Category: Ethics

 

Faced with declining caribou and moose herds, Alaska is hoping that shooting wolves and bears from helicopters will solve their problem. The program will permit the slaughter of up to 80% of these animals on 20,000 acres of state land. I use the term “slaughter” intentionally as killing animals from helicopters should not be dignified with the term “hunting.” I say this as both an ethicist and someone who grew up as an ethical hunter. Laying aside my moral concerns about the methodology of this slaughter, there is the factual question as to whether it would achieve its stated goal.

In 2023 nearly 100 bears, including 20 cubs, were killed from helicopters. It was claimed that this helped increase the caribou population. To determine the effectiveness of such killings, the state created a report and found that the largest causal factors in the decline of the caribou herd were “disease, nutrition, and winter severity.” It was estimated that starvation or dehydration caused about 65% of the deaths. As would be expected, the state has now refused to allow photographs of the killings, has forbidden independent observers, and does not allow scientific review of the program. This shows that the state officials are not concerned with whether the method is effective, but that they must be driven by other motivations.

Looked at in purely economic terms, the slaughter of predators has already had a negative effect on state revenue. One of the major tourist draws for Denali national park has been the wolf packs. As the state has succeeded in killing wolves, tourism has declined. While the state has claimed that their program raised money from people who want to slaughter wolves and bears from helicopters, “the amount of tourist dollars from people seeking to view these predators in the wild dwarfs any incremental increase in hunting fee revenue the state hopes to realize.” Given that the justifications for the slaughter are untrue, it must be wondered why the state is persisting in this bad idea.

In terms of people having false beliefs, one possibility is that they are operating in sincere ignorance: they hold to false beliefs, but this is because they have had no cause to challenge them. The idea of the “big bad wolf” is ingrained in our culture, as is the idea that predators are a problem. As such, someone unfamiliar with the facts might, in good faith, think that wolves and bears are the problem and that killing them is the solution. They might also have no idea that tourists are paying to come see wolves and that the fees from hunting would be miniscule in comparison. But if someone is aware that there is evidence out there, such as the report mentioned above, they might decide to engage in willful ignorance.

Willful ignorance occurs when a person is aware that evidence or arguments exist that could challenge their belief but chooses to ignore or dismiss such evidence or arguments. They can also escalate by “refuting” the evidence and arguments with rhetoric, fallacies, and simply clinging to their belief. This is especially likely when the belief is part of the person’s ideology or identity. In the United States, “solving” ecological problems by killing animals is usually seen as more of a right-wing approach, and environmentally focused approaches are usually branded as “leftist.” In the case of caribou and moose herds, the main driving factor in their decline is most likely climate change. As noted above, even the state of Alaska’s own report noted that 65% of the deaths were caused by starvation and dehydration. But the right has committed to denying climate change and hence another explanation is needed. Blaming wolves and bears fits this narrative and hence enables willful ignorance. There are also those who know the truth and decide to lie.

The American right has embraced the strategy of lying about climate change, simply denying that it occurs while refusing to offer evidence for their view. In the case of killing predators, it thus makes sense why the state is refusing observers and studies: the officials know that the results would refute their claims. In terms of why they are doing this, one factor could be that they need to appease people who are sincerely or willfully ignorant but expect the state to do something to address the problem. The “solution” they have selected is killing the predators, which will end up costing the state revenue.

Shooting wolves and bears from helicopters is also an excellent metaphor for life in America. Members of the ruling class, such as CEOs of health insurance companies, are like the shooters in the helicopters and we are the wolves. They can hurt and even kill us with near impunity. Some might be tempted to think that their metaphorical helicopter lifts them above the law, but this is not true. The legal system is part of their helicopter (and their gun): they are within the law, but it serves to protect them from us while also serving as a weapon against us. It is only when they walk among us unprotected that they face any meaningful risk of facing consequences, as Luigi Mangione showed. Which is why the CEO response to the shooting was to enhance their security.

The situation in Alaska also provides another excellent metaphor for life in America: we are like the caribou and moose being harmed by starvation, dehydration and disease while our suffering and deaths are being blamed on something else. We are, like the caribou and moose, literally suffering from climate change while the ruling class lies about it. We face housing shortages, poor health care, medical bankruptcy, and economic exploitation while the ruling class blames migrants and transpeople. They are not interested in solving the problems, whether it is the declining numbers of moose and caribou or needless deaths due to Americans being uninsured or underinsured.

 

As J.S. Mill and others have argued, freedom of expression is a fundamental liberty and the people working at crisis pregnancy centers have that right. But crisis pregnancy centers purport to offer an alternative to abortion—though they seem to routinely engage in deception rather than honest persuasion. This raises moral questions about freedom of expression.

To get the obvious out of the way, those who work for crisis pregnancy centers have the moral right to express their views on abortion. They also have the moral right to try to persuade others to accept their views. A key part of the freedom of expression is the freedom to engage with others who are willing to listen. So, the freedom of expression of these centers is not in dispute.

