Category: Ethics

As J.S. Mill pointed out in his writing on liberty, people usually do not follow consistent principles. Instead, they act based on likes and dislikes, which often arise from misinformation and disinformation. Comparing the view of many Republicans on abortion to their view of on immigration illustrates this clearly.

To use a concrete example, Alabama passed a very restrictive anti-abortion law that even forbids abortion in the case of rape. Proponents of the law, such as Alabama governor Kay Ivey, claimed the motivation behind the law is to protect life. As the governor said, “to the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.”

On the face of it, the principle is that because each life is precious and a sacred gift, if a man impregnates a woman (or girl), then she is obligated to host the zygote until birth. The expenses and risks of doing so fall on the woman (or girl). The United States government does little to assist pregnant women. Looked at in the abstract, the principle is that if a child manages to get inside a certain area, then there is an obligation on the part of the owner of that area to care for that child until the child can safely exit the area. If removing the child would kill or harm the child, then the child cannot be removed, perhaps regardless of how the child got there.

This principle would seem to also apply to migrant children who enter the United States, even if they are brought here illegally and against the will of the United States. Once they get within the United States, if expelling them would lead to harm, then the United States is obligated to care for them until they can safely exit the United States. After all, if the principle permits compelling women to bear a child from rape, then it surely permits compelling the United States to care for migrant children who are here illegally. At least until the children can safely leave the country.

It could be objected that abortion always kills a child while expelling a migrant child from the United States will probably not kill them. Hence the analogy fails. One reply is to argue that if every life is precious and a sacred gift, then even harming a precious, sacred gift would be wrong. That is, the principle isn’t “killing them would be wrong, but anything else is okay” but that each precious life must be treated as a sacred gift and one does not throw a sacred gift out.

 But making the strongest analogy requires considering only cases in which expulsion would result in death. There are migrant children (and adults) who are likely to be killed if they are sent back. It could be countered that, unlike abortion, they do have a chance of surviving. If so, the principle would have to be “each life is precious and a sacred gift, but this only entails that children should not be exposed to certain death. Likely death or great harm is morally okay.” While this is certainly a principle that one could hold, it is not commendable.

 As such, there would seem to be two options for anti-abortion folks who also want to be anti-migrant. The first is to consistently apply their avowed principle and accept immigrants when their expulsion would be likely to result in their harm. Or, if they want to be extremely strict, their deaths. The second option would be to abandon or modify their principle so that it applies only to abortion but not to migrants. The challenge is doing so in a manner that is not ad hoc or begs the question. For example, just saying that the principle only applies to the bodies of women but not to the United States would be ad hoc, as would saying that only zygotes deserve to be protected. It is worth noting that those who are pro-choice and pro-migrant would also need to consider the possible conflict between their principles as well.

One might also suspect that some anti-abortion folks are not motivated by a desire to protect “sacred, precious life” but have other, less laudable, motivations. Such people could easily reconcile being anti-abortion with being anti-migrant, perhaps by holding the principle that the state’s power should be used to harm people they dislike.

 

 

The first Trump administration made it clear that they saw creating fear as a legitimate tool to deter migration. During his campaign, Trump promised mass deportation and there is no reason to think that a kinder, gentler approach will be adopted in his second term in office. But is using fear to deter migration ethical?

It can be argued that it is. Obviously, deterring people by using laws and policies aimed at creating fear is a how society attempts to deter people from committing crimes. If it is morally acceptable to do this to deter potential jay walkers and murderers, then it is acceptable to do this to deter migrants. While some ethicists oppose the use of coercion by fear, the strategy of deterring bad behavior through fear has the approval of Aristotle.  This is like the use of force: not all uses of force are to be condemned, just immoral ones. So, the key question is whether using fear to deter migrants is morally acceptable.

In the past, the Trump administration adopted a strategy of creating fear by doing evil. First, the administration aggressively followed a policy of separating children and parents and officials were clear that this was intended to deter migration by creating fear that America would do evil to migrants. It is no accident that in fiction a quick way to show a group is evil is for it to take children from their parents. Second, the Trump administration treated detained children badly. Caging children and denying them necessities is also a stock behavior of evil characters in fiction. This is for good reason since mistreating children is evil. The purpose of this was to deter migrants through fear that if they try to come here, America will put their children into dirty cages without soap or toothbrushes.

Proponents of this policy argued that people choose to come here illegally knowing what will happen, then what is done to them is justified. On the one hand, this has some appeal. If I tell someone that a pot is hot and they grab it anyway, they only have themselves to blame.  On the other hand, if people are being pushed into a situation, such tactics mean people will be harmed rather than deterred. Going back to the stove, if I keep a hot pot to deter starving people from taking the food, I will just end up burning hungry people. Saying that they knew they would be burned is not an adequate defense. In the case of migration, many people are fleeing problems the United States helped. People are being pushed by things worse than what the Trump administration tried to do to scare them away.

