Category: Ethics

 

The United States has been waging a war on drugs and the drugs are winning: in 2016 63,000 people died from drug overdoses. The path from prescription opioids to heroin has resulted in over 15,000 deaths from heroin overdoses. The addition of fentanyl made things even worse.

Because of slowly shifting attitudes and the fact that the opioid epidemic hit white Americans and cut across our economic classes there was increased interest in treating addiction as a medical issue. This change is long overdue and could help provide some solutions to drug abuse.

One approach to reducing deaths has been safe injection facilities. A safe injection facility, as the name states, is a place where people can safely inject drugs under the supervision of people trained and equipped to deal with overdoses. These sites also provide clean needles, reducing the risk of infection and disease. Looked at from a legal viewpoint, these sites are problematic: they enable illegal activity, although the intention is to mitigate rather than contribute to the harms of drug abuse. While the legality of such facilities is a matter for law makers and judges, they also raise an ethical issue.

As with most large-scale social ills, a good starting point in the moral discussion is utilitarianism. This is the view that the morality of an action is determined by weighing the positive value it generates against the negative value for the morally relevant beings. An action that creates more positive value than negative value would be good; one that did the opposite would be evil. Bentham and Mill are two famous examples of utilitarians.

There are numerous positive benefits to injection clinics.  Because trained people are present to deal with overdoses, these facilities reduce overdose deaths. For example, there were 35% fewer fatal overdoses in the area around a Canadian injection facility after it opened. In contrast, other methods of addressing overdose saw only a 9.3% reduction in overdose deaths. While more statistical data is needed, this does point towards the effectiveness of the facilities. For folks who profess to be pro-life, supporting such facilities should be an easy and obvious choice.

Because the facilities provide clean needles, they reduce the occurrence of infections, and this saves the community money as sick drug addicts often end up being treated at public expense. Clean needles are much cheaper than emergency room visits.

If all the facilities did was provide needles and try to keep addicts from dying, then it would be reasonable to argue that they are just bailing out a sinking boat rather than plugging the holes. Fortunately, such facilities also refer their visitors to addiction treatment and some people manage to beat their addiction.

While significant statistical data is still needed, an analysis indicates that each dollar spent on injection facilities would save $2.33 in medical, law enforcement and other costs. From an economic and health standpoint, these are significant positive factors and help make a strong moral case for injection facilities. However, proper assessment of the matter requires considering the negative aspects as well.

One point of concern is that the money spent on injection facilities could be better spent in other ways directly aimed at reducing drug use. Or perhaps on other things, such as education or community infrastructure. This is a reasonable point, and a utilitarian must be open to the possibility that these alternatives would create more positive value. While this is mainly a matter of an assessment of worth, there are also empirical factors that can be objectively assessed, such as the financial return on the investment. Given the above, injection facilities do seem to be worth the cost; but this could be disproven.

Another point of concern is that although injection facilities refer people to treatment programs, they enable people to use drugs. It could be argued that this helps perpetuate their addiction. The easy and obvious reply is that people would still use drugs without such facilities; they would just be more likely to die, more likely to get sick, and less likely to enroll in addiction treatment programs. So, those who care about other people should support these facilities. Those who favor human suffering should oppose them.

A third matter of moral concern is that, as noted above, injection facilities enable illegal activity. It could be argued that this might damage the rule of law and have negative consequences that arise when laws are ignored. The easy and obvious counter is that the laws should be changed as treating drug use as a crime rather than a health issue has proven to be a costly disaster. Even if the laws were not changed, it can be argued that morality trumps the law. After all, if people should obey the law because it is the right thing to do, then unjust or immoral laws would be self-undercutting. The cynical might also note that the rule of law has been openly shown to be a lie and to allow people to suffer for this delusion would be a grave moral mistake.

A final point is that the utilitarian approach could be rejected in favor of another moral theory. There are many other approaches to ethics. For example, under some moral theories actions are inherently good or bad. On such a view, enabling drug use could be regarded as wrong, even if the consequences were positive. While this sort of view can provide the satisfaction of being among the righteous, it can impose a high cost on others, such as those dying from overdoses. But to be fair to these moral theories, they also provide the foundation for moral arguments against views that terrible means can be justified by the ends.

Considering the above arguments, while there are some concerns about the ethics of aiding people in using drugs, the strongest moral case favors injection facilities. As such, the laws should be changed to allow them to operate legally.

 

While most of the earth’s surface is covered in water, there are ever increasing water shortages. One cause is obvious: the human population is increasing and the same amount of water is being spread among an increasing number of people. So, there is less water per person as our population increases.

Water is also being used in more ways than before, and industrializing countries have increased their water use. To illustrate, AI, manufacturing and agriculture use massive amounts of water, often in places that are ill-suited to such activity. In some cases, water can be reclaimed and re-used, but not always.  

