Category: Ethics

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

An issue in aesthetics is whether the ethics of the artist should be relevant to the aesthetic value of their work. Obviously, what people think about an artist can influence their feelings about their work. But how people assess works of art and how they should do so are different.

One way to approach this is to look at art works as like any other work or product, such as a student’s paper in a philosophy class or a storage shed. In the case of a student’s paper, a professor can be influenced by how they feel about the student. For example, if a professor learned that a student had groped another student, then the professor is likely to dislike the student. But if the professor decided to assign a failing grade to the alleged groper’s paper, then this would be unfair and unjust as the quality of the paper has nothing to do with the behavior of the student. After all, a paper is supposed to be assessed based on the quality of the writing nd not on what the professor feels about the student.

By analogy, the same should apply to works of art: the quality and merit of the work should be assessed independently of how you feel about the artist and their (alleged) misdeeds. In the case of the technical aspects of the work, this seems obviously true. For example, the misdeeds of an artist have no bearing on whether they get perspectives right in a drawing or hit the correct notes in a song. Another analogy, that will lead to an objection, is to a professional athlete.

In sports like running and football, an athlete’s performance is an objective matter and how the spectators feel about the athlete has no role in judging that athletic performance. For example, how the spectators feel about a marathon runner has no impact on how their time should be judged. The time is what it is regardless of how they feel. By analogy, the same should apply to works of art. A work is what it is regardless of how people feel about the artist. The analogy to athletes leads to an objection against this view.

While the quality of an athlete’s performance is an objective matter (in certain sports), professional athletes are often also entertainers. For example, a professional basketball player is there to play basketball to entertain the crowd. Part of the enjoyment of the crowd depends on the quality of the athlete’s performance, but what an audience member thinks about the athlete can also affect their enjoyment. For example, if the audience member does not like the athlete’s history of domestic violence, then the fan’s experience of the game can be altered. The experience of the game is not just an assessment of the quality of the athletic performance, but can involve consideration of the character of the athletes.

By analogy, the same applies to artists. So, for example, while Combs might be a skilled musician, the allegations against him can change the experience of someone listening to his music.

The obvious reply is that while people do often feel this way, they are mistaken. They should, as argued above, be assessing the athlete based on their performance in the game. What they do off the field or court is irrelevant to what they do on the court. In the case of art, the behavior of the artist should be irrelevant to the aesthetic merit of the work. For example, Combs music should not be considered differently in the face of the allegations against him. Once again, people will feel as they do, but to let their feelings impact the assessment of the work would be an error.

This is not to say that people should feel the same about works in the face of revelations about artists or that they should still buy their art. The right to freedom of feeling is as legitimate as the right to freedom of expression and people are generally free to consume art as they wish. They are also free to say how a performance (be it athletic or artistic) makes them feel. But this is a report about them and not about the work. Naturally, there are aesthetic theories in which the states of the consumer of art matter and these are certainly worthy of their due, but this goes beyond the limited scope of this essay.

Another approach to the matter is to consider a case in which nothing is known about the creator of a work of art. As examples, a work might be found in an ancient burial site, or an anonymous poem might appear on a web site. These works can be assessed without knowing anything about their creators and this suggests that the moral qualities of the artist are irrelevant to the quality of the work.

Suppose that the anonymous poem was regarded as brilliant and beautiful, but then people learned it was written by an awful person. Nothing about the poem has changed, so the assessment of the poem should not change either. But some would change their minds based on the revelation. Now imagine that that the initial attribution of the poem was in error, it was really written by a decent and kind person. Nothing about the poem has changed, so the assessment should also remain unchanged. The point is that tying aesthetic assessment to the character of the artist entails that judging the aesthetic merit of a work would require knowing the moral status of the creator, which seems absurd. Going back to the sports analogy, it would be like having to determine if a runner was a good or bad person before deciding whether a two-hour marathon was a good time or not. That is absurd. Likewise for the art. As such, the moral qualities of the artist are irrelevant to the aesthetic merit of their work. Unless they are not

As noted in my previous essay, a person does not surrender their moral rights or conscience when they enter a profession. It should not be simply assumed that a health care worker cannot refuse to treat a person because of the worker’s values. But it should also not be assumed that the values of a health care worker automatically grant them the right to refuse treatment based on the identity of the patient.