There is also the fact that, as Locke argued, there are moral limits to how even a criminal can be treated. One of these is proportionality. Separating families and imprisoning children without necessities is a punishment that goes beyond the alleged crime. This is especially important in the case of children; they cannot rightly be considered guilty of a crime and hence punishing them is unwarranted. As such, using these methods is wrong.

As a final point, even if using such wicked means to deter people could be justified on utilitarian grounds, this would require showing that they are effective. However, they clearly did not work, and we were burning the hungry because the pain of the burn is less than the pain of the hunger. The Trump administration was fine with this. While they had hoped these evils would deter people, they had no qualms about doing wrong even when it does not achieve their stated goal. It became evil for evil’s sake, and we should expect more of the same.

One of the founding myths of the United States is that religious liberty is enshrined because people fled to the colonies to escape religious persecution and the strong connections between the church and state in Europe. Whatever the truth of the matter, these are two excellent reasons to legally protect religious liberty. After all, persecuting people based on their faith (or lack thereof) seems wrong. Concentrating secular and theological power has often proven dangerous, although the church and the state can be quite harmful operating on their own. See, for example, Pol Pot or the scandals of the Catholic Church. As such, freedom of religion seems generally good, albeit within limits.

It might strike some as odd that religious liberty should be limited, but it is the nature of freedoms that they require limitations to exist. To say that freedom requires limiting freedom might seem paradoxical or Orwellian, but it is neither. Consider, for example, the freedom to own property. As Hobbes argued in his Leviathan, if everyone has the right to everything, then this amounts to a right to nothing. As Hobbes and others have noted, meaningful property rights require limiting property rights. To illustrate, for you to own your phone or house, it follows that my liberty to own or use them must be limited. The same applies to other freedoms and rights. For example, your right to life puts limits on the freedoms of others; they are not free to murder you. The same applies to religious liberty: for you to have freedom of religion, others must be restricted in their ability to compel you to practice a different faith or to forbid you from practicing your faith. As such, to accept religious liberty in a meaningful sense is to accept that it has limits. The practical challenge is sorting out these limits, which is a matter of grave concern in the areas of religion, law and ethics.

One sensible approach to freedom is that of John Stuart Mill. Mill argues that freedom should be set on utilitarian grounds using a principle of harm. The gist of his approach is that if what you are doing does not harm anyone else, then you should be free to act (or think) in that way. If your action harms others, then this provides a reason to limit your freedom. As would be expected, this approach is often applied to religious freedom. To illustrate, it is unreasonable to tolerate human sacrifice on the grounds of religious liberty.  This can also be seen as an evaluation of which right trumps the other. In the case of human sacrifice, it can be argued that the right to life takes precedence over the right to practice one’s religion. As a practical matter, as Mill noted, people tend to take the view that what they like should be allowed and what they dislike should be forbidden, without any general principle in operation beyond liking and disliking.

Some would argue that religious freedom has been weaponized to be used against homosexuals, transgender people and women. For example, there are those who argue that discrimination against homosexuals and transgender people in housing, employment, and so on is justified by the religious views of those who claim that homosexuality or being transgender is against their religion. In the case of women, there are those who contend that their religious liberty should allow them to refuse to provide contraception or abortion services to women. There are, of course, those who say that they are just defending true religious freedom, it just so happens that it seems to always discriminate against people they do not like.

One interesting point is that if religious freedom allows such discrimination, then it will allow discrimination against anyone if one has the right sort of religion. For example, Christianity would seem to warrant discrimination against liars, adulterers, those who worship graven images, witches, those who misuse the name of God, those who do not respect their mother and father, and so on. Consistency would seem to require that if, for example, homosexuals can be discriminated against because they are seen as violating sincerely held religious beliefs, then the same would apply to all sinners. That is all of us, for we are all guilty of some sin or another. Probably many. Oddly enough, there seems to be little interest in denying goods and services to adulterers and liars (which is fortunate for Trump) even though adultery and lying make it into the Ten Commandments and homosexuality is mentioned but once and apparently as being on par with eating shellfish. One might suspect that proponents of this sort of religious freedom are looking for a way to justify their discrimination rather than with acting consistently in accord with their professed faith. After all, if one should be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals because they are engaged in what one regards as sinful behaviors, then the same should apply to all sins. This, of course, seems absurd since it would warrant discrimination against everyone. So, let he is without sin engage in the first discrimination.

