On Being Better

Life is hard, especially when dealing with people who drive us crazy.  But I think when properly applied, a bit of methodology can go a long ways towards being more compassionate, confident, and effective in our daily interactions.

We tend to be a bit sloppy when faced with dysfunctional behavior, in terms of how we view the cognition behind it. Where I teach, 16 and 17 year old kids routinely act like 3 or 4 year-olds (no – I’m not exaggerating). A common – completely understandable – response from staff is disbelief, shock and offense at such immaturity. “What are you, some kind of dummy?!!”. (Not usually in such disrespectful language, but we have our moments).

Because when we have a chance to take a step back, there is no real reason for shock or disbelief. The explanation is perfectly clear, when taking into account the particular student’s life experiences, and ultimately their failure to have properly learned appropriate self-control, self-discipline, emotional management, etc. Whatever their story is, the fact of the matter is that they have not been able to develop adequately.
Something I have found fascinating in working with such teens is that, once a degree of rapport has been established, how often it is that they are able to express their own insight into their behavior. Unformed, lacking in narrative, etc., sure, but they know at some level their inadequacies. Some of the best work I feel I have done, the most progress I have made with students, has been achieved through helping them to better understand themselves by trying to create an environment in which they feel safe enough to be vulnerable. This is not done by diminishing them and provoking their superficial pride and ego through humiliation (flying off the handle is actually embarrassing, in that you are not in control of yourself, and end up with regrets).

One student of mine, who I, for pedagogically tactical reasons, chose to essentially counsel all period instead of doing my normal rounds, wanted so adamantly for other people not to treat her like she was “crazy”. This, she asked for, while recounting the time she got in trouble for yelling at the cops to leave her the “f#ck alone”. “But *****”, I told her, “you ARE crazy. You have serious anger problems. But you know what, that’s OK. We’re all a bit crazy at times. And most of us haven’t been through half of what you have. “More than anything, she wanted validation. She knew she was a mess, but she didn’t want to be only a mess. Ever since that day, she still barely does her work. But some kind of calm seems to have come over her, and she no longer seems like the quietly brewing tempest she once was. If only she can continue to find others in her life who validate her, she’ll have a chance of making it.

There’s a deep logic to human behavior. So many of us take our developmental maturity for granted, and subsequently find it difficult to understand the behavior of those who fail to behave appropriately. In what might be described as egotistic arrogance, we imagine their level of cognitive awareness to be equal to ours, and thus the behavior to be not an outgrowth of natural development, but of conscious disregard. And when we treat them thusly, I think it entirely logical for them to take extreme offense. Because yes, if they knew better, they would be “dummies”. But they obviously didn’t really know better (in a sort of universal, developmental sense). We can see this illustrated quite clearly in the classic case of the cold, unloving parent or guardian: a child makes an honest mistake, and the caregiver over-reacts, i.e. assumes more developmental capacity than is appropriate. We naturally understand this to be a miscarriage of justice.

While adults are not children, and the infractions maybe more severe, the same dynamic is at work. We ought to recognize our intuition about the child’s treatment and imagine it in the emotional composition of the perpetrator. If he is not treated with dignity, there will be no object to which he will be able to appeal for justice, other than that which resides within his own, internal understanding of fairness. A subjectivity which of course, considering transpiring events, and certainly in the “heat” of the moment, as higher brain functions are limited, ought not be something in which to place our faith. So as we still have a leveraging role to play in our relationship, mutual respect is an invaluable commodity.

The Moral Imperative of Taxation

Peter Bruegel the Elder - Greed

 "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Timothy 6:10

Like any biblical passage, there can be many interpretations to the meaning of the passage above.  This particular passage has become a popular saying, reduced to the shorter, and even more generalizable, "Money is the root of all evil".   However, there are two main ways in which the phrase is likely read.

In the first, the emphasis is placed on a condemnation of greed.  Money should not be worshiped, but instead take its place behind more important things in life, such as friends or family.  To become greedy is to become enslaved by selfishness, and prone to losing sight of proper values.

The second, an extension of the first, holds not only that greed is wrong, but that it is what often drives social ill.  One man's greed, to the extent that it must be fulfilled,  becomes an issue of power over others, whom he ends up treating not as real humans whose lives he affects by his decisions, but as a sort of background noise to his ambition.  Other humans, whom he should feel compassion for, become at best uncomfortable distractions, at worst, tools to exploit.

While most people would agree with the former interpretation, it is the latter that raises the issue of social inequality as an extension of greed.  There is an implication that we all strive toward economic justice.  Yet there are many who have a vested interest in maintaining the morality of social inequality.  To return to the bible, the gospel according to Mathew 19:23 echoes Timothy, in which Jesus is claimed to say,

“Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Or maybe, "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a defense of inequality to be predicated on the interpretation of Timothy 6:10 as merely being about greed and not not about a larger social truth"!

Some would ask whether it is really true that the more the rich have, the less others have.  Surely the hard work of one individual does not result in the poverty of another.  Yet this is certainly not always so.  What if some people don't have access to the means of obtaining wealth, whether physically or because they lack the know-how.  Is their taking part in the same economic system not reinforcing their limited position?  Just because there is someone out there willing to work for peanuts, does it mean that he or she is making the most of him or herself, and not being taken advantage of by the larger system?

What would Timothy have said to this? I suppose the beauty of religious teaching is that it is ultimately about moral authority, as in doing what is right. The individual is asked to look within himself and find an integrity between his actions and his beliefs.

Of course, we are all flawed, "sinners" (in my atheistic sense), who regularly choose the less righteous path. Peter Singer speaks very well on the ethics of distance, in that saving a dying man directly before you is obvious, where as a man across an ocean is not. There is a direct correlation between concern for those less fortunate and physical proximity to their suffering.

I've seen no better illustration of this that the scene in Schindler's List, in which he, realizing that the lives of Jews had literally come down to payments rendered, looks down at his gold ring and realizes that he could have saved just one more.

I suppose this is why I cringe when calls for the rich to pay their "fair" share are so frequently reduced to mere expressions of jealousy or resentment. I think there are plenty of principled reasons why one might prefer that the rich not have their wealth taken from them in the form of taxation - government is inefficient, some programs are counter-productive, etc. I find those positions variously wrongheaded or mistaken, but they are at least only political or philosophical judgements.

The real question that the wealthy need to ask themselves is what is the point of life here on Earth? As an atheist, it may be easier for me to slide into selfish materialism, with no regard for my fellow man. But where some would say God created us in his image, and thus compels us to sacrifice for the less fortunate, I simply believe that evolution - both biologically and culturally - gave us the ability to empathize and feel compassion for fellow man.

Thus, the dying man before me is in stark contrast with my feelings of solidarity with him, and my ability to help him. Therefore morally, I am required to act. So whether I pay my taxes so that the sick may be healed, or invest all extra moneys into business, or charity, I am bounded morally to every man woman or child alive - each of their consciousnesses floating around in each of their skulls - not yet able to realize the potential that I realize in myself.

As I said before, we are all "sinners". With my $1500 how much good could I have done? The emotional, behavioral and psychological calculations we do are complex. Does the happiness the TV brings me allow more to be more productive? Did striving to have it in the first place make me work harder? In this way, do I get to consider my luxury night out a charitable contribution, in the form of future productivity. My, how we could rationalize ourselves into oblivion there!

So, I suppose, let us make these determinations individually. But let us do it within reason. I would argue that the return on investment, the ratio of productivity for monetary gain to productivity for other reasons (sense of accomplishment, security, enjoyment, etc.) bends rather limply towards personal excess. Does the man who makes an extra million for a personal yacht really need that yacht to work hard? We must remember that the wealthy have long since passed the point of needing to worry about enjoying the simple things in life. There is a reason for the term "luxury".

And again, this is discussion is twofold: it asks a moral question of the individual, but it asks a moral question of society as well. We must, as citizens of a democratic government, ask ourselves what we think is fair for our members to contribute to our vision of the common good - whether military, roads, schools, etc. It is certainly a question that requires looking at individuals and their wealth, and making a judgement as to what is fair for them to contribute, and thus what is fair for them to possess.

We cannot refrain from making that determination. As voting citizens, we are by definition responsible for judging our neighbors. As long as it is our duty to uphold the welfare of our state, a welfare that depends on the actions of its citizenry, we take a position by merely living within the state. We can decide to completely leave them alone, and to demand no taxes from them, but that is just as moral a position as demanding 100% of their wealth. Both have direct impact upon the state we share.