It is not just the amount of water that matters, but what it can be safely used for. As we contaminate water, we decrease the usable water supply.  In some cases, we transform it from a resource to a waste that must be sealed away. Industrial chemicals, fertilizers, and even radioactivity are examples of water contaminants. Fracking, for example, contaminates water—even when it is done properly. While contaminated water can sometimes be re-used, it is usually unfit for human consumption. While it can be argued that contamination is limited and the amount of water vast (“the solution to pollution is dilution”), the earth’s water is obviously still finite. That means that as water is contaminated, the amount of usable water is reduced. If this goes on long enough and the water is not decontaminated, the effects will be significant. While worldwide contamination is of concern, what matters to  most people is not the total available water, but what is available to them. In addition to contamination, there is also the impact of climate.

While some deny climate change or the role of humans in the process, it is well-established historical fact that the climate does change and the ruins of ancient cities attest to this. In these cases, it is the location of water that matters and shifts in climate (whatever the cause) can create zones of shortage. This is happening today, just as it happened in the past. While the total water on the earth is not really impacted by climate change, the location and quality of the water is affected. For example, while drought in one area does not mean that the earth has less overall water, it does mean that the people living there have less water. Climate change can also cause contamination. For example, my adopted state of Florida is plagued by blooms of toxic algae which might be impacted by the changing climate. While some might taunt those concerned with this for being lake huggers, these outbreaks impact what matters most to the “practical folk”, namely money. Florida, after all, generates revenue from tourism and few want to travel to look at green slime. There is also the concern with the water supply as green slime is not safe to drink. While it is possible to continue the litany of water worries, the above should suffice to show that water shortages are a concern. This raises the question of how to deal with the problem.

Environmentalists have been arguing for years that the solution is to reduce pollution and address climate change. While a reduction of pollution has been a general trend in the United States (thanks in part to Richard Nixon creating the EPA), the current political environment favors an increase in pollution and a decrease in regulation. The moral value behind this view is that environmental costs should be shifted from those who profit from causing damage to those impacted by the damage. For example, rolling back regulations on what companies can dump into the water reduces their costs, but imposes health costs on those who drink contaminated water. The principle of fairness would seem to require that those who make the profit also pay the cost, but politicians are very selective in their concerns about fairness. Because of the current political climate, we should expect an increase in water contamination.

One controversial solution is to recycle waste water, especially sewage, so that it can be used as potable water. While recycling always involves some loss, this would allow cities to address water shortages by reusing their water. It would also have environmental benefits, if the waste was dealt with properly (and, interestingly, sewerage can provide valuable raw materials).

One major obstacle is the cost as recycling water for human consumption requires infrastructure. However, this cost can be worth it in the face of water shortages. It is, after all, probably cheaper and more convenient to recycle water than to transport water (and that water must obviously come from somewhere).

Another major obstacle is psychological. Many people find the idea of drinking water that was recycled from sewage  distasteful, even if the  recycled water is cleaner than the water they currently consume. To be fair, there are real concerns about ensuring the water is properly treated and improperly recycled sewage could contain harmful microbes or chemicals. But these are problems that can (and have) been addressed so that recycled sewage is no riskier than a conventional water supply (and perhaps less so in many places).

Even when people accept treated water as safe, the distaste problem remains because some think that drinking water that was recently sewage is gross, even though the water is pure and safe to drink. As such, simply proving it is safe will not solve this psychological problem.

This is analogous to proposals to use processed insects as a food source. Even if the food is indistinguishable from “normal” food, clean, healthy and nutritious, many people think this is gross. This includes people who regularly devour parts of animal corpses (better known as “meat”)

Since this is a problem of feeling rather than reason, the solution would need to focus on changing how people feel about recycled water so they can reason about it. One possible approach is by telling the story of water in general. With a little reflection, people understand that tap water has been recycled countless times. Any water you recently drank was most likely filtered through the kidneys of many creatures over the millennia and probably passed through many humans. It might have even passed through you at one point. As such, all the water we consume is recycled already and was almost certainly disgusting (vulture vomit, for example) at one point. However, the process of cleaning it, , cleans it: the water is then fine to drink. As such, if a person is willing to drink any water, then they should also be willing to drink properly recycled water. Water that was just recycled properly from sewage is no more disgusting than water that was once part of vulture vomit and is now in your coffee or bottled water.

People can still say that it is proximity that matters. Recycled water was just recently sewage, but their bottled water or coffee has (probably) not been vulture vomit for a long time. From a rational standpoint this difference should be irrelevant: clean water is clean water, regardless of how long it has been clean. Unless one believes in some sort of mystical or metaphysical contamination that is undetectable by empirical means, then the rejection of safe recycled water would be unfounded. However, unfounded and irrational beliefs drive much of politics and human decision making in general, so the practical challenge is to influence people to not be disgusted by recycled water. Some might be won over by other feelings, such as positive feelings about the environment or the survival instinct (recycled water is preferable to no water). Hard core campers and hikers, who have sucked up bog water through a filtration straw, might be the easiest people to win over.  But such psychological manipulation goes beyond the scope of philosophy, so I will leave this matter to the experts in that field.