Some years ago, Alabama led the way by passing the most restrictive anti-abortion law of the time, one that forbid abortion even in cases of rape and incest. After Roe v Wade was overthrown, other states rushed to implement anti-abortion laws. Proponents of such laws, such as Alabama governor Kay Ivey, claim that their motivation is to protect life. As the governor said, “to the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.” Some who opposed the bill claimed that it was not about protecting life but about restricting women’s reproductive rights. While we can never know what other people think and feel, it is sensible to look at the evidence when determining likely motivations and intentions. As always, it is rational to judge the function of something by what it does, rather than what people say it is intended to do.

In the case of the abortion law, the claim was that Alabamians believe that every life is a precious and sacred gift from God. This is certainly consistent with wanting to reduce the number of abortions. But do Alabamian politicians and authorities hold to this view? A sensible test is to see if they consistently apply this principle in their legislation and actions throughout the state.

Coincidentally, as the governor of Alabama was signing the law because of her deep belief that life is a precious, sacred gift a story broke that Alabama’s prison conditions are so awful as to be unconstitutional. If Alabamians believe that every life is a precious, sacred gift then they would presumably not permit the sacred lives in their prisons to endure such unconstitutional treatment.

An obvious objection is to argue that while all lives are precious, sacred gifts, some lives are more precious and sacred than others. While fetuses are innocent, prisoners have been found guilty of something and hence deserve to be punished. As such, having horrible prisons is consistent with the view that life is a precious, sacred gift.

This has some appeal. Even if life is precious, morality still permits people to be treated differently based on their actions. As such, one can hold that life is precious, but some life must be locked up. However, there is still a problem. If life is a precious, sacred gift, then even the worst people are still precious, sacred gifts and deserve decent treatment. Moral and legal limits of punishment are, of course, recognized by the constitution and Alabama’s failure to act on this casts doubts on their devotion to the professed principle that each life is a precious, sacred gift.

But one could still argue that criminals earn their abuse by being bad and hence Alabama is acting consistently by having terrible prisons and a strict anti-abortion law at the same time. But if Alabamans have this devotion to life, one expects that it would manifest in excellent maternal and infant health. If your doctor said she saw you as a precious, sacred gift and would do anything to protect life, you would expect her to act on that. You would no doubt be shocked if she proved negligent in her medical responsibilities and you ended up being needlessly ill.

Given the professed view that Alabamans regard life as a precious, sacred gift, one would be shocked to learn that Alabama does poorly when it comes to maternal and infant health. Alabama is tied for 4th worst in the United States, with 7.4 deaths per 1,000 live births. While it might be argued that this is due to factors beyond their control, there is a consistent correlation between strong anti-abortion laws and poor maternal and infant health. While correlation is not causation, the reason for this correlation is clear: the state governments that enact the strictest anti-abortion laws also show, via public policies, the least concern for maternal and infant health. This is inconsistent with the professed principle that life is a precious, sacred gift. It is also inconsistent with the professed motivation for anti-abortion laws: to protect the life of children. It is, however, consistent with the hypothesis that anti-abortion laws are motivated by misogynistic principles. After all, if legislators pass anti-abortion laws because of hostility towards women’s reproductive freedom and wellbeing, then one would also expect them to also neglect maternal and infant health in their other policies. On the face of it, this is the better explanation. The function of state policy is to ban abortion and increase infant and maternal mortality; it is what it does.

It could be argued that Alabaman leaders do hold to the life is a precious, sacred gift principle, they are just bad at consistently applying it. So, it is applied to abortion but not to maternal and infant health or to prisoners. Failing to apply one’s professed principles consistently is a common human failing and could explain how anti-abortion leaders fail to apply their professed pro-life principles to infant and maternal health care. So, one could argue that the Alabaman legislators have a good principle, but they do not apply it consistently, despite their professed devotion to it and the effort they put in applying it in the case of abortion.

But a better explanation is that the Alabaman legislature and governor do not hold to their professed principle. Their actual principle is one that is hostile to women and perhaps to the less powerful in general. This principle is consistent with the state of Alabama prisons and the state of maternal and infant health care. If they do hold to their professed principle, they are incredibly inconsistent in their application, which is morally problematic as well. But the simplest explanation is that they are lying when they profess to believe that life is a sacred, precious gift.

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While American cities have seen an increase in guns being stolen from unlocked cars, Tennessee has been leading the nation. In 2016 2,203 guns were reported stolen from vehicles. In 2017 4,064 thefts were reported. The causes of the increase are no mystery. One factor is the law. Tennessee passed a law allowing people to keep guns in their vehicles without a permit or any training and this increased the number of people keeping guns in their vehicles. A second factor is fear: people worry about violence and anecdotes about car jackings abound. Hence people are more likely to have a gun in their vehicle. A third factor is that when more people have guns, more people want to have guns because they are worried about the other people who have guns. This motivates both the carrying and theft of guns.