Returning to Timothy's claim, the individual morality cannot but imply a social morality. Each individual must decide for himself what is right, in terms of his brief life on this planet. But, as a citizen of a democratic state, he now must apply that morality to his neighbor, to the extent that it directly affects the business of the state.

Am I OK with my lifestyle, and the degree to which I care for my fellow man? Maybe, maybe not. That is an issue of integrity, and by no means an easy question. It is one that is asked and answered with every decision we make - or do not make - every second of the day. Yet because of the realities of governing, we must try and find our best moral position when we enter the voting booth.

And so if I, as a human, sinning man, sometimes find it difficult to act with integrity to my moral values, what effect should this have on my voting? Should I vote my morality, or my reality? For instance, I think it is wrong to make animals suffer before they die. I try and buy humane meats and dairy. But sometimes I find it hard to resist. So how should I vote? Should my voting reflect my lack of integrity, or should it reflect my aspirations?

And so when I see others living in ways in which I know - were I them - could be better spent reducing suffering and promoting liberty, should I cast judgement upon them at the ballot box? Do I have a right to hold them accountable to my own moral principles? To not do so would seem to be an expression of a lack of integrity just as profound as were I to be in their position. In my perfect world, they would either be paying taxes to government programs that guarantee access to services I deem important, or at least giving that money to charities or invest it in job-creating businesses.

But I know that doesn't happen. They do not act in accordance with my moral beliefs, with how I believe it is right to act in our state, and that all citizens ought to act in order to ensure my vision of the common good. If I have the right to ask them to be taxed at all, I ought to have the right to have them taxed at an amount I deem morally correct. Like Timothy, I can ask them to pass judgement on themselves. But as a citizen, I must pass judgement on them myself. __________________

Markets vs. Morality

      David Brooks argues in his latest column that the main difference between the Republican and Democrat models for health care reform is top-down vs. bottom-up planning.  Really, argues Brooks,

"Politicians wave studies, but they’re really just reflecting their overall worldviews. Democrats have much greater faith in centralized expertise. Republicans (at least the most honest among them) believe that the world is too complicated, knowledge is too imperfect."

      Jonathan Cohn finds this merely new spin on an old Republican framing:

Brooks writes as if the key distinction between Democratic and Republican plans for Medicare is the way they would manage the program, with Democrats entrusting experts to make key decisions about where to spend money and Republicans entrusting consumers. But that’s not the most salient difference between the two approaches. The most salient difference is that Democrats would preserve Medicare's fundamental guarantee of health benefits at affordable prices. Republicans would not.

     I completely agree.  This is less about markets and more about morality.  One of the most irritating conservative mistakes is to compare private vs. government service without acknowledging the fundamental point of government services: to guarantee some standard of access to all. Private enterprise is pointed to as routinely superior in service – which it no doubt usually is. But be they roads, parks, libraries, schools or health care – they are not required to open their doors to everyone. Of course this is often less efficient, and normal market mechanisms won’t come to bear – but we make this sacrifice if we feel the service is of sufficient importance to provide to the public.

     Has “public service” lost its meaning?

Compassion and Violence

Among the relieved and somber celebrations of Osama Bin Laden's death at the hands of the military today, there exists a small chorus among the more meek among us to remember that all life is sacred, and that no death should be relished.

A quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

He stands on the shoulders of giants.  Jonathan Zazloff quotes the Talmud:

Certain brigands were in Rabbi Meir’s neighborhood used to trouble him greatly, and he prayed that they would die.  Beruriah his wife said to him, “What is your opinion?” [i.e. on what text do you base your prayer]?”  [He replied,] “because it is written [Psalms 104:35], “May sinners vanish from the earth.”  [She responded,] “Does it say ‘sinners’?”  [No!]  It says ‘sins.’” [End evil, not evil doers.]  “Furthermore [she continued], go down to the end of the verse: ‘The wicked will be no more.’  Since their sinning will stop, will there ‘no longer be sinners’?  Rather, you should pray that they repent, then ‘the wicked will be no more.”
Rabbi Meir prayed for mercy upon them, and they repented.

This atheist finds complete sympathy with the Talmud here. It is rooted, I think, in an ancient human – likely mammalian (at least) cognition of empathy. We make a model of the world in our heads, and thus are able to see ourselves in others, and visa versa. I don’t see why any among us could not have just as easily been led towards the evil that Bin Laden was, given the proper environment. And to the extent that we could not have been, to what special power do we owe that privilege? I find the assumption that we would are somehow “above” depravity frankly narcissistic.

This insight to me is the key humility that man must learn, especially if we want to move towards the heaven on earth we are capable of. It is here where retribution dies, and forgiveness is born. Utility being what it is, we will often have to treat people in ways which we would rather not – but we can always be something more if we work at it. The Talmud here – like all great religious teachings – calls us to do just this.

Morality and Determinism

One argument for contra-causal free will, and thus against determinism, is that if we can't make choices, then we can't make moral choices, and the whole concept of justice breaks down.

I think we should start any discussion of free will with an agreement upon terms..

Let me say that "making choices" can mean different things:
A)I think about different options, and choose one
B)I was not determined/caused to choose a particular option over another

I think some will agree with both, while I will agree with the former but deny the latter. I'll add that I think we can be completely oblivious to the extent to which we are being caused to act; we simply see our options and then pick the one that seems best. Neither can we know what it would have been like to either not have some piece of knowledge, or to have some extra piece of knowledge. (I find it fascinating that this presents a profound cognitive deficiency in our ability to imagine the thought processes or "mentality" of others. At best, we can use our knowledge of others to predict what they might be thinking. But we cannot actually experience their deficit or gain.)

Let me also say that "determined" can mean different things:
A) A choice was made in response to a specific genetic or environmental condition
B) Unconscious processes in the brain have responded to a genetic (internal) or environmental (external) condition, or have been created within a feedback loop of the two, and by their interaction are now making a choice that the mind is at most partially conscious of.

Some may agree with the former, but not the latter, while I agree with both.

Anyway, so I think we are perfectly capable of making moral decisions. I just find this in the same category as to where we'd like to go for lunch, or TV program to watch, in the sense that we are presented with a cognitive challenge, and compulsions to one or another choice. The extent of these compulsions is anyone's guess. Much of it will be skill-based, in the sense that specific, coherent models are being applied. For instance, when deciding when to cross the street, knowledge of traffic patterns would be handy. This would be a very discreet memory. But skills could also be more broadly thought of as encompassing such things as impulse control, so that the desire to get across the street takes a backseat to traffic memories.

Ultimately, one's skill set could really encompass the entire gamut of human capital one possesses: that which allows one agency to interact in the environment. This would be everything from walking to talking, to holding one's bladder, to synthesizing and making hierarchies of informational importance, to applying previously learned skills to new concepts, to formulating workable hypotheses and testing them, to reading, writing, recalling, etc.

I think when you draw this dynamic and fluid development process out over lifespans, over cultures and genders, you get humanity in all its complexity. Yet it deceptively provides cover for what is at root an entirely deterministic process.

I continue to be fascinated by the many liberals I meet who seem appalled at the notion that free will does not exist.  They'll rightly point to attacks from the right that decry liberalism as rooted in a cold, authoritarian fascism in which people are automatons better served by government mandate.  I might go so far as to say that most liberals believe in free will... consciously!  But I think the liberal impulse towards rehabilitation, towards relativism, towards compassion and selflessness is unconsciously rooted in an intuition of determinism. I think the slander is indeed accurate, but not just of deterministic liberals like me, but of liberalism (well, and of reality, but I won't push it!).

Liberals want to rehabilitate because they recognize that people who have done wrong were made that way - either by genes or society. They embrace a relativism (not in the "moral relativist" sense, which I've yet to meet anyone who identifies with), but in the sense of culture, morality, ethics, etc. being rooted in human desires, as created (determined) by humans, and not handed down by God - or, at least in the sense that even if there exist such absolutes, we as humans are fallible (determined) and must be open to new thoughts, new ideas and new ways of looking at the world. Liberals are compassionate because they, by way of their determinist intuition, are more willing to do the sort of emotional and cognitive geometry required to to try and understand what might be going on "in the mind of their enemy", and because of this are able to find more forgiveness, which in turn allows them to more better empathize.