 

Supporters of prohibition argued that it would solve the ills caused by alcohol. Ironically, prohibition ushered in more evils, such as creating a financial foundation for organized crime. While they were right about the ills of alcohol, their solution was mistaken.

Studies of alcohol use back up the intuitive view that it contributes to the frequency and severity of violence, especially domestic violence. It is also linked to child abuse, suicide and (obviously) drunk driving. While there is neither a necessary nor sufficient link between alcohol and violence, there is a causal connection. As such, reducing alcohol consumption would reduce these harms, providing a basis for a solid utilitarian moral argument for doing so. Since a return to prohibition is not an option and individual efforts are limited to individuals, something with broad reach is needed to have a significant impact on the problem.

While few would argue for a return to prohibition, there is support for raising taxes on alcohol. Intuitively, increasing the cost of a product will reduce its consumption, but intuitions can be wrong. However, numerous studies  establish a link between raising alcohol taxes and reducing consumption. This, in turn, helped reduce violence. It also had other unexpected positive effects, such as reducing the number of gonorrhea cases. Raising taxes (and thus prices) is also supposed to reduce teen drinking, lowering the chances they will grow up to become heavy drinkers. These are all significant benefits which can be used in a utilitarian argument in favor of raising alcohol taxes. Naturally, the possible negative consequences must also be considered.

One concern is that if alcohol taxes are raised, people will turn to more dangerous alternatives such as other drugs and “boot leg” alcohol. The worry is that this “solution” will make things worse. But even if some people did turn to more dangerous alternatives, there could still be an overall positive outcome. This is an empirical matter that will require evidence to resolve, and the challenge is raising the tax enough to reduce alcohol consumption but not so much that people start switching to worse drugs or drinking Sterno.

As with any tax on a popular product, it is likely to disproportionally impact people with lower income. This concern has two main moral components. The first is that such a tax would be unfair because of this disproportionality. In this it does not differ from other sales taxes. While everyone pays the same rate, it is a higher percentage of the income of the less well off, which is why progressive taxes are fairer than sales taxes.

The second is that the higher cost would hurt poor people more than the wealthy (which is always true of any such tax). If they keep buying alcohol, they will suffer a greater financial burden, and this could cause additional problems. But if they decide to spend the same as before and thus drink less, then the overall impact would be positive (assuming there are benefits to less alcohol consumption).

There is also ideological opposition to increasing taxes, even (or especially) for the public good. In this case, it could be contended that increasing taxes is simply wrong, even to create good results. While there are some whose opposition to increasing taxes is absolute, it is difficult to argue that it is worse to not raise taxes and tolerate the serious harms, than to raise taxes to create significant benefits. This is why those who oppose tax increases aimed at the public good endeavor to shift the debate from the public good to well-worn ideological sayings about taxes being bad.

One last concern is opposition to the “nanny state.” The idea is people should be responsible for their own choices and the state should not be a “nanny” regulating behavior (except behavior one wants to regulate, of course). An obvious response is that while raising taxes can influence people’s choices, it neither compels nor forbids them in that they are still free to decide about drinking; it will simply cost them more to drink.

It could be objected that the state is still trying to influence behavior in a desired direction. This cannot be denied. But this is what states, by their very nature, do. For example, states impose penalties for things like theft in the hope of changing behavior. Influencing behavior through penalties and imposed costs is what states do. As such, the state trying to reduce alcohol related deaths by raising taxes is as justified as the state trying to reduce murders or illegal border crossing by imposing penalties on those behaviors. As such, increasing alcohol taxes would appear to be the right thing to do.

 

Some years ago, researchers created “minibrains” which are more formally known as cerebral organoids. As the name implies, a minibrain is a pea-sized collection of a few million human neural cells. A human brain consists of about 85 billion cells. These minibrains are usually created by transforming human skin cells.  As should be imagined, these minibrains raise ethical concerns.

One concern is that as minibrains are human neural masses, they could develop consciousness. Since moral status often rests on mental attributes, this means they might someday possess a moral status, perhaps even a near person status. The epistemic challenge is determining if they achieve that status. This is a version of the philosophical problem of other minds: how do I know that other entities feel or think as I do?  This problem also applies one of my favortie foods from my home state of Maine, the lobster.

Thanks to thinkers like Descartes, animals are often regarded as biological machines that lack minds. While scientists now see higher animals as capable of feeling and even thinking, lobsters are often seen as biological automatons that neither feel nor suffer. However, some people do think lobsters can suffer and Switzerland banned the boiling of live lobsters. The moral justification is that boiling lobsters alive is unnecessary suffering. Oddly enough, few take the next obvious moral step: if boiling them is wrong, then killing and eating them would also seem to be wrong.