Because some stolen guns have been used in crimes, there have been proposals to make it a crime to fail to secure a gun stored in a vehicle. As would be expected, these proposals meet with strong opposition. One argument against them is based on the claim that they would make criminals out of law-abiding citizens. One obvious reply is that this is true of any new law that makes something a crime. What was legal is now a crime, thus citizens who were law-abiding would become criminals if they did not obey the new law. But, as with any law, there is the question of whether it would be a good law.

It can be argued that the gun owner is the victim when their gun is stolen, and they should not be punished for failing to protect their property from theft. To use an analogy, one should not blame the victim of a sexual assault and to suggest that the victim should have been more cautious would be wrong. The same would apply to people who leave guns unsecured in cars. A such, the law should focus on punishing the thief rather than the victim.

While the analogy is appealing, perhaps there is a better analogy here. In my adopted state of Florida pools must be fenced and have gates that close automatically. This is because pools are a hazard and those responsible for them have an obligation to not endanger the public through  negligence. If a child wanders into my pool and drowns because I did not secure it, that death is partially my responsibility. I am not morally protected by property rights to do as I wish with my property.

The same reasoning could be applied to guns: an unsecured gun presents a potential danger to the public and the owner is obliged to secure it. This obligation does not extend to property in general: if someone steals your iPad from your car, that is your loss and does not put others at risk. If someone steals your .45 from your unlocked car, you do suffer a loss, but the public is now at risk from an armed criminal.

One could raise the obvious counter: securing a pool is to protect children who do not know any better, while securing a car is to keep out people who know exactly what they are doing. So, while securing your vehicle is a good idea, the obligation is not on you to secure it, but on other people not to steal from your vehicle.

On the one hand, in general people are not morally obligated to secure their property and other people should not steal. Roughly put, stealing is wrong; not securing your property is just stupid. As such, the law should aim at punishing theft rather than the failure to secure property.

On the other hand, people are morally responsible for dangerous property and should take reasonable steps to secure it. This is especially important for guns since they can be used to harm others. The concern here is that it is not the thief who is at risk, it is other people who could be harmed by the thief using the stolen weapon, which would not have been easily available if it had been secured. As such, this could be seen as  like the pool analogy: the concern is about  innocent people who might be harmed by the negligence of the owner. As always, the mere fact that something is morally wrong does not automatically entail it should be illegal and the legal question remains.

One stock counter to imposing legal responsibilities on gun owners is an appeal to the Second Amendment. The idea is that such restrictions are unconstitutional since they limit the right to keep and bear arms. One stock reply is to point out all the legal restrictions that have passed muster, although these can be debated. Another option is to point out that there are principled restrictions on other fundamental constitutional rights. To use a popular example, the 1st amendment does not allow dangerously irresponsible speech, such as falsely saying that you have a bomb while you are on a plane. The same should hold true for the 2nd. It is not carte blanche for irresponsible behavior and hence it would be acceptable to impose laws requiring responsible behavior as a condition of exercising the right. The question then becomes whether such a law would be unduly burdensome or unreasonable.

On the face of it, requiring people to secure their guns is neither burdensome nor unreasonable. After all, locking the doors is quick and costs nothing. While, as noted above, some have proposed making failure to secure a gun a crime, it seems more reasonable to impose a sensible and effective penalty: the violator would be required to acquire a means of properly securing the gun (such as a gun lock or gun safe). While there might be concerns about cost, these devices are cheaper than the gun they are supposed to secure and hence should be affordable to anyone who can buy a gun. And some guns come with locks when purchased. Pro-gun groups could also use some of their resources to offer discounts to poorer gun owners so they can purchase the means to secure their guns.

Securing one’s gun is a basic responsibility of gun ownership and those who want to exercise this right are obligated to fulfil this responsibility. As such, requiring people to properly secure their guns is reasonable and just, provided that the law does not impose any burdensome requirements or unreasonable punishments.

While there are arguments in favor of school choice that transfers public money to private schools, many of them focus on the benefits to those able to leave public schools. Those left behind seem largely ignored. This is a problem.

An argument in favor of school choice is based on the claim that it allows students to escape from dangerous public schools. It is true that public schools can be violent places and protecting children from violence is laudable. This approach is analogous to moving away from high-crime areas, ideally to well-policed gated communities. While this is beneficial to those who can choose to escape, it does nothing to address the underlying problems of school violence. It merely allows some to escape, while leaving the rest behind.

It could be argued that school choice can still solve the problem. However, the obvious reply is that even if all children are (for example) given vouchers, this will merely recreate the problematic public schools but in private form. This undercuts the safety argument for school choice. It would be like trying to solve the problem of high crime neighborhoods by creating gated communities and then moving everyone within the gates. This shows the basic problem with trying to create safety by moving some people away from unsafe areas: it does nothing for those left behind.