One concern, which was addressed in my previous essay, is the ethics of deceit. While people do have the right to express their views, freedom of expression is not a license to lie. But it must be noted that there is an important distinction between making an untrue claim and lying.  While there are many forms of lying, the common form requires that a person believes they are making an untrue claim and that they have the intention to deceive. So, if the those at the centers believe the untruths they tell women, then they are not lying. However, this does not get them off the moral hook completely as there is also an ethics of epistemology (the theory of knowledge). Just as there is a moral obligation, as per Thomas Aquinas, to consider one’s actions before acting, there is also an obligation to confirm one’s beliefs before trying to get others to accept them. The seriousness of this obligation, as with actions, is in proportion to the seriousness of the likely consequences of the belief. Being epistemically irresponsible about knowing birth control’s efficacy or the medical effect of abortion is morally unacceptable. As with any liberty, there are also associated responsibilities. Due diligence and honesty in the claims one makes are part of these responsibilities. That is, freedom of expression is not freedom from truth and proper research (which is more than just Googling while under the influence of confirmation bias).

A second concern is values. While people do not have a right to their own facts, they do have the right to their own values (and the responsibility of the consequences of those values). While some embrace the self-defeating notion that relativity of values requires tolerance (it self-defeats because claiming tolerance as an objective value contradicts relativism), it would beg the question to assume that values are objective (or subjective). Even if values are objective, there is still the problem of sorting out which values are right. Because of this, it is more difficult to show that someone has the wrong values. There do seem to be some clear exceptions: those who advocate for rape and genocide have indisputably gotten things wrong. However, moral philosophy has vast tracts of disputed territory and rational moral disagreement helps warrant the freedom of expression. Since we do not always know what is right, it would often be both foolish and wrong to silence people with differing views.

While the various sides on the abortion issue tend to believe they have the objective truth; the issue is morally complicated and an area of reasonable moral dispute. Those who think they have the right answer still have an excellent reason to accept this, if only on pragmatic grounds. Even if they are winning now, they might be losing tomorrow and need the freedom to make their case. If they are losing now, they would want the freedom to make their case. So, the center folks have the right to present their values as do those who disagree with them.

The final concern I will address is the matter of compelled listening. While there have been some legal cases involving compelled speech, there is also the moral question of compelled attention. The easy and obvious view is that people have no general right to expect others to listen to them, although there are contexts where there can be such an expectation. People also do not, with some notable exceptions, have the right to harass people under the guise of free expression. To use an analogy, you have a right to swing a knife around as much as you wish as long as you are not slashing at other people. Likewise, you can express yourself however you wish, provided that the expression is not aimed at harassing, coercing or harming others. I admit there is a problem with sorting out what counts as harassment, coercion and harm. This must be addressed by considering specific types of cases and by developing general guidelines. For example, college students don’t have grounds to claim that a speaker they dislike is automatically harming them because they dislike what they hear. As another example, a student who is shouting a speaker they dislike is both violating the speaker’s right to free expression and endeavoring to compel others to listen to them over the speaker, and are in the process of trying to violate two rights.

Returning to the centers, they do have every right to try to persuade, but the tactics that are coercive, deceptive or harassing are not protected by moral freedom of expression. While they do have the right to express their views, they do not have the right to trick, harass or coerce others into listening to or accepting their views. Naturally, the general principles at work here apply generally, especially to the freedoms of people I disagree with.

 

 

While I think abortion is morally tolerable and should be legal, I recognize that there are competing moral views that can be held in good faith. Proponents and opponents of abortion have the right to argue for their views and influence others. So, I have no moral objection against the idea of a pregnancy crisis center that provides accurate information about alternatives to abortion and assistance to women who elect to not have an abortion. Unfortunately, pregnancy crisis centers often seem to engage in willful deceit.

Some years ago, John Oliver did a show on the deceptive practices of these centers. While Oliver is a comedian, his claims were backed up with evidence: these centers often trick women. One common technique is masquerading as an abortion clinic or health care provider by locating close to such places and using similar names. They also tend to use the trapping of professional medicine to create the illusion they are a clinic despite not being licensed to provide medical care. Another tactic is to make untrue claims about abortion, such as the claim that abortion increases the risk of cancer and infertility.

While centers are usually allowed to give ultrasounds, they seem to routinely mislead women about the results. While there is a shortage of funding for women’s health, many states provide public money to these centers. This should worry people who profess to favor small government and to oppose public money being used for ideological causes. After all, one of the arguments advanced against public funding of Planned Parenthood is that public money might be used for something some people find morally or religiously unacceptable. The same logic should apply to these centers.

On the face of it, deceit seems morally wrong and centers that engage in it are acting immorally. This is especially ironic given these centers tend to be affiliated with religious organizations and the bible is clear about lying. That said, one can argue in favor of the approach of these centers.

It can be argued that such deceit is justified on moral grounds because the end justifies the means. The obvious moral theory to use here is utilitarianism: the action that creates the most good and the least harmful is the right action. In the case of the centers, they could accept that deceit is generally not a good thing, but that the harm of deceiving the women and girls is exceeded by the good of misleading them so that they do not have an abortion. To use an analogy, lying to a murderer to keep them from murdering would be morally right on utilitarian grounds.

Even if one accepts the utilitarian approach, there is still the question of whether the centers are doing their moral calculation right: is the good they claim to do outweighing the harms to the women and girls they deceive? Obviously, pro-choice people would disagree. There is also my usual line: why lie if the truth will suffice? In the case at hand, if abortion is truly as evil as the center folk believe, then telling women the truth should suffice to convince them. If they must lie to people, then one would suspect that they must not have faith in their own reasons and arguments. They could, of course, reply by doubling down on the utilitarian approach and contend that people are not swayed by good reasons nor are they drawn to the right thing without being led there by deceit.