I think that while lobsters are not mentally complex, they do feel pain. The reason for this is the same reason I think you feel pain: an argument by analogy. I know that I, as a living thing, feel pain and dislike it. I note that you, as another human, are like me. So, I infer that you also feel pain and probably dislike it. While lobsters are different from me, they do have some similarities: they are alive, they interact with their environment, they have nerves and so on. As such, they probably feel pain. It must be noted that there are those who deny that humans think or feel—so denying this of lobsters is not odd. Naturally, the relative simplicity of lobsters does suggest that they do not have a depth of feeling; but pain is probably one of the simplest feelings.

Moral concerns about minibrains and lobsters arise from their alleged ability (or potential) to feel. The epistemic concern is how to know this. As should come as no surprise, the same concerns arise about fetuses in the context of the abortion debate: the epistemic and moral problem is knowing when the zygote gains moral status. Obviously, if lobsters can have moral status, then fetuses would also get it rather early in the development cycle—at least at the point when they have a nervous system at least as complex as a lobster. As one would expect, people are often inconsistent in their moral views and some who might balk at eating a lobster might accept abortion, while someone horrified by abortion might happily devour the flesh of a slain baby cow.

In the case of minibrains, scientists want to use them for research. This can be morally justified on utilitarian grounds: the advantages gained from the possible suffering of the minibrains can be outweighed by the gains to science. In the case of lobsters, those who eat them would argue that their enjoyment in eating lobster outweighs the lobster’s suffering.

In both these cases, it is a matter of competing interests: the minibrains and lobsters would prefer to avoid suffering and death, while the humans want to experiment on them or eat them. The same reasoning also applies to abortion: there are competing interests between the woman who wishes to have an abortion and the possible interest of the fetus in not dying. While it can be contended that the fetus has no idea of interests, the same can be said of minibrains and lobsters. As such, the same moral reasoning can be applied in all three cases: it is competition between the interests of a fully developed person and an entity that is significantly inferior in capabilities. As such, the ethics of the minibrains seems to have already been addressed in terms of the ethics of how we treat animals and the ethics of abortion. This, of course, means that there is no resolution—but this is as expected.

 

 

While exoskeletons are being developed primarily for military, medical and commercial applications, they have obvious potential for use in play. For example, new sports might be created in which athletes wear exoskeletons to enable greater performance.

From a moral standpoint, the use of exoskeletons in sports designed for them raises no special issues. After all, the creation of motorized sports is as old as the motor and this territory is well known. As such, exoskeletons in sports designed for them are no different from the use of racing cars or motorcycles. In fact, exoskeleton racing is likely to be one of the first exoskeleton sports.

It is worth noting that exoskeletons could be added to existing sports such as cross-country running, track or football. But the idea of using mechanized technology in such sports doesn’t really break new ground. To illustrate, having runners compete while wearing exoskeletons would be like having bicyclists replace their pedaled bikes with electric bikes. This would simply create a new, mechanized sport.

Adding exoskeletons to existing sports could create safety problems. For example, American football with exoskeletons could be lethal. As another example, athletes running around a track with exoskeletons could result in serious collision injuries. However, these matters do not create new ethical territory. Issues of equipment and safety are old concerns and can be resolved for exoskeletons, most likely after some terrible accidents, using established moral principles about safe competition. For example, there are already principles governing the frequency and severity of tolerable injuries in sports that would also apply to exosports. Naturally, each sport does tend to have different levels of what is considered tolerable (football versus basketball, for example), so the specific details for these new sports will need to be sorted out. Another area of moral concern is the use of exoskeletons in cheating.

While current exoskeleton technology would impossible to hide during athletic competitions like running and biking, future exoskeletons could be hidden under clothing and could be used to cheat. While this would create a new way to cheat, it would not require the creation of any new ethical theory about cheating. After all, what matters most morally in cheating is the cheating, not the specific means used. As such, whether an athlete is getting an unfair edge with an exoskeleton, blood doping, performance enhancing drugs, or cutting the course they are cheating and hence doing something wrong.

While exoskeletons have yet to be used to cheat, there is already an established concept of the use of “technological fraud” in competition. The first apparent case appeared a few years ago, when a cyclist was accused of using a bike with a motor concealed in its frame. Since people had speculated about this possibility, there were already terms for it: “mechanical doping” and “bike doping.” Using a hidden exoskeleton would be analogous to using a hidden motor on a bike. The only difference is that the hidden motor directly enhances the bike while an exoskeleton for the biker would enhance them. But there is no moral difference whether the motor is enhancing the bike directly or enhancing the athlete.  As such, the ethics of cheating with an exoskeleton are already settled, even before exo-cheating has occurred.

One final, somewhat sci-fi, concern is the use of exoskeletons will weaken people. While a person must move to use an exoskeleton, the ones used for play will enhance a person’s abilities and do much of the work for them. Researchers are already talking about running at 20 MPH through the woods for hours without getting tired. While I admit that this sounds fun (aside from colliding with trees), a worry is that this would be more like riding a motorcycle (which does all the work) than riding a bike (which augments the effort).