One could counter that the solution is dilution: if the problem children could be identified and distributed among various schools, they would be more manageable. This does have some merit, but this could obviously be done without school choice programs.

It could be argued that what matters is securing the safety of some, be it in private schools funded by public money or in gated communities. As such, school choice is good for those who matter. Those left behind do not matter. While this might be appealing to those on the right side of the gates, the obvious problem is that they do not (yet) exist in total isolation from those left behind. So, failing to address the underlying safety issues still leaves people unsafe. This argument is like arguing that public roads are unsafe because of poor maintenance, so the solution is to provide some drivers with publicly funded road vouchers so they can drive on the safer private roads. While this can be great for those who get the vouchers, it does nothing for those stuck with the dangerous public roads. It would make more sense to use the public money to make the public roads safer.

A second stock argument, the quality argument, in favor of school choice is that private schools perform better than public schools, so parents who want their children to get a good education should favor programs that permit their children to avoid or leave public schools in favor of private schools. This assumes that, in general, public schools will be inferior schools. Let us suppose that is true and the higher quality of private schools is a reason to provide public funds to allow some parents to remove their children from the inferior public schools.

From the perspective of those leaving, this seems like a good argument. Who would not want to be able to choose a better education for their children? However, what happens to those left behind, such as those who do not get vouchers? They, obviously enough, remain in what are claimed to be inferior schools. What about them?

It could be claimed that the choice programs can be expanded to allow more children to escape the bad public schools. But diverting more money to school choice programs will result in less funding for public schools, thus resulting in a spiraling decline for these schools.

It could also be argued that the choice program can be funded without taking money from public schools, so public schools would also be well-funded. However, this creates a problem for the quality argument. If public schools are bad, then it would make more sense to use public money to make them better rather than diverting funds to private schools. If public schools are properly funded and become good schools, then the quality argument would be undercut. Using public money so children can “flee” a good school to attend another good school has little appeal. So, the quality argument is self-defeating.

While school choice is appealing to those who want their children to escape public schools, it does nothing to address those left behind. This is a serious failing of school choice and makes one suspect that its proponents do not really care about the good for all children, just what is good for certain people.

 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Noonien_Singh

Science fiction is replete with tales of genetic augmentation making people more human than human. One classic example is Khan, who is introduced in Star Trek’s “Space Seed” episode. In the Star Trek timeline, scientists used genetic engineering and selective breeding to create augmented humans in the hope of creating a better world. Instead, it led to the eugenics wars between normal humans and the augmented. While ordinary humanity won, there are other stories in which humanity is replaced by its creations. While these are fictional tales, genetic modification is real and human augmentation seems inevitable.

In  science-fiction genetic engineering is used to create super humans but there is the question of what the technology could do within the limits of biology. To avoid contaminating the discussion with hyperbole and impossible scenarios, we need to consider likely rather than fantastical scenarios. That said, genetic augmentation could provide meaningful advantages that are not the stuff of comic books. For example, immunity to some diseases would be very advantageous and even modest improvements in mental and physical abilities would be useful. These modest improvements still raise moral concerns.

As would be expected, people do advance the “playing God” and “unnatural” arguments against augmentation. However, given that modern medicine is also “playing God” and “unnatural”, these objections have little merit.  A better approach is to consider what we should be doing, without the dramatic rhetoric of “playing God” or it being “unnatural.”

Since early augmentations will probably be modest, they are of the most immediate moral concern. One major concern is with the fairness of such augmentation. The rich will be able to afford to augment their children, thus giving them even more advantages over other people and this is a frequent subject of science fiction. While this does raise some new concerns because of the augmentation aspect, the core moral problems are ancient as they are all about determining how opportunities should be distributed in society and determining moral rules for competition within a society.

As it stands, American society allows the wealthy to enjoy a multitude of advantages over the lower classes and the Trump administration is unleashing a chaotic storm aimed at increasing this disparity. However, there are moral limits to what people will tolerate and a good example of this was the college admissions scandal. While it is socially acceptable for the wealthy to make donations and use legacy admissions to get their kids into college, outright bribes were condemned. Genetic augmentation should be looked at as just one more factor in the competition between the economic classes and the same basic ethical concerns apply, albeit with the addition of the ethics of genetic modification.

From the standpoint of what we collectively accept, the question is whether augmentation is more like the accepted advantages of the rich, such as buying tutoring and better education for their children or more like the advantages that are condemned, such as outright bribery.