I think here we can raise the subject of the "femininity of liberalism", in that as a philosophy it in many ways mimics the nurturing response of mothers toward their children. This would be set against the "masculinity of conservatism", in that it is built around the opposite, "tough love" response, where instead of rehabilitation, relativism and compassion, there is retribution, dogmatism, and emotional distance.

Continuing this exploration a bit further, I think it important to add that both tendencies have their strengths and weaknesses. Babies do need to be punished, rules need to be laid down, and distance can be important. I think anyone familiar with traditional family dynamics will agree that these two poles are important counter-weights to a child's development. I think it fair to say that this is true at the social level. To the degree that the reality of determinism leads one to overly rationalize and make excuses for others, it is more difficult to be "tough" and strict - against our nurturing natures.

It is surely more a complicated form, but the general rules of behavioralism apply to the idea that while we can learn to choose, we are determined. (Here I think an acute critique of my Skinnerian tendencies would be in order. But I won't do my interlocutor's work for them! j/k - I shrug it off as a category error, although there are are some root similarities). Just that, as with a child, learning mechanism are learning mechanisms, whether coming from Jesus, Mom, or the ballot box.

And so, how is there no ethics, morality or justice? I think the implications for justice are quite fascinating. Actually, if determinism is correct, than our current course is entirely immoral and unjust! I work with young men everyday who will no doubt wind up in prison. And don't tell me they have a choice! Why is it that certain environmental conditions just happen to create criminals? Of course they don't just happen to. There is a very clear chain of causality. Or, more of a mobius strip. Teen males get teen girls pregnant, the kids get raised screwed up, then make more babies, repeat.

Of course there is hope - we know how to give them choice! We pay people like me to work with them in small groups and help get them back on track, help the mommies graduate, etc. Then they can "choose" to succeed! (And go to college and become teachers so that they can help more young kids who will end up on internet forums like this one debate who caused it all). Of course, when you give people choice, you imply that they didn't already have it. And you imply that those that do, were given it. So it came from somewhere. It certainly didn't come from them. 

Morality vs. Economic Orthodoxy

The attitudes of the left and right toward economic policy can be thought of as encompassing two main arguments: economic morality and economic orthodoxy.  The former involves how we view human behavior and what we ought to do for our fellow man, while the latter involves accepting a particular orthodox approach to economic policy.

There can be no arguing that inequality and hard-times involve human suffering.  From sacrifice and inconvenience at best, to death, violence, pain and starvation at the worst, poverty is a terrible burden on society.  The left and right can agree on this to a point.  But they also have divergent attitudes regarding the fairness of inequality, specifically in the role personal responsibility plays.  For most on the left, a more deterministic view is taken of inequality; the rich and poor have largely received their lot in life from social conditions that they were or were not able to take advantage of.  For most on the right, inequality is the result of personal choice; the rich and poor have created their own successes or failures through a conscious choice to determine their own fate.

The morality of helping those in need thus rests on whether or not we, as members of society that guide its structure and institutional coherence, are responsible for the effects of inequality.  If we are, then we owe our fellow man a helping hand.  If we are not responsible, and he has only himself to blame, then we owe him nothing.  This is a larger argument that is in many ways philosophically complex, and involves many assumptions about why men do what they do.  But regardless, the human suffering still exists.  And to the degree that we are responsible for the plight of our fellow man, we have a moral imperative to help him.

This brings us to the second area of concern in economic policy, and again a split among left on right.  We can all agree that economic growth and stability is a good thing.  But the left believes a stronger government is essential to a robust economy; through investments in infrastructure, regulation, education and health care, society is strengthened, leading to a stronger economy.  The right believes that less government means greater economic strength; leaving it up to the individual to do what's best for himself will result in an empowered, self-reliant and innovative population.  But under the burden of heavy taxation to pay for government spending, a net pull on the economy means less opportunity and wealth for all.  Both views have strong arguments in their favor, and expert economists to back them up. 

Unfortunately, unless you are an economist, it is hard to know who to believe.  One might believe that infrastructure or social spending is important, but what if the taxes raised to pay for them slows the economy to the point where unemployment is higher, and there is greater suffering overall.  On the other hand, one might believe that infrastructure or social spending is unimportant, but paying for them will ultimately grow the economy enough to pay for them.

These two views, the moral and economic orthodoxy, together form a sort of feedback loop in which moral arguments are used to bolster economic arguments, which then bolster the original moral argument.  So if you believe social responsibility requires government spending, it would bolster a view that government spending is good for the economy, which in turn is the socially responsible thing to do.  And if you believe in personal responsibility and less government, it is easier to embrace a view that less government spending is actually good for economic growth.  And economic growth would seem to reward your original premise that personal responsibility has little need for government. 

But if personal responsibility is all that is needed to escape poverty, then whether or not the economy is growing would seem little more than an inconvenience.  For while the left feels that poverty and social dysfunction is a problem of social responsibility, remedied not only by economic strength but government intervention, the right doesn't believe it has much to do with economic growth.  Sure, they know there would be less of it if in a strong economy, but most of the suffering we associate with poverty - the drug use, low-skill jobs, violence, etc. are all situations the right feels are chosen.  There is always, according to them, the possibility of working harder and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, as they say.

So it is difficult to see how complaints on the right of burdensome government spending are expressions of moral concern for the welfare of fellow man.  At best, they are irritated over less potential for success among some people (people like them?), because - let's face it - there will always be people who will choose failure.  At worst, they are expressions of irritation with their own pocketbook being marginally reduced.  In which case the moral argument seems slight indeed.  What you mainly have is a convenient embrace of conservative economic orthodoxy less on its merits (who but serious economists after all can really parse the complex algorithms of supply-side vs. Keynesian economics), than for purely philosophical and mostly self-interested reasons.

Island Killings

A common point of agreement made across both sides of the abortion debate is that we all agree that reducing the abortion rate is a good thing.

I'd actually go with the opposite.  If anything, there are too many unloved, unwanted, under-cared-for children in the world as it is.   I'm a hopeless utilitarian, but I can't help that, if purely looking at the production of suffering, increased abortions would likely reduce suffering overall.  The world will have been a better place if many people were simply not born to begin with.

I understand that the reaction to this idea will strike many as cold or cruel.  But think of it this way.  Imagine a car is filled to capacity, and an extra passenger would face severe risk.  Should the passenger be asked to wait for the next car?

I'm probably sounding like I believe in reincarnation.  If only. 

I just don't understand why a fetus must be made sacred.  Beyond its ability to feel pain (and we're talking about, if anything, a very brief period of discomfort - certainly no worse than the agony I surely felt when I was circumcised), what is there?  The parent's feelings would be next in line.  Then I suppose there is the squishy idea of social normative behavior.  Do we want people going around aborting fetuses?  I don't have a problem with it.

The last concern is largely designed to deal with the inevitable question of when it is OK to kill a developing human.  Many draw the line at viability.  But that's a slippery term.  When is a fetus viable.  Medicine had been advancing considerably, leading to earlier and earlier viability.  But what would be the argument anyway?  It seems an arbitrary point, designed generally for winning an argument, if not merely for public health and legal reasons - like the driving or drinking age.

No, I think the question that needs to be answered is whether it would be OK to kill a newborn.  Or what about a three month old, etc.?  If done without suffering, there is no cost to the individual.  And what if the mother and father don't mind? Grandparents?  We must draw the line somewhere in concentric rings of possible indirect suffering.  And yet this point could be made about any individual, really?  A thought experiment:

If you were stranded on a desert island with a stranger, with no hope of ever being rescued, would it be morally OK to kill him in his sleep? 

He wouldn't suffer.  No one would mourn his loss.  In fact, the same could be said for many fellow citizens with no apparent social ties.  It appears the only recourse to which we are left is an appeal to moral decency.   Well, Jesus Christ, what the Hell is that?!!!!

It's an excellent question.  But I think we can put one foot in the right direction with this proposition: we ought to do what we think everyone ought to do.  It's not unsimilar from the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  The trick is in the details, of course.  Not everyone is like me.  I might find it perfectly reasonable to kill my newborn child.  A horrible thought, indeed!  But, maybe in some circumstances, after terribly wrenching moral anguish, I determine that the child would be better off dead, then off we go.  But to simply allow for such behavior by law, willy-nilly, seems very untoward.