One moral argument for the right to refuse treatment because of the patient’s identity is based on the general right to refuse to provide a good or service. A key freedom, one might argue, is this freedom from compulsion. For example, an author has the right to determine who they will and will not write for.

Another moral argument for the right to refuse is the right not to interact with people  you regard as evil or immoral. This can also be augmented by contending that serving the needs of an immoral person is to engage in an immoral action, if only by association. For example, a Jewish painter has every right to refuse to paint a mural for Nazis. But this freedom can vary from profession to profession. To illustrate, a professor does not have the right to forbid a Christian student or a transgender student from enrolling in their class, even if they have a sincerely held belief that Christians are wicked or that transgender students are unnatural.

While these arguments are appealing, especially when you agree with the refusal in question, we need to consider the implications of a right of refusal based on values. One implication is that this right could allow a health care worker to refuse to treat you.  People who support the right to refusal often believe it will be used only against other people, people they do not like. Which is often why they support specific versions of the right, such as the right to refuse gay or transgender people. The idea that it could be used to refuse Christians, straight people, or white people does not enter the imagination. This is because those crafting laws protecting a right of refusal tend to have clear targets in mind.

But moral rights should be assessed by applying a moral method I call “reversing the situation.” Parents and others often employ this method by asking “how would you like it if someone did that to you?” This method can be based on the Golden Rule: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Assuming this rule is correct, if a person is unwilling to abide by their own principles when the situation is reversed, then it is reasonable to question those principles. In the case at hand, while a person might be fine with the right to refuse services to those they dislike because of their values, they would presumably not be fine with it if they were the one being refused. As noted above, laws designed to protect the right of refusal are usually aimed at people intended to be marginalized.

An obvious objection to this method is that reversing the situation would, strictly speaking, only apply to health workers. That is, the question would be whether a health care worker would be willing to be refused treatment.  Fortunately, there is a modified version of this method that applies to everyone. In this modified method, the test of a moral right, principle or rule is for a person to replace the proposed target with themselves or a group (or groups) they belong to. For example, a Christian who thinks it is morally fine to refuse services to transgender people based on religious freedom should consider their thoughts on atheists refusing services to Christians based on religious freedom. Naturally, a person could insist that the right, rule or principle should only be applied to those they do not like. But if anyone can do this, then everyone can, and the objection fails.

A reasonable reply to this method is to argue there are exceptions to its application. For example, while most Christians are fine with convicted murders being locked up, it does that follow that they are wrong because they would not want to be locked up for being Christians. In such cases, which also applies to reversing the situation, it can be argued that there is a morally relevant difference between the two people or groups that justifies the difference in treatment. For example, a murderer would usually deserve to be punished while Christians do not deserve punishment just for being Christians. And I’m not saying this just because I am an Episcopalian. So, when considering the moral right of health care workers to refuse services based on the identity of the patient the possibility of relevant differences must be given due consideration.

An obvious problem with considering relevant differences is that people tend to think there is a relevant difference between themselves and those they think should be subject to refusal. For example, a person who is anti-racist might think that being a racist is a relevant difference that warrants refusing service. One solution is to try to appeal to an objective moral judge or standard, but this creates the obvious problem of finding such a person or standard. Another solution is for the person to take special pains to be objective, but this is difficult.

A final consideration is that while entering a profession does not strip a person of their conscience or moral agency, it can impose professional ethics on the person that supersede their own values within that professional context. For example, lawyers must accept a professional ethics that requires them to keep certain secrets their client might have even when doing so might violate their personal ethics and they are expected to defend their clients even if they find them morally awful. As a second example, as a professor I (in general) cannot insist that a student be removed from my class by appealing to my religious or moral views of the student. As a professor, I am obligated to teach anyone enrolled in my class, if they do not engage in behavior that would warrant their removal. Health care workers are usually subject to professional ethics and these often include requirements to render care regardless of what the worker thinks of the morality of the person. For example, a doctor does not have the right to refuse to perform surgery on someone just because the patient committed adultery and is a convicted felon. This is not to say that there cannot be exceptions, but professional medical ethics generally forbids refusing service just because of the moral judgment of the service provider of the patient. This is distinct from refusing services because a patient or client has engaged in behavior that warrants refusal, such as attacking the service provider.