On the face of it, genetic augmentation is like methods already used to improve the children of the upper classes. They get better medical care, better nutrition, better housing, better education, better tutoring, better counseling and so on. In a real sense, they are already augmented relative to the lower classes. While these advantages are not earned by the children, they do improve their abilities and enable them to have a better chance to succeed because of their enhanced abilities. Genetic augmentation is the same: while they do not earn their augmentation, it would make them objectively better than they would be otherwise, and it would provide another edge over the lower economic classes. The augmented people would, in most cases, get the best opportunities. As such, if the current system is morally acceptable, then genetic augmentation would be acceptable as well.

As would be expected, those who see the current system as immoral because of its unfairness would also think that genetic augmentation would be unfair. One approach to addressing the unfairness of augmentation would be banning the technology, which was the solution in the Star Trek universe. A moral concern with this approach is that it would deny humanity a chance to improve and could be seen as like banning parents from hiring tutors for their kids. Another approach would be to require that all children have the opportunity for enhancement. This would be analogous to ensuring that public resources are distributed equitably for K-12 education, so that everyone is better off.

If one takes the professed American values of fair competition and equality of opportunity seriously (which we obviously should not), then such augments should be treated like public education and available to all citizens. If one seeks to perpetuate the advantages of the upper classes, then one would insist that such augmentations should be available to those who can pay. That is, the upper classes.

The above discussion does, I hasten to note, set aside concerns specific to augmentation itself as my focus has been on the moral question of fairness and distribution of opportunities.

As noted in previous essays, competition over opportunities is usually unavoidable and can be desirable. However, this competition can do more harm than good. One example of this is opportunity hoarding.  Opportunity hoarding occurs when parents try to seek advantages for their children in ways that are harmful to others. As would be suspected, opportunity hoarding typically occurs when parents use morally questionable methods to secure advantages for their children at the expense of other children. An excellent example of this is the 2019 college admissions scandal and I will use this to set the stage for the discussion.

As many writing about the scandal pointed out, the rich have many legal means of tipping the admission scales in favor of their children. These include methods that have nothing to do with the merit of the applicant, such as the use of legacy admissions and making financial contributions to the institutions. Other methods aim at improving the quality of the applicant (or at least the application). These methods include paid test preparation courses, paid counselors, paid tutors, and paid essay coaches. Because the rich have so many advantages already, the admission scandal seemed especially egregious and even perplexing. After all, given the vast advantages the wealthy already enjoy, why would they risk any consequences by using illegal or socially unacceptable methods?   From a philosophical perspective, the scandal raises an interesting general moral question about what methods are acceptable in the competition for opportunities.

Some might consider a Hobbesian state of nature approach to this competition, a war of all against all with no limits, as a good idea. But this would violate the moral intuitions of most people. After all, while we might disagree on specific limits, we almost certainly agree that there are limits. To illustrate, murdering, blinding or maiming children is obviously unacceptable even to give one’s own children an advantage. But once the blatantly horrific is out of the way, there remains a large area of dispute.

One approach is to use the law to define limits. On this view, parents may use any legal means to restrict opportunities in favor of their children. While this might have some appeal, it suffers from an obvious defect: the law is whatever those in power make it, so the evil and unfair are often legal. The usual extreme, but legitimate, example is the legality of slavery. As such, while it is often right to obey the law, it does not follow that what is legal is ethical.  So, if a parent justifies their actions by pointing to their legality, they merely prove they acted legally and have not shown they have acted rightly. So, something is needed beyond legality to determine what the limits of the competition should be.

Since this is a question of ethics on a national scale, an appeal to utilitarianism seems sensible: the limits should be set in terms of what will be most likely to create the greatest benefit and least harm. This leads to the usual problem of sorting out what it means to create the greatest positive value and least negative value. It also requires sorting out the measure of worth.  For example, certain limits on competition might make the children of the wealthy even wealthier while the less wealthy become worse off. But this could create more total wealth than a more equitable system in which even the poor were well off. If what matters, as it does to some, is the overall wealth then these would be the right limits. However, if maximizing value is more about the impact on each person, then the more equitable division would be the moral choice.  It would create more positive value for more people but would fail to create the most total positive value.

Since a utilitarian approach recognizes only the utilitarian calculation of value, some might find this approach problematic. Instead, they might favor a rights-based approach, or one based on a principle of fair competition. To illustrate, Americans profess to value competition, merit and fairness: the best competitors are supposed to win in a fair competition. This, obviously enough, just returns to the problem of fairness: what means are fair to use in the competition for opportunity?

One possible approach is to use a principle of relevance: a fair competition is one in which victory depends on the skills and abilities that are relevant to the nature of the competition. For example, if the competition is based on academic ability, then that should be the deciding factor and donating money should not influence the outcome. This will, of course, lead to a debate about what should be considered relevant. For example, if it is argued that donating money is not relevant to determining college admissions because it is not relevant to academic ability, one might then argue that race or sex are also not relevant and should not be used. So, if relevance is used, it must be properly and consistently defined and applied.