An obvious reply is to point out that I myself made the obvious comparison to riding a motorcycle. The use of an exoskeleton would not be fundamentally different from riding a motorcycle through the woods and there is nothing wrong with that (on designated trails). This is a reasonable point and I have no more objection to people exorunning (in designated areas) for entertainment than I do to people riding motorcycles (in designated areas). However, I do worry that exoskeletons could make things too easy for people.

While things like mobility scooters do exist, an exoskeleton would go beyond them. After all, a full body exoskeleton would not only provide easy mobility, but also do the work for the person’s arms. While this would be a blessing for a person with a serious medical condition, it would enable otherwise healthy people to avoid even the small amount of exercise most people cannot avoid today (like walking from their car to work or a store).

The sensible reply to my concern is to point out that most people do not use mobility scooters to get around when they do not actually need them, so the same would hold true of exoskeletons (assuming they become as cheap as mobility scooters). However, given the impact of automobiles and other technology on fitness levels, it is worth having some concern about the harmful effects of exoskeletons making things too easy. Unlike a car, a person could wear their exoskeleton into their workplace or the store, avoiding all the need to walk on their own. While the movie WALL-E did not have exoskeletons, it did show the perils of technology that makes things far too easy for humans and it is worth keeping that in mind as a (fictional) cautionary tale.

 

An exoskeleton is a powered frame that attaches to the body to provide support and strength. The movie Live, Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow featured combat exoskeletons. These fictional devices allow soldiers to run faster and longer while carrying heavier loads, giving them an advantage in combat. There are also peaceful applications of technology, such as allowing people with injuries to walk and augmenting human abilities for the workplace. For those concerned with fine details of nerdiness, exoskeletons should not be confused with cybernetic parts (these fully replace body parts, such as limbs or eyes) or powered armor (like that used in the novel Starship Troopers and by Iron Man).

As with any new technology, the development of exoskeletons raises ethical questions. Fortunately, humans have been using technological enhancements since we started being human, so this is familiar territory. Noel Sharkey raises one moral concern, namely that “You could have exoskeletons on building sites that would help people not get so physically tired, but working longer would make you mentally tired and we don’t have a means of stopping that.” His proposed solution is an exoskeleton that switches off after six hours.

A similar problem arose with earlier technology that reduced the physical fatigue of working. For example, the development of early factory and farming equipment allowed people to work longer hours and more efficiently. Modern technology has made such work even easier. For example, a worker can drive a high-tech farm combine as easily as driving a car.  Closer analogies to exoskeletons include such things as fork-lifts and cranes: a person can operate those to easily lift heavy loads that would be exhausting or impossible to do with mere muscles. So, Sharkey’s concern would also apply to the forklift: a person could drive one around for six hours and not be very tired physically yet become mentally tired. As such, whatever moral solutions applicable to the problem of forklifts also apply to exoskeletons.

Mental overwork is not a problem limited to exoskeletons or technology in general. After all, many jobs are not very physically tiring and people can keep writing legal briefs, teaching classes and managing workers to the point of mental exhaustion without being physically exhausted.

 For those who consider such overwork to be undesirable, the solution lies in workplace regulation or the (always vain) hope that employers will do the right thing. Without regulations protecting workers from being overworked, in the future employers would presumably either buy exoskeletons without timers or develop work-arounds, such as resetting timers.

Also, exoskeletons themselves do not get tired, so putting a timer on an exoskeleton would be like putting a use timer on a forklift. Doing so would reduce the value of the equipment, since it could not be used for multiple shifts. As such, that sort of timer system would be unfair to the employers in that they would be paying for equipment that should be usable round the clock but would instead be limited.  An easy fix would be a system linking the timer to the worker: the exoskeleton timer would reset when equipped by a new worker. This creates problems about incorporating work limits into hardware rather than by using regulation and policy about the limits of work. In any case, while exoskeletons would be new in the workplace, they add nothing new to the moral landscape. Technology that allows workers to be mentally overworked while not being physically overworked is nothing new and existing solutions can be applied if exoskeletons become part of the workplace, just as was done when forklifts were introduced.

In a tragic aircraft accident, sixty-seven people died. In response to past tragedies, presidents ranging from Reagan to Obama have endeavored to unite and comfort the American people. Trump intentionally decided to take a different approach and used the tragedy as an opportunity to advance his anti-DEI agenda.

While Trump acknowledged that the cause of the crash was unknown, he quickly blamed DEI. When a reporter asked him how he knew this, he asserted it was because he has common sense. He also claimed that the crash was the fault of Biden and Obama and that it might have been caused by hiring people with disabilities.

