil. On the one hand, there seems to be a good reason to stick with voting for the lesser evil, namely the fact that third party viability is a gamble. There is also concern about whether any third-party candidate is better than the lesser evil. On the other hand, voting for the lesser evil does lock us in a two-party system and this could prove more damaging than allowing the greater evil to win numerous times on the way towards having a viable third party.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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