While relevance, in general, is a reasonable consideration, there are also concerns about the preparation for the competitions. To illustrate, the children of the wealthy get a competitive edge in college admissions because their parents can get them into good K-12 schools, pay for tutoring, pay for test preparation, pay for counseling, pay for help on essays and so on. That is, they can buy many advantages that are relevant to the competition for college admissions and careers. On the one hand, these seem to be unfair advantages because they are not available to the children of the poor simply because they are poor. On the other hand, they are relevant to the competition because they do improve the skills and abilities of the children. One possible solution, for those who value fair competition, would be balancing things out by providing the same support to all children, thus making the competition fair. But those who push for “merit” based competition usually want to ensure that the competition is as unfair as possible in their favor. This leads into the question of how far the quest for fairness should go.

At this point, some might be wondering if I will advocate forcing parents to be no better at preparing their children than the worst parents, to even things out. After all, a parent who can spend time engaging in activities with their kids, such as reading to them and helping with homework, confers an advantage to their children. Since making parents do a worse job would make things worse, this would be wrong to do. As such, I obviously support parents being good parents. I only bring this up, because of the usual straw man attacks against advocating for fairness. However, many parents face the challenges of lacking time, resources and education to be better parents and these should be addressed. As such, I would advocate lifting parents up and reject any notion to bring them down.

The above is only a sketch and much more needs to be said about what the rules of competition for opportunity should be in our society. This is, obviously enough, a matter of values: are we just making empty noises when we speak of “fairness”, “opportunity for all” and “merit-based competition” while embracing the practice of unfairly buying success? Or do we really believe these things? The Trump administration and its ideological allies seem intent on ensuring that “merit” based competition is built on an unfair foundation. That is, the “merit” is based on the  advantages conferred by one’s economic class.

Competition, by its very nature, yields winners and losers and the outcome can be positive, neutral or negative. For example, a parent who leaks information about rival children to college admissions officers might get a positive outcome (her child is admitted) and the other children might get a negative outcome (they are not admitted). While assessing from the perspective of an individual or group is a way to approach assessing the consequences of competition, it is also worth assessing competitions in terms of their consequences for everyone. This is important when competition is within a society. The competition for educational opportunities in the United States is an excellent example of this.

A positive competition yields positive value for all involved. In an ideal positive competition, everyone in the competition is better off than they would be without the competition. This would include being better off than if the distribution of benefits was done equally without competition.

Friendly sports and games provide a paradigm example of positive competition. For example, while only one person wins a game of Risk, all the players can have fun and gain from the competition. As another example, a 5K race will have winners and non-winners, but everyone can have an enjoyable run. As a final example, some claim that an Adam Smith style economy can be a positive competition: while some businesses will succeed and others fail, we will all be winners because of better goods and services at lower costs.

A neutral competition has winners who gain from the competition and non-winners who gain nothing but suffer no harm from losing. While not everyone is better off from the competition, no one is worse off for competing. One example would be a random drawing for prizes. While some will win and others will not, not winning just means not getting a prize. It does not result in harm.

A negative competition has winners who gain from the competition and losers who suffer harm from their loss. In extreme cases, there might only be degrees of harm and winning only means suffering less harm. For example, a liability lawsuit can be a negative competition in which the winner gains and the loser suffers a detrimental effect, such as being forced to pay a settlement.

In many cases a society can control whether competition will be positive, neutral or negative. It should never be forgotten that the nature of such competitions is a matter of choice based on values For example, a society can decide to make competition for educational resources a positive competition: everyone gains, some are better off, but no one is harmed. A society could also make it a negative competition: the winners do very well while the losers end up at a great disadvantage and suffer harm. This segues into opportunity hoarding.

While a society will always have a finite number of opportunities for children and there will be competition for them, the nature of these competitions can be shaped by the collective choices of that society. This includes deciding whether each competition will be positive, neutral or negative. In general, making competitions positive will cost more resources, while neutral and negative competitions will cost less. To illustrate, making the competition for educational opportunities positive would cost more resources than leaving it negative, since the “losers” would still get the resources needed for a good education. As a specific example, the current model for K-12 public education is a negative competition: parents who can afford to live in wealthy neighborhoods give their children the advantage of better schools, while the children of the less wealthy often end up in poorly funded schools that hurt their opportunities. The poor are usually trapped in poverty and suffer the harm that entails. Shifting this to a positive competition in which every child gets at least an adequate education would require expending more resources on the poorer schools, thus incurring greater cost. This would also mean that the better off would have less advantage over the poor in terms of education. The upper classes would still retain the advantage of better schools, but the gap would be smaller and thus the competition they face later life could increase as they will be up against better educated poor people. This is one obvious reason for opportunity hoarding: the less able the competition, the easier victory is. The current education is designed in this manner, to provide the upper classes with an advantage and to burden the lower classes with disadvantages. This all but guarantees that the upper classes will win in a competitive “merit” based system