Why this is might hold the key insight.  Moral anguish.  My wife had a miscarriage.  Zero moral anguish.  Couldn't care less, really.  What was it but a plop of barely activated DNA sequences floating about in a loose organization of cellular membranes?  But fast forward to the moment of birth and a father's heart melts.  This is highly intuitive, mammalian shit right here.  We don't kill babies.  Those of us who do are monsters.  Well, to be accurate, they are deeply dysfunctional individuals whose lack mental faculties make them unfit for civilized society. 

That's not quite how I'd describe myself.  And yet I still can't get worked up over a blastocyst.  I'm sure that when my chromosomes combined with those of my wife, it had made quite an interesting string of DNA.  But just as I wouldn't mourn the lost of a recipe I just printed off the internet in the same way I'd mourn the loss of a triple-decker cake I just spent hours lovingly crafting before it crashed to the floor, a fetus is only slowly moving toward my heart.  It exists as much in the eyes of my wife as I watch her belly grow, or the joy we share as the little feller begins to kick.

Oh, and by the way I wouldn't kill a stranger on a desert island.  But I'm not sure I'd mind if you did.  Although I'm sure I wouldn't think it wrong if you did.  And if we're ever stranded on an island together, just make sure it's quick and painless.

Doing What We Can

Some thoughts on Afghanistan.

When Obama was deliberating with his generals over the next course of action in Afghanistan, I felt considerably conflicted.  On the one hand, we were experiencing an economic crisis on the home front, and the prospect of spending hundreds of billions more on that war, not to mention the risk to soldier (and civilian) life, when a positive outcome - a somewhat stable and democratic government - seemed a tall order.  But on the other, leaving would seem to pave the way for a Taliban resurgence, bringing with it a horrible humanitarian crisis and the likely return of terrorist "safe havens", where global Jihadist groups would be able to establish operations with impunity.

But I accepted that there were likely those in power - such as Democrats in congress and the Obama administration - whose moral courage I had faith in, and more specifically who had access to expert advice that I did not.  Now that the planned draw-down nears, and yet the situation seems no better, one wonders whether it was worth it after all.  Will we achieve anything like stability there in the next year?  Or two?  Or ever? And with recent activity in Somalia and Yemen, the "safe-haven" argument seems less and less important after all.

As popular sentiment grapples with this reality, appeals to the humanitarian aspects of the war have grown louder.  Time magazine recently presented the case on its cover:

Peter Worthington at the Frum forum said this:

If anything indicates the need for a civilized presence in Afghanistan, it’s the recent slaughter of 10 aid workers by the Taliban.

But I don't think that's indicated at all.


First, “by civilized presence” he's speaking of our troops, for whom we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention putting their lives at risk, and it is not at all clear whether they are now or will ever be a “civilizing presence” to that wretched and chaotic region.

Second, if we’re going to start arguing that any country in which horrendous abuses of human life are occurring ought to be invaded at great expense, the murder of 10 aid workers hardly puts Afghanistan at the top of the list.

If the question is “should Afghanistan not be the way it is?”, the answer is obviously “no.” But reality doesn’t care what you or I think. Thus we are forced to make rational decisions about what we should do based upon what we can do. Whether fighting the Taliban might result in a justifiable diminution of terrorist safe-havens is one argument. But humanitarianism is quite another. There are many areas of the world in which we can spend much less money and alleviate much more suffering.

I'm not sure our options are any better than they have ever been.  I'm really worried about what Afghanistan will look like when we leave.  But at some point, you just have to say, "it's a shitty world", and hope for the best. Are we there yet?  Again, I feel like I need to defer to those in power whom I trust to a degree.  In many ways I'm thankful I don't have to make the decision.  I'm OK with that.  This is why we elect people we respect.  But it doesn't feel much better.

A Case for Open Borders

We're stuck in an odd place in America today where immigration is concerned.  On the one hand, nearly everyone agrees that we must have closed borders, with selective admissions.  But the fact is that millions of illegal immigrants are already here, and many more are in the process of coming.  Building a truly secure border would require expensive fencing, cameras and patrol units.  Even then, there would likely be gaps.

So we are faced with tackling the problem via law enforcement.  Employers of illegal immigrants are targeted, and any illegal immigrants found are deported.  Yet this solution is difficult for various reasons.  Employers have many incentives to hire illegal immigrants.  They are plentiful, willing to work for little pay, and as illegal immigrants they are easier to exploit (poor conditions, safety hazards, regulations, etc.).  The immigrants have every incentive to work as they have risked all to be here.  Surviving without work is much more difficult. Dealing with state welfare institutions is either impossible or puts them at risk of deportation, as does any illegal activity.

From a human rights standpoint, every action targeted at illegal immigrants threatens American citizens who might find their rights diminished.  The balance of rights vs. security is an old and complicated one.  We must find a compromise between what rights we are willing to see sacrificed for every new security we agree to.  With the vast majority of illegal immigrants coming from the Mexican border, being a largely Hispanic population, new security measures designed to target illegal immigrants is going to affect Hispanic Americans disproportionately.  We see this in the new Arizona law sb1070 which places Hispanics in Arizona at much greater risk of having their rights violated.

A further complication, and one which may be the most tragic of all, is the issue of birthright citizenship and family dissolution.  Illegal immigrants often either bring their families with them to America, or have children once they are here.  If one parent is arrested and deported, the consequences to the family are severe.  In many cases the children might have been here illegally, possibly for most of their lives, and thus arrest and deportation means incredible burden. If a child has citizenship, the family is then faced with the prospect of how to secure for them the future they were guaranteed by law.

So this is where we are.  All of this is going on now, with no likelihood of change in the near future.  Profound resentment, especially in these economic times, has reached the boiling point.  The governor of Arizona is literally either making up stories herself, or repeating the lies of others:

"Well, we all know that the majority of the people that are coming to Arizona and trespassing are now becoming drug mules.  They're coming across our borders in huge numbers. The drug cartels have taken control of the immigration. … So they are criminals. They're breaking the law when they are trespassing and they're criminals when they pack the marijuana and the drugs on their backs.  I believe today and in the circumstances that we are facing, that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming in the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels, and they are bringing drugs in."

"Law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded."

The range of serious solutions to the situation basically range from complete security at the border no matter the cost and draconian raids and round-ups, to a more liberal policy of "amnesty", in which there is a "path to citizenship" that illegal immigrants can pursue that allows them to continue living and working here.  The latter only differs from an outright open border policy in that immigrants are still deterred from entry at the border and businesses who hire illegal immigrants are penalized.  This policy has been used in the past, however generally on a case-by-case basis.

But I wonder whether we should even have closed borders at all.  My general outlook on life is to not believe in anything without a good reason for doing so.  Because many issues are so complicated, the authority of experts must often be trusted.  Other issues are less empirical, and more matters of philosophical principle.  Other issues are a robust combination of both - the experts disagree, and philosophical principle isn't unimportant.  As illegal immigration seems to fall into this last category, I feel comfortable taking the radical stance that what America needs to be doing is opening our borders to most anyone who desires entry.

According to Wikipedia, the main arguments against borders are as follows:

1. That open borders are a threat to security and public safety.
2. That, in prosperous countries, open borders would trigger  massive immigration, straining the domestic economy.That closed borders are necessary to protect the domestic culture(s).
3. That closed borders help to prevent criminals from smuggling drugs, guns and other illegal items in quantities across the border.
4. That closed borders make it more difficult to smuggle people across a country's border for the purpose of slavery, prostitution and similar criminal activities.
5. That open borders are unnecessary in countries with legal avenues for immigration.

The only argument I see holding much validity is number 2.

On numbers 1 and 3, I see no real threat to public safety from open borders.  The vast majority of illegal immigrants are otherwise law-abiding, and criminals have not seemed to have been deterred much so far.  In fact, because increased adds to the price of drugs, closed borders may in fact increase violent crime.  On this front, a prevention program, possibly combined with legalization and taxation, that treats the problem of drug addictions seems a better, cheaper option.

On number 2, I'm not sure how much of a problem slavery and prostitution are.  I see no reason that simple law enforcement shouldn't be given this task.  Any gaps are likely already there, and the expense of a questionably secure border apparatus for solely this purpose seems inappropriate.

Number 5 isn't really an argument.