Accepting utilitarianism does create its own problem: if the ends justify the means in terms of deceiving to prevent abortion, then the same principle also applies to abortion. As such, abortion would be subject to the same utilitarian calculation and could turn out to be acceptable on these grounds. In any case, its wrongness would be conditional upon the harms and benefits.

The centers could reply that they are not utilitarians; they just hold that the end justifies the means when it comes to lying about abortion. They could hold that abortion is inherently worse than lying and it is acceptable to do lesser evils to prevent greater evils. While this is a consistent position it is morally problematic as there are non-deceitful ways to reduce abortions, such as providing cheap and effective birth control, funding quality sex-education, improving support services for women and girls who have babies, and so on. After all, it is hard to justify doing evil to stop evil when there are viable non-evil alternatives. If someone gladly embraces deceit to advance their cause when morally better alternatives exist, one must question their ethics.

 

 

Sex workers can face the attitude that because they work in the sex industry, they are excluded from having certain basic rights. This is often based on the view that sex workers are an inferior sort of person and not entitled to the same rights and treatment as the “better sort of people.” As put by Cardi B, “So what? You’re a ho. It don’t matter.” Misogyny and other bigotry can be factors here as well. One problem with addressing any philosophical issue related to sex is that people tend to approach this topic irrationally, but I will endeavor to do so in a rational and objective manner. As my focus is on ethics, to avoid possible red herring diversions in the form of debates about legality, I will focus on legal sex work, such as that done by porn actors.

An easy reply to the view that sex-workers do not matter is that the burden of proof rests on those who make this claim. After all, they are people and should be assumed to be entitled to the same moral rights that we get simply by being people. To disprove thus, it would need to be argued that by being engaged in sex-work, people forfeit these basic rights. While there are biases against sex-workers, there do not seem to be any compelling logical reasons that their choice of profession robs them of their basic moral rights.

One example of a perceived lack of rights is the view that sex workers do not have the right to complain about being sexually harassed or being expected to provide sex when they do not want to do so. While it might seem odd for a sex-worker to have the right to complain about being sexually harassed or having to engage in unwanted sex, there are at least two reasons this is as legitimate for them as any other worker. The first is that profession does not matter when it comes to the person’s basic rights. Just because a person is a sex-worker, it does not follow that they cannot be sexually harassed. To use an analogy, just because a person is a football player who engages in a violent sport for a living it does not follow that they cannot be assaulted. The same holds for sex-workers.

The second is that the sex-worker’s work is sex, so their being sexually harassed or being pushed to engage in sex when they do not wish would be compelled labor. If the director of a hospital coerced their doctors into giving her free medical services during their off hours, then that would be unacceptable. Or if the manager of a fast-food restaurant made their workers cook meals for them at home for free, then that would be wrong. The same applies to sex workers: they have the same right as any other worker to refuse to engage in compelled labor.

Another area of concern for sex-workers is their working conditions, broadly construed. This includes the acts they are expected to engage in, how they are treated, what language is used, and so on. While some might think that a sex-worker should expect to simply work with whatever conditions they are subjected to, this same attitude is not applied to other workers. At least by people with a sense of moral decency. As such, sex-workers should have the right to reject the conditions they wish to reject, without fear of retaliation. Obviously, this can have legitimate career consequences, and there is the question of what working conditions should or should not be considered acceptable. But this subject would go far beyond the scope of this short essay.  

An obvious criticism of this view is to argue that sex-workers’ work is, by definition, sex. As such, they must expect to engage in sex. To use an analogy, if a person is working as an engineer, then they must expect to engage in engineering when they are at work. If they do not want to engineer things, then they need to find another line of work. Likewise, for sex-workers. While this reply does have some intuitive appeal, it does fail.

While a sex-worker must expect that their work in sex involves sex, that does not entail that they must accept any conditions in their field. To use an analogy, a professional boxer must expect that they will be punched. As such, if a boxer does not want to get punched, then they need to find another line of work. However, if after agreeing to a normal match and they are confronted by a knife wielding opponent and expected to fight in a pool of pudding, then they have the right to refuse the fight. Also, if they enter into an agreement to fight a normal match, and then things are changed on them during the fight, they would have the right to refuse to continue. So, just as agreeing to box does not entail that a boxer must accept whatever violence might be done to them, agreeing to sex-work does not entail that the sex-worker agrees to everything that might be done to them.

Some might think that worrying about how sex-workers are treated is silly or a waste of time, but that view is exactly the problem. To think that sex-workers somehow lose their basic rights because they are sex workers is the problem. Sex workers are as entitled to basic moral rights as anyone else who works for a living.

There is a minimum income needed to survive, to pay for necessities such as food, shelter, clothing and health care. To address this need, the United States created a minimum wage. However, this wage has not kept up with the cost of living and many Americans do not earn enough to support themselves. These people are known, appropriately enough, as the working poor. This raises an obvious moral and practical question: who should bear the cost of making up the difference between the minimum wage and a living wage? The two main options seem to either employers can pay employees enough to live on, or taxpayers will need to pick up the tab. Another alternative is to simply not make up for the difference and allow people to try to survive in desperate poverty. In regards to who currently makes up the difference, at least in Oregon, the answer was given in the University of Oregon’s report on “The High Cost of Low Wages in Oregon.”