This example could, of course, be challenged. One could argue that the education system in the United States is already a positive competition: even the poorest Americans are supposed to get free K-12 education and even the worst public education is better than nothing. While this does have some appeal, the same sort of reasoning would seem to lead to obviously absurd consequences. For example, imagine the “competition” between a person intent on committing date rape and their intended victim. It could be argued that the competition is positive: the victim could get a free dinner and drinks, although they are raped. While they did get some “benefit”, the harm is greater, and they would have been better off without that “competition.” I do not deny there can be grounds for dispute over whether to cast a competition as positive or negative, such debates are likely.

As such, if someone wants to characterize the current education system as a positive competition, they can try to make that case. As noted above, the students in the worst school in America do get more than nothing. In this case, one would need to recast the discussion in terms of degrees of positiveness in the competition, how the winners and losers fare relative to each other.

While each competition for opportunity would need to be assessed morally, I would suggest a general guiding principle. When our society is shaping the competition between our children for opportunities, the morally right thing to do is to make them at least neutral and there should be every reasonable effort to make them positive. After all, members of a society should strive to avoid harming each other and this is especially true when it comes to the children. We are, one would hope, friends and not enemies. But many politicians seem intent on ensuring that we see each other as enemies and our real enemies as our friends.

Opportunity hoarding, a concept developed by Richard Reeves,  occurs when parents give their children advantages in ways harmful to other children. In the previous essay I examined income mobility in the context of opportunity hoarding and I now turn to the ethics of competition.

Before getting into this, I will try to pre-empt likely strawman attacks. I will not argue that parents should be forbidden from doing the best they can for their children. As a specific example, I will not be arguing for things like a ban on parents helping their children with homework. I will also not argue that the state should use its compulsive power to force, Harrison Bergeron style,  the equality of children. Nor will I argue for the elimination of competition. Now, on to the discussion, one that will afford plenty of opportunity for criticism.

Opportunity hoarding raises two important moral concerns. The first is the moral issue of what opportunities should be competitive. The second is the issue of what means are morally acceptable in competitions. This essay focuses on the first issue.

While some might argue there should be no competition for opportunities, this position suffers from two obvious defects. The first, and most obvious, is that opportunity is always limited. As such, if there are more people than opportunities, there must be competition of some kind. These limits need not arise from any evil intent. For example, many runners will want to be trained by a legendary running coach, but she cannot coach everyone. As another example, many people might wish to take a writing class with a legendary professor, but they can only grade so many papers. While there obviously are other coaches and other professors, there will always be those who prefer one over the others—even if they are equally good. There is, of course, the legitimate moral concern that opportunities are limited for unethical reasons. I am not suggesting that all limits on opportunity are warranted just because there will always be some unavoidable limits. To illustrate, it is morally fine for a coach to limit the number of people she coaches because she can only do a good job with a limited number of athletes. It would not be morally fine for a coach to refuse runners because they were, for example, Christian or Moslem.

The second defect is that competition for limited opportunities is morally right. The easy and obvious argument is that if opportunities are limited (and the limit is ethical), then they should be distributed on a competitive basis. As is often argued, opportunity should be earned. The obvious analogy is to sports: the awards in a 5K should be earned by those who run the fastest. To hand out the awards randomly or based on some standard other than performance would be unfair and wrong.

Even if the notion of competition for opportunity is accepted, there arises the moral and practical problem of deciding how the competition will be resolved. In some cases, this will be obvious. For example, it makes sense that the best athletes be the ones who are on an Olympics team. In other cases, deciding who wins is more complicated, such as determining who should be admitted to a university. As would be expected, volumes can be written about the ethics of resolving competitions.

While there is debate about resolving competitions ethically, there is the question of what opportunities should be competitive. While there are always finite opportunities, there is also always a finite number of people seeking opportunities. In many cases we can decide how many people can have these opportunities by deciding how we allocate resources. For example, Americans could decide that we want all our public schools to be well-funded so all children can attend a good school. This would not eliminate competition for schools. Even if all schools were well funded and supported, there would still be better schools. But people would not need to compete to buy houses in wealthy neighborhoods to get their children into good schools, they could live anywhere and still get into a good school. This would come at a cost as the well-off parents would need to contribute to the general education of children rather than just supporting only their children’s schools. But if we value equality of opportunity for all children, then this would be a price worth paying.

This essay cannot, obviously, provide details about each opportunity. A reasonable starting point for broad moral choices is, of course, the utilitarian approach: looking at the cost and benefits for all, what would generate the most good and the least evil? This series continues in the next essay.