Now, it does seem reasonable to fear that completely open borders might trigger a mass-migration that the state wouldn't be able to handle.  But there are a number of reasons to doubt this.  First of all, if the labor market isn't able to handle them, the immigrants will quickly realize how limited their prospects are.  The only alternative is then to either make ends meet through illegal means or seek help from the state.  Neither seems a very attractive propositions for prospective immigrants.  The idea of relocating hundreds or even thousands of miles to engage in criminal activity seems an odd life choice.  What's more, illegal activity entails market pressures of its own.  The state is already quite stingy with welfare payments.  There seems no reason why it wouldn't still be able to require proof of citizenship for benefits.

A socio-economic and burden that does seem reasonable is the introduction of competition into the labor market.  Even assuming that minimum wage laws would still be enforced, numerous occupations would suddenly face an influx of foreign workers.  However, language and technical considerations would still give Americans an advantage.  The occupations most at-risk would be those in which these forms of human capital would not be required to the same extent.  This is the current greatest socio-economic impact of illegal immigration.  There is little reason to think that it wouldn't only increase were we to open our borders.

This is where I have the most difficulty finding my own moral perspective.  As a college-graduated, credentialed teacher, my job is in no way threatened by immigration.  I could see future immigrants receiving credentialing and posing a threat, but that prospect doesn't seem to bother me.  I know it may bother some, but I'm not sure whether I feel as though I have some God-given right to teach in America that any other equally-qualified candidate does not, regardless of citizenship.  I'm perfectly willing to accept that because I face no real threat from immigrant labor competition, I am missing some possibly persuasively principled argument.  But for now I can't foresee any.

As regular readers will note, I have a strong disposition towards viewing socio-economic achievement through the lens of social determinism; I believe the murderer is no more responsible for his actions than the millionaire.  Maybe as such, I see no difference between an American citizen and a Mexican citizen.  Why should an American have any more right to the American labor market than a Mexican?  If there is no existential threat to our entire economy (in which case open borders would become moot as we would all be doomed), the difficulties presented are zero sum: any net cost to American workers presents a net gain to foreign workers.

It is at this point that I think the conversation becomes about abstract notions of nationalism, and what it means to be a citizen.  I am entirely utilitarian in that I find the concept of nation-states compelling only in that they make sense in terms of practical governance.  Government needs to represent the people for whom it exists.  In this way the citizen gains access to democratic rights and privileges.  For instance, it would not make sense to allow foreign citizens from around the globe to vote in local elections. 

Foreign citizens need not enjoy every single right and privilege of citizens, but to the extent that it is practical for them to do so, they should be allowed them.  As I have argued thus far, there appears no practical reason why foreign citizens should not be allowed full access to labor markets.  In this way, foreign citizens would not be treated much differently than out-of-state residents.  We see no problem with accepting labor competition from any other state in the union.  Assuming there are no other social or economic costs, labor competition from foreign countries should be viewed no differently.

Alas, I'm afraid that there exists one last refuge in this argument, and it resides within the nationalistic notion of identity.  While many Americans no doubt cling to some form of unconscious bias towards some mysterious cultural quality of "American" that in their mind serves as a line of separation between themselves and non-citizens; that somehow by being an American citizen you are in some way different, and as such entitled to special privileges.  Obviously, any dark hatefulness under-girding this attitude is immoral.  No human life anywhere on the planet should be considered more worthy than any other.  To the extent that nationalism is used as the sole reason for valuing the quality of one life over another, the argument is really based in nothing more than personal greed and selfishness.

As has been pointed out many times before throughout our history, we are a nation of immigrants.  Implicit in this conception is the idea that human liberty transcends all boundaries, especially that of the nation state.  Inclusion in American society should require nothing more than an agreement to honor its rules and principles.  If the only thing that separates an illegal immigrant from a legal one is whether one was given permission from the state to enter, granting that permission to all simply removes that technicality.  As I mentioned previously, there is a necessary balance between security and freedom.  To the extent that the foreign citizen represents no threat to our security, either economic, social or political, they should be allowed all the freedoms citizens enjoy.  And that freedom includes the right to live and work here among us as equals.

Student Capital and Constitutional Equity

Deborah Meier at Bridging Differences comments on the significance of modern education architecture versus the old, beautiful buildings that were once the norm for educational institutions.

we went from grand to pedestrian, from castle to factory. Looking at high schools, it's even more startling. The old buildings were statements about the power and glory of education. Of course, they weren't for everybody—especially the high schools. The trouble is that once we claimed them for "everyone," we forgot to build them to be inspiring.

She goes on to relate this decline in design to a more general trend in which the promise of educational equality is payed lip-service to, meanwhile still avoiding the hard task of actually doing something about it in a meaningful way.  She refers to Harvard's Paul E. Peterson as saying in essence:

...all our favorite silver bullets have failed to change scoring patterns over the past half-century: the end of legal segregation, extra federal dollars for students in poverty, high-stakes tests, schools of choice—via charters or vouchers, teachers with more degrees, teachers' unions, improved wages for teachers, and even smaller schools.

Wait a second here, Deborah - I have a silver bullet to add to the list!

OK, maybe it's not a single bullet - more like a full clip.  The standard model currently is guaranteeing each kid a classroom of 29 other kids and a teacher.  Within that model, miracles are supposed to occur that will completely reverse social stratification and generational poverty in one fell swoop.  I call it the "Rambo Teacher" model.  Federal funds are then sprinkled over the top like pixie dust - whoopie, reduced lunches and an extra hour of tutoring a week to the rescue!

Of course, as we know - there are huge differences in levels of human/social capital between students.  So instead of focusing resources on finding better teachers, or marginal programmatic improvements, how about creating a baseline for "Student Capital": what total resources the student brings to the table.

Any number of factors could go into this framework - parent education, family income, number of parents at home, language & cognitive skills, emotional/behavioral evaluation.  What the heck - test the parents too!  It may require an entire level of administration to assess children at a certain age, and maybe every two years thereafter.  But this data would then be used to allocate an appropriate level of resources and targeted intervention, if necessary.

The idea needs a lot of work, but I think if we are to take seriously the idea that no child be left behind, that each  child has a constitutional right to an equal education, this would be an excellent way of leveraging the public education system.  Currently, all students get a very similar level of funding.  In this system, that paradigm is reversed and some students will get dramatically less services, while others dramatically more.  The whole thing is essentially means tested.  In a very real sense, the concept is very similar to that of special education.  But instead of only acknowledging that a child with a learning disability or physical handicap has a special need, that designation is broadened to include a whole host of statistically significant risk factors for educational failure.

I think we've been going about this in a totally wrong way.  We've looked past family capital for too long - even while research has told us for decades that parenting is just as important if not more so than schooling.  Yet while we cannot (should not!), replace parenting, we can take ownership of that deficiency and take real steps to ameliorate its effects both through working with parents and providing extra resources to the child through schooling, home visits, or some other combination of programmatic engagement.  We don't need new schools, or new teachers, or new curriculum.  We need a new way of looking at how education is distributed.  It is simply unfair that some children grow up in households that leave them woefully unprepared, while others are pushing them to the very top.  This is not a recipe for social justice.

The Inherent Immorality of Health Insurance

Matt Yglesias points to one of the main pieces of Health Care Reform.

One of the most important elements of the Affordable Care Act is the requirement that insurance companies maintain a “medical loss ratio” of at least 85 percent—which is to say, spend at least 85 percent of what they take in in premiums on purchasing health care, rather than on profits and salaries for insurance company employees.

He provides the following chart:

The strange thing to me about the entire health care debate (or gosh, is it over?) is that there is an enormous conflict of interest inherent to the health insurance business.  In order for businesses to be successful, they need to, well, be businesses - in other words to try to make money.

But unlike just about every other business, health care determines people's lives.  I mean, if people don't get proper treatment they get sick and die.  But that can get really expensive, thus caps and pre-existing condition lock-outs.  So now, to try and make things more moral (i.e. not force people into dangerous ER situations and the cost-shifting that involves), we require equal access.  But as businesses, this is terrible for the industry.  It basically means sacrificing profit for morality. So then you get the mandate, the subsidies, the 3-legged stool, yadda, yadda. 