According to the report, roughly a quarter of the workers in Oregon made no more than $12 per hour. Because of this, many workers qualify for public assistance, such as SNAP (better known as food stamps). Not surprisingly, many low-paid workers are employed by large, highly profitable corporations.

According to Raahi Reddy, a faculty member at the University of Oregon, “Basically state and taxpayers are helping these families subsidize their incomes because they get low wages working for the companies that they do.” As such, the answer is that the taxpayers are making up the difference between wages and living wages. Interestingly, Oregon is a leader in two categories: one is the percentage of workers on public support and the other is having among the lowest corporate tax rates. This suggests that the burden falls heavily on the workers who are not on public support (both in and outside of Oregon).

The authors of the report recommended shifting some burden from the taxpayers to the employers in the form of an increased minimum wage and paid sick leave for workers. Not surprisingly, increasing worker compensation is unpopular with corporations. After all, more for the workers means less for the executives and shareholders.

Assuming that workers should receive enough resources to survive, the moral concern is whether this cost should be shifted from the taxpayers to the employers or remain on the taxpayers.

One argument in favor of leaving the burden on the taxpayers is that it is not the moral responsibility of the corporations to pay a living wage. Their moral obligation is not to the workers but to the shareholders and this obligation is to maximize profits (presumably within the limits of the law).

One response is that businesses are part of civil society and this imposes certain moral obligations on all members of that society. These obligations include providing at least a living wage to full-time employees. It could argued that it is fairer that the employer pay a living wage than to expect the taxpayer to make up the difference. After all, the taxpayers are not profiting from the labor of the workers, so they would be subsidizing the profits of the employers by allowing them to pay workers less. Forcing the taxpayers to make up the difference is unjust and is robbing them to increase corporate profits.

It could be countered that requiring a living wage could destroy a company, thus putting the workers into a worse situation, that of being unemployed rather than underpaid. This is a legitimate concern, at least for businesses that would be unable to survive if they paid a living wage. However, this argument would not work for business, such as Walmart, that have robust profit margins. It might be claimed that there must be one standard for all businesses, be they a tiny bookstore that is barely staying open or a megacorporation that hands out millions in bonuses to top management. The obvious reply is that there are already different standards that apply to different businesses based on the differences between them and some of these are even reasonable and morally acceptable.

Another line of argumentation is to show that there is, in fact, no obligation to ensure citizens have a living income. In this case, employers would would have no obligation. The taxpayers would also not have any obligation, but they could elect lawmakers to pass laws authorizing that tax dollars be spent supporting the poor. That is, the taxpayers could chose to provide charity to the poor. This is not obligatory, but merely a nice thing to do. Some business could, of course, also choose to be nice, they could pay full-time workers at least a living wage. But this should, one might argue, be entirely a matter of choice.

Some folks would, of course, want to take this even further: if assisting other citizens to have a living income is a matter of choice and not an obligation, then tax dollars should not be used to assist those who make less than a living wage. Rather, this should be a matter of voluntary charity, and everyone should be free to decide where their money goes. Naturally, consistency would require that this principle of free choice be extended beyond just assisting the poor.  After all, free choice entails that people should decide as individuals whether to contribute to the salaries of members of the legislatures, to the cost of wars, to subsidies to corporations, to the CIA, to the FBI and so on. This does, obviously enough, have some appeal as the state would operate like a collection of charity recipients, getting whatever money people wished to contribute. The only major downside is that it would probably result in the collapse of civil society.

 

While the police are supposed to protect and serve, there are grave concerns about policing in America. Back in 2015, Patrolman Michael Thomas Slager shot Walter Lamer Scott to death after what should have been a routine traffic stop. While the video does not show what happened before Scott started to flee, it shows Scott was no threat to Slager: he was unarmed and running away. The video also shows Slager dropping an object by Scott’s body, what appears to be Slager’s Taser. When Slager called in the incident, he described it as a justifiable shooting: he claimed Scott grabbed his Taser and he had to use his service weapon. Obviously Slager was unaware that he was being recorded as he shot the fleeing Scott.

As I am friends with former and current law enforcement personnel, I know there are good officers. As such, I will not offer a sweeping condemnation of all police. However, this incident raised concerns about policing in the United States.

What made this incident unusual is not that a situation involving a black man and white officer escalated. It is also not very unusual that a black man was shot by a police officer. What was unusual at the time was that it was videotaped and the public got to see what happened, as opposed to what was claimed by the officer. If the incident had not been recorded, this would have bene just another case of a suspect attacking a police officer and being shot in self-defense. The recording, however, transformed it from the usual to the unusual: a police officer being charged with murder for shooting a suspect.

Since I teach critical thinking, I understand that the story of one incident, however vivid, is just an anecdote. I am also aware that to generalize from one incident is to commit the fallacy of hasty generalization. That said, the videotape provided grounds for being suspicious of other incidents in which suspects have been shot while (allegedly) trying to attack an officer. Since we know that it has happened, we know that it can happen. The obvious and important concern is the extent to which this sort of thing has happened and is still happening. That is, what needs to be determined is the extent to which officers have engaged in legitimate self-defense and to what extent officers have gotten away with murder.