In one sense, Trump is right to blame past administrations. The federal government has allowed the quality of air traffic safety to decline, and one might trace this back to at least Reagan who famously fired the striking air traffic controllers. As with many areas concerned with the safety of the American people, there is a shortage of staff, chronic underfunding and a problem with obsolete technology. Past administrations (including Trump’s) and congress bear responsibility for this. So, I agree with Trump that past leaders bear some of the blame for the tragedy. But I disagree with his false DEI claim.

As is always the case, rational people spend time and energy trying to debunk and refute Trump’s false claims. While this should be done, there is the question of whether this has any practical effect in terms of changing minds. At this point, it seems certain that America is firmly divided between those who reject Trump’s lies and those who accept them or do not care that he is lying. But I’m all about the desperate fight against impossible odds, so here we go.

Trump’s claim that the crash was caused by diversity hires of people with disabilities is easy to debunk. The FAA has strict requirements for air traffic controllers and someone who was incapable of doing the job would not be hired. After all, being an air traffic controller is not like being a member of Trump’s cabinet. As others will point out, this baseless attack on people with disabilities echoes the Nazis.  Trump supporters will presumably respond to this criticism by saying that “liberals” always compare Trump to the Nazis. While some comparisons are overblown, there is a reason why this occurs so often. And that is because Trump and his henchmen are often at least Nazi adjacent. Proud American Nazis know this is true and wish that their fellows had more courage. So, the questions “why do the libs always compare Trump and his henchmen to Nazis?” and “why do Nazis like Trump and his henchmen?” have the same answer. Meanwhile, the “normies” are baffled and the mainstream media generates think pieces debating the obvious. But what about Trump’s DEI claims?

One problem with engaging with these DEI claims is that the engagement provides them with a degree of legitimacy they do not deserve. Doing so can create the impression that there is a meaningful debate with two equally plausible sides. As many others have pointed out, when Trump and his ilk talk about DEI, this is just a dog whistle to the racists and sexists. These bigots know exactly what he means as do the anti-racists; but they disagree about whether bigotry is good. As to why Trump and his ilk bother with dog whistles, there seem to be two reasons.

One is that being openly racist or sexist is seen as crude and impolite. Polite bigots use dog whistles in public, reserving their open racism and sexism for private conversations. People can also convince themselves that they are good because they are not openly using racist or sexist terms.

The other is that there are non-bigots who cannot hear the dog whistle and believe, in good faith ignorance, that DEI might be the cause of these problems. If pressed, they will deny being racist or sexist and will claim that DEI might arise from good intentions but is bad because it puts incompetent people into jobs that are not qualified for. And hence things go wrong. If they are asked about why these people are assumed to be incompetent and whether women, minorities, old people, and people with disabilities can be competent, they will usually grow uncomfortable and want to change to topic. These people are still in play. While the bigots want to recruit them using dog whistles to onboard them into bigotry, they will settle for them remaining cooperatively neutral. If a “normie” expresses doubt about charges of racism or sexism or defends attacks on DEI, this provides cover and support for the bigots, and they are happy to exploit this cover. But “normies” are potential recruits to the side of good, since they have a mild dislike of racism and sexism that can be appealed to. One challenge is convincing them to hear the dog whistles for what they are. This is difficult, since it requires acknowledging their own past complicity in racism and sexism while also facing uncomfortable truths about politicians and pundits they might like and support.

The danger in trying to win over the “normies” is that one must engage with the DEI claims made by Trump and his fellows, which (as mentioned above) runs the risk of lending them legitimacy by creating the appearance that there is something to debate. But it seems that the only way to reveal the truth is to engage with the lies, as risky as that might be.

As a philosopher, my preference is to use good logic and plausible claims when arguing. After all, the goal is truth, and this is the correct approach. However, logic is awful as a means of persuasion and engaging people with facts is challenging because for every fact there seems to be a thousand appealing lies. But there might be some people who can be persuaded by the fact that DEI is not to blame for the crash nor is it to blame for the other things, such as wildfires, that the right likes to blame on it. That said, the core of the fight is one of values.

For someone to believe that DEI results in the hiring of incompetent people, they must believe that white, straight men have a monopoly on competence and that everyone else is inferior to a degree that they are unsuitable for many jobs. So, one way to engage with a possible “normie” about DEI is to ask them what they have in their hearts: do they feel that only straight, white men are truly competent and that everyone else is inferior and suitable only for race and gender “appropriate” roles? If they do not find this bigotry in their hearts, there is hope for them.

While I sometimes get incredulous stares when I say this, hunters are usually advocates of conservation. Cynical folks might think this is so they can keep killing animals. This is obviously at least part of their motivation: hunters enjoy hunting and without animals, there is no hunting. However, it would be unfair to claim that hunters are driven only by a selfish desire to hunt.  I grew up hunting and have met many hunters who are concerned about conservation in general and not just for their own interest in hunting animals. While the true motives of hunters are relevant to assessing their character, the ethics of hunting for conservation is another issue. This issue is perhaps best addressed on utilitarian grounds: does allowing the hunting of animals and charging for such things as hunting licenses create more good or evil consequences?