But all of this to account for the fact that insurance companies, to provide a social good, must sacrifice profitability.  We don't ask other businesses to do this.  It would be like, in the absence of a public school system, requiring private schools to take on charity cases from the neighborhood.  The only reason we wouldn't dream of that is that we allow for a certain level of decency to children that we don't adults.  (Although many people have been perfectly willing to allow kids to go uninsured.  These people are sick.  And Republican.  And they wonder why they get a bad rap?).

It seems reasonable that in markets where there is a moral obligation to sacrifice profit, morality will lose out.  It isn't as if some noble insurance companies decided to open their doors to pre-existing conditions "out of the good of their hearts".  They wouldn't be very good businesses if they did.

Beckology, cont.

One thing possibly worth mentioning regarding Glenn Beck is that he doesn’t believe there is any such thing as social injustice.

We waste so much effort in this country arguing about whether or not some government program or another is effective.  But the simple answer for an increasing number of conservatives is that government is not only incapable of solving social problems, but only creates more!  To this movement, all are perfectly able to help themselves, and only by our helping them do we actually create injustice. Beck made this argument powerfully at CPAC when he told the audience that in his own darkest moments, if there had been someone there to help him up, he never would have gotten low enough to see his way out, to see how far he had fallen.  He was thankful that no one had helped him.  "The freedom to fail" he called it.

This is some seriously crazy shit. But it’s pretty well the norm among conservatives. Suffering is actually good because it makes you stronger. There’s a flagellistic quality to it, as if sin is something through which we achieve greater things. So social justice, in which people are given help via social programs, whether kicking addiction, taking night courses, getting kidney dialysis… actually forces people down.  And not only is misfortune... unfortunate, in this magical version of capitalism, it is a sort of redeeming gauntlet through which life lessons are not just learned but earned.  So when one gets cancer while working full time at a job that doesn't offer health insurance, it is through that experience that one learns not to ever again settle for a job that doesn't offer health insurance.  Let that be a lesson to you! 

There seems to be a very twisted view of behaviorism at the root of much conservative logic. Consciousness or enlightenment is not something that can be delivered – it must be discovered. And no matter how much we might want to help (if only we could redistribute our income!), they must find it on their own.  Obviously this is absurd. It requires some magical belief that no government or church program ever works. Something so demonstrably false it’s bizarre. Of course, social programs don’t always work, or work well. But to say they don’t on principle is crazy.

Yet if one believes this, then… ta da! – one is no longer responsible for anyone but themselves. Any guilt one might feel is absolved! What a miraculously liberating delusion.

There seems to be something deeper at work here.  Yet I can't put my finger on it.  But it somehow involves a belief in divine justice.  Just as a televangelist will occasionally explain disaster as the devil seeking his punishment on the sinful, there seems to be an element of religio-social harmonization going on.  How could such suffering exist in the world - in such a perfect world - if not to be explained by somehow blaming the victim?  And so much more so if such suffering arises from the society of man.  And more still if the result of an apparent lack of adherence to time-honored traditions of behavior.

The junkie should not have been using drugs.  The young mom should not have gotten pregnant.  And she should have treated her man better so that he wouldn't have run off.  Or she should have found a better man to begin with.  And one should have picked a better job.  Or one should not have so on, etc.

But they did.  And all of this is probably true.  But should we not be able to help them just the same?  Should we not be able to assist them in finding their way toward some more righteous path?

I have occasionally heard the claim that helping the unfortunate is actually a simply more effective technique for solving any problem of social justice that does exist.  The argument is that the suffering individual acts as a sort of deterrent from dysfunctional behavior.  And that by healing the individual, you are removing the example of "how not to act".

There is somewhat of a legitimate argument here, in so far as any negative behavior can act as a deterrent.  One frequently does the right thing simply to avoid the perceived consequences of acting otherwise.  But choices are rarely so black and white.  Negative behaviors are often accompanied by a great deal of reward, usually short term, with long term negative consequences.  And to the individual who has trouble with long-term thinking, negative behaviors can seem like very good bargains.  Generational poverty has many elements built into it that would seem to be greatly deterrent, and yet for many reasons they rarely turn out to be sufficient to the task.  There are individual exceptions, but they don't prove the socio-economic rule.


Or is there something more still?  Is the desire something more basic, something darker?  Should they be punished?  Should they suffer?   Should we not help them not because we can't, but because we should not?  Should we allow them to suffer through their misfortune, even if we are able to help, not because they will learn dependency instead of self-efficacy, but because they deserve to suffer?  Vengeance is in fact a human emotion.  Our desire for revenge is a powerful element in our arts, and often an entirely codified element of the criminal justice system.  The death penalty is regularly spoken of as a punishment.  And I doubt our tolerance of sub-human conditions in prisons has much else to do with than vengeance.  There is a fine line between punishment as deterrent and punishment as vengeance.  And yet what is vengeance other than a sating of emotional need, or more simply, pleasure.

It is no coincidence that conservatives, quickest among us to admit to desiring pure vengeance when wronged ("If that was my daughter I'd skin him alive"), are also the ones decrying social justice.  Yet is it wrong to draw a line from vengeance for a personal, violent crime, and one that more broadly harms society, or even merely presents a subjective, debatable harm to society?  And could we somehow form a framework that ties a sense of vengeance - a personal feeling of resentment and injustice - to a desire for vengeance against those
who violate the larger social order?

This is a new arena within which to consider such a raw and dangerous emotion.  No longer simply an expression of passion in a personal sense, it has become transcendent, opening up widely into the affairs of state.  In this light it becomes more clear why such base rage seems to envelop the conservative mind.  Anger and resentment have arisen not just out of frustration with policy, but as a manifestation of a desire to punish one's liberal opponents, along with the dysfunctional ne're-do-wells they seek to aid and give comfort to.

Health Care Fantasy

Health care is often described as a "market".  But I think this is wrong.  How could anything like a market exist when some people are going to have life experiences that make them 100x more costly than others? If we compared health care insurance to auto, life, house, or other forms of insurance, it would be like certain people living in houses on fire, or driving cars with broken steering wheels that continually crash into other vehicles!

The reason we get around this today seems to be that there are structural systems that manage risk. The first would be employee pools, next pre-existing conditions, and finally just really high insurance costs. But such a system depends on a high degree of callousness. Those in fields where no employee pool exists, or the where wages don’t support it are kicked out. Then those with a pre-existing condition are left out. Finally those who can’t afford it are left out. And here we arrive at the high level of uninsured, those who don’t get medical treatment, and those who simply die.

To me this comes down to basic morality. We as a society can afford to cover everyone. Maybe more clumsily, but adequately. Our taxes will be higher, but our economic system won’t collapse. It hasn’t in every other Western country that guarantees some form of universal HC. Yet we choose not to. Throughout history societies have chosen different levels of compassion, having decided on different moral standards. Our American system of health care right now depends upon on tolerating a certain level of human suffering.
This is a moral determination. All sorts of fancy economic or philosophical reasoning is put forth. But in the end it seems a simple matter of morality. Yet one that also seems to depend (as limited compassion usually does), on a failure to empathize because of a failure to witness. Few people would argue that we deny people access to emergency rooms, should they not be able to pay. Yet having no insurance isn’t much different. Yet the situation is less clear-cut. It happens on calm afternoons, when medications are not picked up from pharmacies, when problems go undiagnosed, when bills pile up and homes are quietly foreclosed. The story becomes part of that elusive tapestry of unacknowledged, unwitnessed poverty.

It is here that the sweeping philosophical and economic rationalizations for our current system reside. Here in this emotional vacuum the specifics and details crumple into dust beneath grand gestures. The human lives that hang in the balance are absent. They cannot enter, for they would immediately disrupt the natural symmetry between our present system and a most basic level of human sympathy. In this way it is not that opponents of HCR are without compassion, but that they must actively disengage from the reality of their position’s consequence.

The Difficulty of Sainthood

I imagine very few of us are really moral, in the sense that we are making rational decisions about our lives based on what is always right.

Peter Singer's thought experiment on sacrifice illustrates this well: we in the first world make daily decisions that favor our own small benefit over less fortunate others who would experience vastly greater benefit, even though were we to face these individuals we would make the sacrifice in an instant. For those unfamiliar with his point, he asks you to imagine yourself witness to an ice-skating child falling through an icy pond, whose rescue would then depend upon you ruining your $100 fur coat.