This videotape showed, rather dramatically, that requiring police to use body cameras can be a good idea. People are somewhat less likely to act badly if they know they are being recorded. There is also the fact that there can be evidence of misdeeds. Cameras can sometimes benefit officers as video evidence might show when the use of force was legitimate.

What was also usual about this incident is that there was intense focus on the fact that Scott had a criminal record and legal troubles involving child support. This was part of the usual strategy of trying to show that the victim of a police shooting was “no angel” and perhaps to suggest that the shooting was, in some manner, justified. Or, at the very least, not as bad as one might think. However, Scott’s background had no relevance in this incident: his past legal troubles did not justify the shooting.

What was also usual was the reaction of Bill O’Reilly and some of the other fine folks at Fox, which I learned about back in 2015 from Professor Don Hubin’s reaction and criticism. Rather than focusing on the awfulness of the killing and what it suggests about other incidents, O’Reilly’s was worried that some people might use the killing to “further inflame racial tensions” and he added that “there doesn’t seem to be, as some would have you believe, that police are trying to hunt down black men and take their lives.” While this is not a claim that has been seriously put forth, O’Reilly endeavored to “prove” his claim by engaging in a misleading comparison.

He noted that “In 2012, last stats available, 123 blacks were killed by police 326 whites were killed.” While this shows that police kill more whites than blacks in total numbers, the comparison is misleading because O’Reilly leaves out a critical piece of information: the population at the time was about 77% white and about 13% black. This sheds a rather different light on O’Reilly’s statistics: they are accurate, yet misleading. In total numbers, more whites than blacks were killed by police. But blacks were killed at a disproportionately higher rate.

This point is usually countered by the claim that blacks commit more crimes than whites and thus it is no surprise that they get shot more often than whites. After all, one might point out, Scott did have a criminal record. This reply has a certain irony to it. After all, people who claim that blacks are arrested (and shot) at a disproportionate level claim that the police are more likely to arrest blacks than whites and focus more on policing blacks. As evidence that blacks commit more crimes, they point to the fact that blacks are more likely (adjusting for proportions) than whites to be arrested. While one would obviously expect more blacks to be arrested if they committed more crimes (proportionally), to assume what is in doubt (that policing is fair) as evidence that it should not be doubted is circular reasoning.

O’Reilly also used another stock defense: “You can’t … you can’t be a perfect system. There are going to be bad police officers; they’re going to make mistakes; um .. and then the mistakes are going to be on national television.” O’Reilly is using the perfectionist fallacy: the system cannot be perfect (which is true), therefore (he infers) we should not be concerned that this could be evidence of systematic problems. Or perhaps he just means that in an imperfect system one must expect mistakes such as an officer shooting a fleeing suspect. O’Reilly was also concerned that the mistakes would be on television. perhaps his concern was that people would fall victim to a hasty generalization from the misleading vividness of the incident. That would be a fair point if he operated in good faith. However, the message O’Reilly seemed to conveying is that this incident was an isolated one that does not indicate a systemic problem. Even though these “isolated” incidents happen with terrible regularity.

I will close by noting that my objective is not to attack the police. Rather, my concern is that the justice system should be just. It should also be important to all Americans, after all, most of us pledged allegiance to a nation that is supposed to offers liberty and justice to all.

 

Back in 2018, President Trump proposed executing certain types of drug dealers as a solution to the opioid epidemic. As Trump remains Trump, it is likely he will make a similar proposal when he returns to the White House. But this does raise the issue of whether executing drug dealers is a good way to address drug addiction. Put crudely, can the United States kill its way out of this problem.

From a practical standpoint, a key question is whether executing drug dealers would reduce drug addiction in America. It will, of course, be assumed that the CEOs of pharmaceutical companies manufacturing and distributing opioids will not be executed. For those interested in a career in drug dealing, the best option is to get congress to legalize your dealing. The second best is to run your drug dealing as part of the legal business of your large corporation. This way you will probably never do any time no matter how much you do crime. At worst, you’ll be forced to pay a percentage of your profits in a negotiated settlement.

Intuitively, execution could impact addiction. As a great philosopher once said, “if you kill someone for doing something, they won’t do that again.” Killing drug dealers would reduce their numbers and could reduce the extent of drug addiction in America. This would require killing new dealers if they stepped in to replace the dead ones, but this is a practical problem in the logistics of killing.

There is also the deterrence factor. On the face of it, one might believe the threat of execution would deter people from dealing drugs. This assumes drug dealers are suitably rational actors, and their calculation of the risks and benefits will guide them to stop dealing. This would also assume that they have better options available. Alternatively, it could be argued that fear of execution would suffice to deter them. People do fear death and try to avoid it. As such, one could conclude that we could kill our way out of this problem. However, we do not need to rely on speculative arguments about how potential drug dealers might respond to threats of execution. We can look at the data about the effectiveness of the threat execution as a deterrent.

We have extensive data about the death penalty, thanks to America’s enthusiasm for killing people. The evidence is that it is not an effective deterrence, which runs contrary to what intuitions about death and threats of death would suggest. So, it seems unlikely that we can kill our way out of this problem. In addition to the practical issue of whether this approach would work, there is the moral question about its ethics.