 

Joining a profession can complicate a person’s ethical situation. For example, lawyers are obligated to defend their clients even if their client is a moral monster. In the case of health care workers, moral complications can arise when they are expected to perform medical procedures they oppose on moral or religious grounds. They can also arise when they are asked to treat a patient when they have an objection to treating patients of that type, such as a transgender person or a CEO. There is the ethical issue of whether a health care worker has the right to refuse to perform a procedure or treat a patient based on these religious or moral objections.

Some might assume that health care workers have no moral right to refuse services, especially if they are thinking of procedures they find morally acceptable. For example, a pro-choice person is likely to think that a health care worker should not deny a patient an abortion on moral or religious grounds. But this assumption would be hasty. Entering a profession does not entail that a person automatically surrenders their moral rights or conscience. To think otherwise would be to embrace the discredited notion that “just following orders” or just doing one’s job provides a moral excuse. As health care workers are morally accountable for their actions, they also retain the moral agency and freedom needed to provide the foundation for that accountability. Those who support the moral right of refusal will find this appealing, but they must remember that this moral coin has another side.

Entering a profession, especially in health care, comes with moral and professional responsibilities. These responsibilities can, like all responsibilities, justly impose burdens and obligations. For example, doctors are not permitted to immediately abandon patients they dislike or because they want to move on right now to a better paying position. The ethics of a health worker refusing to perform a procedure based on their moral or religious views requires that each procedure be reviewed to determine whether it is one that a health care worker can justly refuse or one that is a justly imposed burden.

To illustrate, consider a state employed doctor asked to keep prisoners conscious and alive during torture. Most doctors would have moral objections to this and there is the question of whether this falls within the moral expectations of their profession. On the face of it, since the purpose of the medical profession is to heal and alleviate suffering, this is not something that a doctor is obligated to do. In fact, the ethics of the profession would dictate against it.

Now, imagine a health care worker who has sincere religious or moral beliefs that when a person can no longer sustain their life on their own, they must be released to God. The worker refuses to engage in procedures that violate their principles, such as keeping a patient on life support. While this could be a sincerely held belief, it seems to run counter to the ethics of the profession. As such, such a health care worker would seem to not have the right to refuse such services.

One could even imagine extreme cases as there is no requirement to prove that a sincerely held religious belief is true, one must only be convincing in one’s (alleged) sincerity. For example, imagine a health care worker who has a sincere religious belief that a patient must prove themselves worthy in the eyes of God by surviving with only the most basic care; anything beyond that is an affront to God’s will. The patient will survive if God wills it and humans should not interfere. Such views would not be accepted as justifying their actions and they should seek another profession if they cannot do their jobs.

Turning back to services like abortion and gender transition, the issue would be whether these are like asking a medical worker to participate in torture or expecting a medical worker to provide normal medical services. Those who oppose abortion will make the moral argument that performing abortion is as bad (or worse) than abetting torture. The pro-choice will contend it is a medical procedure.

In the case of gender transition, there are no moral appeal to concerns about killing. Rather, a person must appeal to the view that people should not modify their sex and should accept what they were born with. This seems to be more like my imaginary case of a health care worker who believes that people must prove themselves worthy in the eyes of God than like the torture case, especially if someone takes the view that God wants people to stick with their original sex. That said, it could be argued that such modifications are wrong in the same way that non-restorative cosmetic surgery is wrong as both aim to allow a person to be who they want to be. I do not, however, want to claim that the transitional process is as trivial as the gender affirming procedure of getting breast implants.

While I do not think I will change minds, the matter of moral objections needs due consideration. It is easy to simply embrace one’s views without considering the possibility of error.