I think the really moral thing for us all to do is to take vows of poverty and donate all our free time to charity work. The obvious response to this is that our pleasures serve as a reward, thus generating more overall behavioral efficacy. I think this argument is mostly lazy, and serves nicely as a convenient justification for immoral behavior. After all, losing our shoes and jumping into ice water would just as well diminish our reward-stimulus yet the moral imperative is as strong.

So then why are we not all more like Saints? What is it about them that allows them to possess such vigorous discipline and moral courage? And then, maybe, what is it about us that keeps us from acting saintly?

It seems very difficult to answer this question at the individual level. But at the larger, social level I think we can more reliably find structural trends, and possibly apply universal human behavioral patterns. I may not be able to see why right now, up until this point in my life I have rarely acted saintly. But I can find patterns in others with similar life experiences.

I know that the more comfortable and satisfied I am in my life, the more appealing the idea of sacrificing for others becomes. And much of my position in life is owed to the fortunate experiences I have had over the years. I have been able to learn sets of behaviors that generate for me the life results I desire. At the broader social level, similar experiences are predictive of similar capacities for self-efficacy. (Of course, sorting out causal relationships is enormously challenging. And any causal hypothesis, after identifying clean correlations, is dependent upon continued predictive strength.)

Yet getting structural factors involved in group compassion is complex. Determining social outcomes that support individual satisfaction in order to promote efficacy is part of it. There are also the cultural institutions that act as mechanisms for stimulating the compassionate response. Foremost among these would be the media as a way to deliver information. Then there would be the actual delivery of care, facilitated by NGOs and governments.

Depending on political persuasion, one might be more of an advocate for taxation as a way of embedding compassionate sacrifice into a governmental-social framework. This is dependent upon a choice of ultimate efficacy - broken both into belief in governmental efficacy and emphasis on a social contract specifically designating compassion by all member citizens. Others may opt for an emphasis on private delivery of services, either out of mistrust in government's efficacy or a de-emphasis on inserting compassionate sacrifice into any social contract.

In the end, we will all determine what is a comfortable level of sacrifice, even if, except for the saints among us, it is never quite moral enough. That sacrifice might look different for different people. It may take many forms, from the simplest act as smiling at a stranger, or volunteering at a soup kitchen. In our social behavior though, it is through our interactions that we experience compassion - as we communicate, then place ourselves in the minds and hearts of others, and then choose how to act towards them.

Terrorism-ism

There's an interesting coincidence of philosophical justifications among those who approve of torture. They tend to make the following arguments:

1)Because of the nature of their alleged crimes, they are beyond the rule of law. "These people are terrorists!"

2)The information they might have is worth the sacrifice of their rights. The "ticking-bomb" scenario.

These are two distinct philosophical positions. The legitimacy of each is independent of the other. While the two together form a more substantial case for torture, neither is dependent on the other for legitimacy. Either may be accepted regardless of the truth of the other.

For instance the gravity of the situation may not require the use of torture, even as the nature of their crimes overrides their claim of human rights. And likewise, if the information they hold requires the administration of torture, the nature of their crimes may not be sufficient to deny their rights.

Yet both are almost always accepted together. One would expect to find more people willing to admit that while one may be legitimate, the other is not. The fact that torture advocates are in near lockstep agreement on both counts, and frequently make the case for one or the other - while not directly refuting either argument, calls into question the intellectual honesty, and thus integrity of those who would appeal to the justification of torture on moral grounds.

On its face, one would assume that advocacy of torture would alone determine one's moral integrity. But the fact that not just one, but two very contentious propositions are so frequently argued together seems telling.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

My morals on death are determined by reasonable social cost, and pain and suffering of the individual. Until a baby is birthed, into our society as an individual with a birth certificate, I see no real social cost in killing it. As long as its suffering is not too terrible, I see no problem killing it. A baby in the 8th month of gestation having its skull drilled in and crushed is fine with me.

The above may seem cruel and unsavory - but only in the context of a society in which many view the fetus (even the zygote, often) as a complete human being. I find the hunting of large mammals as cruel and unsavory - especially the part where they are stuffed and hung on the wall. But I recognize that my feelings are relative to my own moral compass, its bearings aligned with my religious, political, and cultural views. There is no overwhelming rational clarity that places either abortion or hunting into a clear moral category.

Unlike, say, the murder of a ten year old, the gutting of a family pet, or incest. Those fall into specific moral domains defined by broadly agreed upon - universal among humans - moral and social codes. These codes may someday change, and individuals may develop personal convictions contrary to norm, but until they achieve politically viable status, they will remain subject to democratically achieved laws. This has no bearing however, upon whether any of them are morally correct - that will be up to the individual to determine for him or herself.

But governing laws are not passed on the moral compass of individuals, but on that of the state, representative of the will of the people. Thus, while I personally feel hunting as despicable, not only do I respect my fellow citizens' moral trajectories, more importantly I respect the will of the people and all laws it passes within that context. Were my convictions strong enough, I would be well within my ethical rights to break the law in order to do what I felt was right. Legal rights, of course not, but ethically speaking, yes. If a ten year old boy was going to be murdered legally before me, I would be ethically obligated to stop the act, as long as I felt sufficient conviction (I would!).

So while it would be ethical to oppose abortion (or hunting), one would have to be sufficiently confident enough in their convictions to oppose its legal practice, much less otherwise illegal personal actions to stop it. And yet while I am confident in my ability to evoke powerful logical and rational arguments against murdering ten year old children and having most reasonable people accept them, I am not nearly as confident in my ability to persuade foes of abortion or hunting enthusiasts. Thus I cannot expect fellow citizens to consider banning either. Until abortion or hunting become as morally compelling to the will of society as murdering young boys, we cannot expect others to go along with our personal convictions on the matter.

Reading Ayn Rand

I came across this page at the Ayn Rand Institute. It's a definition of "selfishness" according to Objectivism.

Selfishness

The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment.
The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. It holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value.

Trying desperately to make my way through the logic of this fantastic bit of writing, I realized the key to the whole thing lies at the end.

The Objectivist glorification of selfishness has, I think, been what has caused most adults to dismiss it as idiotic at best, downright evil at worst. How, after all, can one seriously defend the seeming root - greed - of so much human suffering throughout history?

Rand does very little arguing here; she is mainly making bold statements about moral truths, as if they should be self-evident. She blithely declares that human good "cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone." Really? That's bizarrely wrong.

What planet was this woman on?

But then I was struck by the three words at the end of this sentence: "...there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them". Of course there is conflict of interest among men - especially when it comes to capitalism. This is where the word "cutthroat" comes from! Being moral isn't impossible in business - you just can't make as much money that way. In an exchange between two equal parties, there is always the possibility that one will use deceit to take advantage of the other.

What is more, capitalist transactions frequently involve unequal parties - that is, one party clearly holds the upper hand, whether through purchasing power, market control, etc. Because the dominant party will usually benefit more from the transaction, unequal relationships can be quite lucrative. The history of labor is rife with just this sort of exploitation, from slavery to sharecropping to child labor to sweatshops. Thus being immoral is not only possible, it is rewarded. And immorality could be said to be the very definition of conflict of interest.

Yet Rand offers an exquisite caveat, a cunning condition to rectify her flimsy case: man ought not accept sacrifice from others.

So there you have it. Capitalism and greed are wonderful, as long as both parties do not take advantage of one another. The only problem is that this redefines what "selfishness" means. One is unselfish to the degree that one takes into consideration the sacrifice of others. A selfish boss pays his workers as little as possible - asking the most sacrifice of them. An unselfish boss, recognizing their sacrifice, pays them fairly.

Rand's rhetorical strategy is utterly dishonest. She makes the revolutionary claim that selfishness be upheld as a highly moral value, but then redefines it so as to strip from it most of its original meaning.

According to Rand man should act entirely in his own self-interest (which happens also to be the interest of society - "the values required for human survival"), all the while keeping in mind not to exploit others. But is it not in man's interest (and society's) that others also act to their fullest potential? Does he not want his workers to be the smartest, most creative, happiest and productive workers? Surely this at times must require from him some level of sacrifice. Would not paying his workers more, or allowing them bargaining rights be considered a sacrifice?

All of this seems ultimately to be Utopian: it envisions a future of perfect order, but one that is dependent upon its own perfection. This circularity denies the current reality that in a capitalist system, when inequality exists, exploitation will occur, if not by individual moral failing then by systemic incoherence. The modern democratic response has been pragmatic: government regulation and intervention into the market. Just as streets and borders are policed, so is the market - via wage laws, environmental, safety, quality, etc. regulations.