On the face of it, the moral issue has been settled by the practical issue: if the death penalty would not deter drug dealers, then the deterrence argument does not morally justify executing them. However, the retribution argument remains: killing drug dealers could be morally justified as retribution for their crimes.

On the one hand, this does have some appeal. Drug use does result in some deaths, and some of the blame for some deaths can be placed drug dealers. If a business knowingly provides a dangerous product to customers, then they are morally accountable for at least some of the harms. This is true in the case of legal products, such as tobacco and prescription opioids, and especially true for products that are illegal because they are harmful, such as illegally trafficked opioids.

While drug dealers do deserve punishment for distributing harmful products (such as tainted drugs), the punishment must fit the principle of proportionality: the punishment must be warranted by the severity of the harm done in the crime.

A drug dealer that intentionally sold contaminated products that killed users would be directly responsible for those deaths. The same would apply to a company that knowingly sold fatally flawed legal products that killed people, such as defective cars. Obviously, the criminal could face legal consequences for their crimes, but from the moral perspective, the legality of the actions is not the primary concern. It would be causing death that matters morally. It would be these case that would most plausibly merit execution, on the principle that the punishment (death) should match the crime (causing death). However, selling someone a fatally defective product is morally distinct from directly killing them, such as by stabbing them to death. As such, executing those who knowingly sell defective products that could cause death would raise moral concerns.

Drug dealers probably do not intentionally sell defective products to kill their customers, if only because they want repeat business. But illegal drugs are often harmful, and this is morally relevant. The harms of illegal drugs can be numerous, ranging from health issues to death by overdose. Many legal products, such as alcohol and tobacco, are also harmful. As such, the question is whether it is morally acceptable to execute someone for providing a harmful product that can potentially kill the user. Once again, the legal issue is distinct from the moral—after all, all any drug could be legalized tomorrow, but this would not change the basic moral concern. The easy and obvious answer is that while knowingly selling harmful products is wrong, this level of wrongness does not merit execution. As such, killing drug dealers for dealing drugs would be no more ethical than killing the owners of Heineken or R.J. Reynolds for distributing legal products that cause significant health issues and contribute to the ruin of many lives.

Some states have passed or are considering laws that would restrict what government aid can be used to purchase. One apparently pro-active approach, taken by my adopted state of Florida, has been to weed out drug users by requiring recipients of aid to pass a drug test. In Missouri, there has been an effort to prevent food stamp recipients from using their aid to buy steak or seafood. In Kansas a proposed law forbids people receiving government assistance from using those funds to visit swimming pools, buy movie tickets, gamble or get tattoos.

While these proposals and policies are fueled by unwarranted stereotypes of the poor, it is possible to argue in their favor and two such arguments will be considered. Both arguments share a common principle, namely that the state needs to protect certain citizens from harm (which is a reasonable principle). The first argument centers on the need for the state to protect the poor from their poor decision making. The second focuses on the need to protect the taxpayers from being exploited by the poor.

The first argument is essentially an appeal to paternalism: the poor are incapable of making their own good decisions and thus the wisdom of the lawmakers must guide them. If left unguided, the poor will waste their limited government support on things like drugs, gambling, tattoos, steak and lobsters. This approach has a philosophical pedigree. Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, argued that the compulsive power of the state should be used to compel the citizens to be virtuous. Other thinkers, usually those who favor totalitarianism, also find the idea of this paternalism appealing.

Despite the pedigree of this approach, it is always reasonable to inquire as to whether a law is needed or not. In the case of a law that forbids, the obvious line of inquiry is to investigate the extent to which people engage in the behavior that is supposed to be forbidden by the law.

Despite the anecdotal evidence of Fox News’ infamous welfare surfer, there seems to be little evidence that people who receive state aid are blowing their state aid on strip clubs, drugs, steak or lobster. Rather, the poor (like almost everyone else) spend most of their money on things like housing and non-luxury food. In regard to drugs, people on support are no more likely than anyone else to be using them. As such, unless it can be clearly shown that a significant percentage of aid recipients are engaged in such “poor choices”, these laws would seem to be, at best,  solutions in search of a problem.

It is also reasonable to consider whether a law is morally consistent in regard to how all citizens are treated. If the principle at work is that recipients of state money must be guided by the state because they cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, then this must be extended to all recipients of such money. This would include farmers getting subsidies, companies getting government contracts, government employees, recipients of tax cuts and so on. This is all government aid.

This is a matter of moral consistency. If some citizens must be subject to strict restrictions on how the state money can be spent and perhaps pass a drug test before getting it, then the same must apply to all citizens. Unless, of course, a relevant difference can be shown.

It could be argued that the poor, despite the lack of evidence, are simply more wasteful and worse at spending decisions than the rest of the population. While this does match the stereotypical narrative that some like to push, it does not match reality. One does not need to spend much time on Google to find multitudes of examples of how non-poor recipients of state money wasted it or blew it on luxuries. Also, surviving in poverty requires using very limited resources well.