In the United States, this sort of hunting is morally acceptable. After all, hunters of all political views support preserving public lands and willingly pay fees they know to help fund conservation efforts. Human hunters help check game populations, especially deer, that would suffer from the harms of overpopulation (such as starvation). That said, there are counterarguments against this view, such as pointing out that human hunters wiped out many predators that kept deer populations in check and that it would be preferable to restore these animals than rely on humans.

More controversial than game hunting is trophy hunting. While all hunters can take trophies, trophy hunting is aimed at acquiring a trophy, such as a head, tusks, or hide. The goal in a trophy hunt is the prestige of the kill, rather than getting meat or for the challenge of hunting. Of special concern is trophy hunting in Africa.

A key concern about such hunts is that the animals tend to be at risk or even endangered, such as big cats, elephants and rhinos. Trophy hunting in Africa is mostly domain done by the wealthy because foreigners pay to hunt their desired animal and must be able to afford the cost of travel and hunting. This money, so the argument in favor of trophy hunting goes, is used to support conservation efforts and incentivize the locals in conservation efforts.

From a moral standpoint, this argument can be cast in utilitarian terms: while the killing of rare or endangered animals is a negative consequence, this is offset by the money used for conservation and the economic gain to the country. The moral balancing act involves weighing the dead animals against the good that is supposed to arise from their deaths. This takes us to the factual matter of money.

One point of practical concern is corruption: does the money go to conservation and to the locals, or does it get directed elsewhere, such as the bank accounts of corrupt officials? If the money does not actually go to conservation, then the conservation argument fails.

Another point of practical concern is whether the money is enough to support the conservation efforts. If  the money gained does not conserve more animals than are killed by the hunters, then the conservation argument would also fail. This raises the question of whether there are enough animals to kill and enough left over to conserve. In the case of abundant species, the answer could easily be yes. In the case of endangered species, killing them to save them has less plausibility.

In addition to the utilitarian calculation that weighs the dead animals against the alleged benefits, there is also the worry about the ethics of trophy hunting itself, perhaps in the context of a different ethical theory. For example, a deontologist like Kant might contend that killing animals for trophies would be wrong regardless of the allegedly good consequences. Virtue theorists might, as another example, take issue with the impact of such trophy hunting on the person’s character. After all, the way many trophy hunts are conducted  involve people other than the “hunter” doing the actual hunting. The hunter just pulls the trigger once their shot is lined up for them.  As such, it is not really trophy hunting for the “hunter” and is better described as trophy shooting.

To use an analogy, imagine a rich person hires a team to play basketball for him. When the players get a free throw, he marches out onto the court to take the shot. This is playing basketball in the same sense that trophy hunting is hunting. That is to say, just barely.  

 

In the last essay I suggested that although a re-animation is not a person, it could be seen as a virtual person. This sort of virtual personhood can provide a foundation for a moral argument against re-animating celebrities. To make my case, I will use Kant’s arguments about the moral status of animals.

Kant claims that animals are means rather than ends because they are objects. Rational beings, in contrast, are ends. For Kant, this distinction is based on his belief that rational beings can chose to follow the moral law. Because they lack reason, animals cannot do this.  Since animals are means and not ends, Kant claims we have no direct duties to animals. They belong with the other “objects of our inclinations” that derive value from the value we give them. Rational beings have intrinsic value while objects (including animals) have only extrinsic value. While this would seem to show that animals do not matter to Kant, he argues we should be kind to them.

While Kant denies we have any direct duties to animals, he “smuggles” in duties to them in a clever way: our duties towards animals are indirect duties towards humans. To make his case for this, he employs an argument from analogy: if a human doing something would create an obligation, then an animal doing something similar would create a similar moral obligation. For example, if Alfred has faithfully served Bruce, Alfred should not be abandoned when he has grown old. Likewise, a dog who has served faithfully should not be abandoned or shot in their old age. While this would seem to create an obligation to the dog, Kant uses a little philosophical sleight of hand here. The dog cannot judge (that is, the dog is not rational) so, as Kant sees it, the dog cannot be wronged. So, then, why would it be wrong to abandon or shoot the old dog?

Kant’s answer appears consequentialist in character: he argues that if a person acts in inhumane ways towards animals (abandoning the dog, for example) then this is likely to damage their humanity. Since, as Kant sees it, humans do have a duty to show humanity to other humans, shooting the dog would be wrong. This would not be because the dog was wronged but because humanity would be wronged by the shooter damaging his humanity through such a cruel act. To support his view, Kant discusses how people develop cruelty: they often begin with animals and then work up to harming human beings.

Kant goes beyond merely saying we should not be cruel to animals; he encourages us to be kind. Of course, he does this because those who are kind to animals will develop more humane feelings towards humans. Animals seem to be moral practice for us: how we treat them is training for how we will treat human beings.