An outgrowth of this practical recognition of the inherent failings of a pure market has also been to provide on the one hand a safety net for those unable to benefit from the market (medicare, social security) and on the other an educational and civic framework upon which to build-in equitable distribution of social capital (schools, libraries, parks, etc.).

Yet to Rand all of this would be considered sacrifice - especially so if unevenly burdened upon the wealthy (those considered to have an excess in capital advantage). But as these advantaged individuals are, historically and in our present system, in a position to reap the rewards of others' sacrifice, either through deceit or simple systemic asymmetry, what is keeping them from doing so?

The answer would seem to me to be an incalculable level of unselfishness, that is - for each transaction one would be required to assess the other party's particular level of sacrifice. And given that a true assessment of sacrifice would need to take account not only of that individual's monetary resources, but also their level cognitive and emotional resources - such things that inform one's transactional capacity.

The beauty of government intervention is that it does much of this for us! As long as a decent safety net is provided, and an institutional framework that eliminates structural disadvantage is established, one can assume with much greater confidence that any transactions entered into will be built upon a foundation of equal sacrifice on both sides. The marketplace will take place within a system of genuine equity, and the likelihood of either conscious or implied exploitation will be minimal.

Relativism vs. "Relativism"

I had a deja-epiphany today. At one point I had had it sorted out, but then something just disappeared. Well, anyway.

I first understood the term "relativism" to be a simple statement of scientific fact: that morality is based on whomever chooses it (i.e. morality is relative to human construction). Ahah, but not so! To those among us who decry "relativism", it means two things: A) Morals are absolute (i.e. not created by man) & B) "Relativists" do not believe it is proper to force others to accept their morals. In this way they are able to conflate two very different positions and use one to bat the other.

What this generally takes the form of is, "Oh, so you think being gay is OK just because you feel like it? You probably think its OK to steal then too, right? Because it's anything goes!".

(Quick aside: Conflation is an interestingly common logical fallacy. One also sees it with objection to abortion as "murder". If abortion is murder, then people who have or support abortions are "murderers". But murder implies intent. Just because one person says squashing ants is murder, does not squashing ants a murder of me make.)

So, one can surely believe that morals are relative, and take a firm position on things. For all I know, we may one day find evidence of some moral absolute written down somewhere (although the problem will then be who wrote it, but let's leave it there for now). But as it stands there is no evidence for an particular moral. But we think and feel in pretty much the same ways. And that's basically persuasive enough for most people.

For instance, I seriously doubt there is any "moral" law about farting next to your wife. But she doesn't like it. So we don't do it. (OK, I often do but I accept that it is immoral.) There we go: moral defined by man (woman?). Is it proper for me to force my morality on others? Well, if you and your wife are "into" that sort of thing - then by all means, right? That's the beauty of creating your own morals. As long as you are a consenting adult then universal human rights begin to apply. But no need to get the UN involved in this, is there?

Flogging Will, p.2.2: falling trees

Assumption #1: There is no free will - all of our decisions are all determined by the causal web of biology and environment.*

(*note: determinism will heretofore be defined in the context of human consciousness outcomes, such that human thought be considered determined by events beyond one's control, even if other, non-strictly-deterministic forces may be at work at the atomic or super-atomic level.)

Justice

Our modern concept of justice is somewhat nebulous. At its root, it is based on an empathetic response. We identify with the victim and their suffering, and we then lash out instinctively, as if it were us that was threatened. This is justice of the moment, and is as simple as self-preservation. As an empathetic extrapolation to broader society, this puts in place systems of physical response (police, army, etc.) and systems of imprisonment, both of which provide direct protection from crime, and also a measure of deterrence for would be criminals. These are obvious measures and one of the basic premises for civilization itself.

A third function of our justice system is the prospect of rehabilitation. This is controversial for a number of reasons, a good portion of which depends upon the very subject of this article: the concept of free will vs. determinism. As its efficacy is frequently debatable, and requires extra resources to provide, rehabilitation must make the case not only that it works, but that the criminals are worthy of such social investment. Assuming for the moment that a certain method is effective, the question then becomes down to the generosity of the public to pay for it. At this point one can still believe in free will and find two reasons for merit in rehabilitating criminals.

The first is practical: it eliminates recidivism, and thereby future threat. The second is more spiritual, or intuitive in nature. As a Judeo-Christian concept, forgiveness has a long (although rocky) history. But it is safe to say that it thrives in the following of standard church doctrine across the West. In a secular sense, whether as a direct extension of this dogma, or simply as an outgrowth of psychological development, the concept of forgiveness is also a powerful force as it appeals to the idea that people can change and feel remorse for their crimes. Social logic tells us that the promotion of peaceful behavior in the individual has a direct impact on society as it acts as an example of positive behavior, promoting peace and safety for the group. As a description of socialization, this is also an argument for determinism, yet it could be seen as having a minimal impact, and thus of little consequence for the free application of will. However, this leads us back to the degree to which denial of determinism influences one's interest in rehabilitation to begin with: if one considers will independent of such things as peer influence, then the socializing impact of rehabilitated criminals is limited.

Finally, and least quantifiably, our justice system seeks to provide a "sense of justice" to the victim (whether an individual or society at large). This "sense" of justice serves a powerful social purpose, and is universal enough to be considered a possible evolutionary trait. To the extent that it defines crime, it offers society a model for what and what not to deem acceptable.

Beyond this establishment of a criminal model, however, the "sense" of justice is also thought of as providing a sort of emotional compensation to the victim. Whether it actually accomplishes this goal is certainly a difficult proposition, as it depends upon what justice ultimately means in an intuitive, emotional sense. Does it require suffering on the part of the perpetrator - and if so, according to what metric? Does it require that they repent and truly feel remorse for their crimes? Should they be required to "repay" some level of debt to society?

And how so (again, by what metric)? And lastly, society's "sense" of justice must be different than that of the individual. It is a commonly held conviction that, were a serious enough wrong be committed against a loved one, personal vengeance would be seriously considered. And the more heinous the crime, the more violently passionate the response.

This threat response is obvious when the danger is to one's self or close family and friends. Yet as the circle of familiarity widens, the threat response diminishes. Modern society however, through various social institutions allows us to attach ourselves ever further, to identify more closely, to distant people. The most obvious instance of this is the rather arbitrary standard we apply to threats faced by our nation's citizens. As we identify as citizens of a particular country, we place a higher value on that citizen's well-being. Another example would be perception of harm to begin with, as in the case with abortion. Those who view fetuses as full human beings, and thus identify with them, feel personally attacked by abortion.

So what role does determinism play in justice? As a practical matter, in the sense that a definition of crime is established and sought to be prevented, it is irrelevant. But to the extent that the criminal's motivation is brought in to the equation, its implications are profound. Determinism demands that we radically alter, or at least impose an entirely new set of controls on our fundamental nature as humans. As noted, we have a strong impulse for vengeance, likely biological in nature, but certainly affected by cultural disposition. Yet this impulse is strongly dependent upon how we view the perpetrator.

To illustrate, consider the difference between a natural "disaster" and a human act of violence. Were a tree to fall on one's home, killing a member of their family, despite intense suffering over their loss, the concept of vengeance, or "justice" applied to the tree would be absurd. However, absurd as it may be, the human impulse is still active - who among us has not stubbed their toe on some piece of furniture and not cursed it in a fit of pain-induced delirium? Yet we immediately recognize it as a completely irrational impulse and chide ourselves for making such a ridiculous feat of illogic. The inanimate object had no intent to harm: and so vengeance is predicated on an illusion.

Yet this is what determinism reduces human behavior to. As people's choices are "animated" by processes set in motion beyond their control, they can be considered "inanimate". And this is indeed the concession we make for many human behaviors. If one is deemed insane, or mentally incompetent, as horrific as their actions may have been, we are forced to remind ourselves that they were operating with mental faculties beyond their control. This is certainly the case with small children. When a two year old hits his playmate in the face with a stick out of anger, we scold him (rehabilitation), but well understand that his behavior was limited by his cognition. Determinism simply extends this conceit to the entire human race, at every level of cognition. Just as the child's consciousness is seen as existing within a framework of cognitive and social development, determinism sees the adult as operating within the same boundaries, just at a higher level of complexity.

For next time...

Economics?