It could be argued that extending this principle to everyone would be a good idea. After all, people who are not poor make bad decisions with state money and this shows that they need the guiding wisdom of the state and strict control. Of course, this would result in a paternalistic (or “nanny” as some prefer) state that so many self-proclaimed small government freedom lovers profess to dislike.

Obviously, it is also important to consider whether a law will be more harmful or more beneficial. While it could be argued that the poor would be better off if compelled by the state to spend their aid money on what the state decides they can spend it on, there is still the fact that these policies and proposals are solutions in search of a problem. That is, these laws would not benefit people because they are typically not engaged in wasteful spending to begin with.

There is also the moral concern about the harm done to the autonomy and dignity of the recipients of the aid. It is, after all, an assault on a person’s dignity to assume that she is wasteful and bad at making decisions. It is an attack on a person’s autonomy to try to control him, even for his own good.

It might be countered that if the poor accept the state’s money, then they must accept the restrictions imposed by the state. While this does have some appeal, consistency would (as noted above) require this to be applied to everyone getting state money. Which includes the rich. A tax cut is still a handout. And the people passing such laws, since they are paid by the state. Presumably they would not like to be treated this way and consistency would seem to require that they treat others as they would wish to be treated.

The second main argument for such restrictions is based on the claim that they are needed to protect the taxpayers from being exploited by the poor. While some do contend that any amount of state aid is too much and is theft from the taxpayers (the takers stealing from the makers), such restrictions at least accept that the poor should receive some aid. But this aid must be for essentials and not wasted, otherwise the taxpayers’ money is being (obviously enough) wasted.

As was discussed above, an obvious point of concern is whether such waste is occurring at a level that justifies the compulsive power of the state being employed. As noted above, these proposals and policies seem to be solutions in search of a problem. As a general rule, laws and restrictions should not be imposed without adequate justification and this seems lacking in this case.

This is not to say that people should not be concerned that taxpayer money is being wasted or spent unwisely. It, in fact, is. However, this is not a case of the clever poor milking the middle-class and the rich. Rather, it is a case of the haves milking the have-less. One prime example of this is wealthfare, much of which involves taxpayer money going to subsidize and aid those who are already quite well off, such as corporations. So, I do agree that the taxpayer needs to be protected from exploitation. But the exploiters are not the poor. This should be obvious: if the poor were draining significant resources from the rest of the citizens, they would no longer be poor.

But some might still insist, the poor really are spending their money on steak, lobsters, strip clubs and gambling. One not unreasonable reply is that “man does not live by bread alone” and it does not seem wrong that the poor would also have a chance to enjoy the few luxuries or fun that their small amount of aid can buy.  Assuming, of course, that they are not spending everything on food and shelter. I would certainly not begrudge a person an occasional steak or beer. Or a swim in a pool. I do, of course, think that people should spend wisely, but that is another matter.  

 

Proponents of unions advance the classic free-rider argument for compelling non-union employees to share in the cost of collective bargaining. Public unions are usually legally required to provide services to non-member employees. Because of this, if employees did not pay fees to offset the costs of these benefits, then they would be exploiting the people who did pay. This would effectively be stealing. This argument is morally compelling, and this can be illustrated by an analogy.

Imagine that a Lunch Group was formed by people who went to lunch together and this group provided lunch and other benefits in return for a membership fee. Now suppose that a law was passed that required the Lunch Group to pay for the lunches of anyone who was in the same restaurant when they had their lunch. While this would be a great deal for freeloaders, it would not be fair for the Lunch Group. As people could get the benefits of the Lunch Group without contributing, the group would probably disband as paying members would have little incentive to remain because the free riders would be exploiting them.

Naturally, some free riders might argue they are entitled to the free lunch, but that they should not contribute because they do not like the other benefits and disagree with some of the views of the group members. They just want their free lunch. This is analogous to the free speech argument advanced in favor of not paying the union fees: the employees want the benefits of the union, but do not want to pay for them.  They justify this by claiming that they do not agree with the political views and activities of the union. However, this is an absurd argument.

The no-free lunch reasoning is usually a favorite of conservatives. For example, it is a common conservative position that people who can work should work rather than “freeloading” on welfare. They criticize people who exploit the system as free riders. This principle should apply to public unions: if free riding on others is morally wrong, then free riding on a public union is morally wrong as well.

Fortunately, there is an easy solution to the problem, and one often endorsed by conservatives: workers should be free to join the union or not and they should be free to pay the fees or not. But, if they elect to not pay the fees, then they should receive none of the benefits. Just as a business is not required to provide free stuff to people just because they want it, the same should apply to the unions as well.

If unions are compelled to provide services to non-union members, then the law must also compel them to pay their fair share. Otherwise, the state would be mandating the equivalent of free lunches, something that conservatives rail against.  Except when it comes to busting unions. After all, an effective way to destroy a union is to compel it to provide services for free. This will encourage free riding and will deplete union funds—something that would please most conservatives. It is thus somewhat ironic that some conservatives use a tactic against unions that explicitly violates a professed principle of conservatives. But expecting consistency or any consequence from inconsistency has proven foolish. As has expecting principles.

Following their “good guy with a gun” mantra, Republicans often respond to school shootings with proposals to arm teachers. While there is some public support for these proposals, most Americans are not enamored of the idea. Teachers, with some exceptions, tend to oppose these proposals. As a necessary disclaimer, I’ve been shooting since I could hold a gun and shoot it safely.