In the case of re-animated celebrities, the re-animations currently lack any meaningful moral status. They do not think or feel. As such, they seem to lack the qualities that might give them a moral status of their own. While this might seem odd, these re-animations are, in Kant’s theory, morally equivalent to animals. As noted above, Kant sees animals are mere objects. The same is clearly true of the re-animations.

Of course, sticks and stones are also objects. Yet Kant would not argue that we should be kind to sticks and stones. Perhaps this would also apply to virtual beings such as a holographic Amy Winehouse. Perhaps it makes no sense to talk about good or bad relative to such virtual beings. Thus, the issue is whether virtual beings are more like animals or more like rocks.

I think a case can be made for treating virtual beings well. If Kant’s argument has merit, then the key concern about how non-rational beings are treated is how this behavior affects the person engaged in it. For example, if being cruel to a real dog could damage a person’s humanity, then a person should not be cruel to the dog.  This should also extend to virtual beings. For example, if creating and exploiting a re-animation of a dead celebrity to make money would damage a person’s humanity, then they should not do this.

If Kant is right, then re-animations of dead celebrities can have a virtual moral status that would make creating and exploiting them wrong. But this view can be countered by two lines of reasoning. The first is to argue that ownership rights override whatever indirect duties we might have to re-animations of the dead. In this case, while it might be wrong to create and exploit re-animations, the owner would have the moral right to do so. This is like how ownership rights can allow a person to have the right to do wrong to others, as paradoxical as this might seem. For example, slave owners believed they had the right to own and exploit their slaves. As another example, business owners often believe they have the right to exploit their employees by overworking and underpaying them. The counter to this is to argue against their being a moral right to do wrong to others for profit.

The second line of reasoning is to argue that re-animations are technological property and provide no foundation on which to build even an indirect obligation. On this view, there is no moral harm in exploiting such re-animations because doing so cannot cause a person to behave worse towards other people. This view does have some appeal, although the fact that many people have been critical of such re-animations as creepy and disrespectful does provide a strong counter to this view.

Supporters and critics of AI claim it will be taking our jobs. If true, this suggests that AI could eliminate the need for certain skills. While people do persist in learning obsolete skills for various reasons (such as for a hobby), it is likely that colleges would eventually stop teaching these “eliminated” skills. Colleges would, almost certainly, be able to adapt. For example, if AI replaced only a set of programming skills or a limited number of skills in the medical or legal professions, then degree programs would adjust their courses and curriculum. This sort of adaptation is nothing new in higher education and colleges have been adapting to changes since the beginning of higher education, whether these changes are caused by technology or politics. As examples, universities usually do not teach obsolete programming languages and state schools change their curriculum in response to changes imposed by state legislatures.  

If AI fulfils its promise (or threat) of replacing entire professions, then this could eliminate college programs aimed at educating humans for those professions. Such eliminations would have a significant impact on colleges and could result in the elimination of degrees and perhaps even entire departments. But there is the question of whether AI will be successful enough to eliminate entire professions. While AI might be able to eliminate some programming jobs or legal jobs, it seems unlikely that it will be able to eliminate the professions of computer programmer or lawyer. But it might be able to change these professions so much that colleges are impacted. For example, if AI radically reduces the number of programmers or lawyers needed, then some colleges might be forced to eliminate departments and degrees because there will not be enough students to sustain them.

These scenarios are not mutually exclusive, and AI could eliminate some jobs in a profession without eliminating the entire profession while it also eliminates some professions entirely. While this could have a significant impact on colleges, many of them would survive these changes. Human students would, if they could still afford college in this new AI economy, presumably switch to other majors and professions. If new jobs and professions become available, then colleges could adapt to these, offering new degrees and courses. But if AI, as some fear, eliminates significantly more jobs than it creates, then this would be detrimental to both workers and colleges as it makes them increasingly irrelevant to the economy.

In dystopian sci-fi economic scenarios, AI eliminates so many jobs that most humans are forced to live in poverty while the AI owning elites live in luxury. If this scenario comes to pass, some elite colleges might continue to exist while most others would be eliminated because of the lack of students. While this scenario is unlikely, history shows that economies can be ruined and hence the dystopian scenario cannot be simply dismissed.

In utopian sci-fi economic scenarios, AI eliminates jobs that people do not want to do while also freeing humans from poverty, hardship, and drudgery. In such a world of abundance, colleges would most likely thrive as people would have the time and opportunity to learn without the pressure of economic necessity. Or perhaps colleges would be largely replaced by personal AI professors.

 But it is also worth considering that this utopia might devolve into a dystopia in which humans slide into sloth (such as in Wall-E) or are otherwise harmed by having machines do everything for them, which is something Issac Asimov and other sci-fi writers have considered.

In closing, the most plausible scenario is that AI has been overhyped and while colleges will need to adapt to the technology, they will not be significantly harmed, let alone destroyed. But it is wise to be prepared for what the future might bring because complacency and willful blindness would prove disastrous for the academy.