While people line up on this issue based on their ideology, it should be given an objective evaluation in terms of practicality and morality.

From a practical standpoint, the question is whether arming teachers would make students safer. Under this broad consideration are other practical concerns. For example, an obvious concern is whether an average teacher would be able to engage and defeat a shooter with a reasonable chance of success and survival. School shooters tend to be inexperienced and untrained and a teacher with some training would probably be as skilled as the typical shooter. But school shooters tend to use assault rifles, and this gives them a firepower advantage in terms of range, accuracy, damage and magazine size. This assumes that teachers would be armed with pistols. But some would argue, a pistol is still better than being unarmed.

So, an armed teacher would be objectively better than an unarmed teacher when engaging a shooter. But the engagement would not be like a shootout in a Western, with gunslingers facing each other in an empty street. The engagement would probably take place with students in the area, making it possible that a teacher will miss the shooter and hit students. Even trained professionals often miss pistol shots in an active engagement and a teacher with just basic firearm training will miss more often. This leads to the practical and moral question of whether this engagement would make students safer than not arming teachers. The practical matter is an empirical question: would an armed teacher reduce casualties by either taking out the shooter or keeping their attention and allowing more people to escape? Or would they do more harm by wounding and killing students with missed shots? If teachers are armed, we will be able to collect data on this.

The moral concern is best put in utilitarian terms: if there is a reduction in deaths due to armed teacher intervention, would this outweigh unintended injuries and deaths caused by the teacher? On the face of it, a utilitarian calculation would find the action morally good, provided that the teacher’s actions saved more students than if they had not been armed. However, there is the moral concern about the possibility of teachers unintentionally killing or wounding students. But engaging a shooter would seem to be the right thing to do, even if there are unintentional casualties.

If concerns were limited to the engagement, then this matter would be settled. However, there are obvious worries about what harms might arise from having armed teachers in schools. Their guns will not magically appear in their hands when needed, nor can the guns be safely locked away for use only during an attack. The teachers would need to be carrying their guns all the time. This leads to a host of practical and moral problems.

One problem is accidental discharge. While not common, people do accidentally fire concealed weapons while, for example, digging in their purse for their phone. The risk of accidental death and injury needs to be weighed against the effectiveness of armed teachers. Since each gun is a risk every minute it is present, it is not unreasonable to think that the risk of having armed teachers outweighs the risk of not having armed teachers to respond to a shooter.

Another concern is someone taking a teacher’s gun, such as a student grabbing a gun when a teacher is trying to break up a fight. 23% of shootings in hospitals  involve guns taken from security officers; the same problem would apply to schools. This must also be factored in when assessing the moral and practical aspects of the matter. It would be ironic and awful if a school shooter used a gun taken from a teacher.

There is also the worry an armed teacher will be mistaken for a shooter when the police arrive. In the confusion of an engagement, the police will need to instantly distinguish the good guys with guns from the bad guys with guns. Armed teachers run the risk of being shot by the police or other armed teachers who see the gun but do not recognize their colleague in the heat of the crisis.

One concern that some will see as controversial is the worry that arming teachers will put black and Latino students at greater risk. Because black and Latino students already tend to be treated worse than white students, they will be at greater risk of being shot by teachers. This concern is often coupled with worries about stand-your-ground laws that allow people to use deadly force when they feel threatened. This concern does extend to white students as well; an armed teacher might feel threatened by a white student and pull their gun. It would be terrible and ironic if armed teachers ended up killing students rather than protecting them. While most teachers, like most people, are not inclined towards murder, the possibility of students being wounded or killed by armed teachers must be considered.

Assessing the morality and practicality of arming teachers requires weighing the risks of arming teachers against the benefits of doing so. Based on the above discussion, one advantage of arming teachers is that they will have a somewhat better chance of stopping or slowing down a shooter. Weighed against this are the many disadvantages noted above—disadvantages that include the possibility of teachers and students being wounded or killed by armed teachers.

One rational, but cold, way to approach this matter is to weigh the odds of a school shooting against the odds of people being harmed by arming teachers. While exact calculations of odds are problematic, the odds of a shooting incident in any K-12 school in a year in the United States has been estimated as 1 in 53,925. For high schools, it is 1 in 21,000. For elementary schools, 1 in 141,463. While these calculations can be questioned, school shootings are statistically rare given the number of schools and numbers of students. This does not diminish the awfulness of shootings. But, when coldly weighing the risks of arming teachers, it is critical. This is because arming teachers would be a good idea (practically and morally) if the benefits outweighed the harms. Determining this requires estimating the odds of a shooting, the odds an armed teacher will stop it and the odds of the various harms of arming teachers occurring. If a reasonable calculation shows that arming teachers would create more good than bad, then arming teachers would be a good idea. If not, it would be a bad idea. Perhaps this cold calculation might be countered by an emotional appeal, such as “if only one student is saved by an armed teacher, it would be worth it.” To this, there are two replies. One is that good policy is not determined by emotional appeals but by rational assessment of the facts. The second is an emotional appeal: “would it still be worth it if one student died because of armed teachers? Or two? Or ten?” My view is that arming teachers, given the odds, is a bad idea. However, I am open to evidence and arguments in favor of arming teachers.