tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69379101565946526832024-03-12T22:16:23.976-04:00Reflections Here and ThereAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854459548168336396noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-6553088077103600872019-05-28T10:30:00.001-04:002019-05-29T09:17:52.366-04:00Climate and Security?<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Discussion of the security risks posed by climate change has become commonplace, and not for no reason: climate change acts as a “<a href="https://www.cna.org/CNA_files/pdf/National%20Security%20and%20the%20Threat%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf">threat multiplier</a>,” raising the risk of conflict by—among other things—threatening agriculture and access to water and making some parts of the world inhospitable to human life. Yet some people have pushed back on this framing of the issues, warning that framing climate change as a security issue invites us to think of people harmed by climate change not as victims, but as enemies. In a recent op-ed called “<a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/climate-security-women-peace-building-by-alaa-murabit-and-luca-bucken-2019-05">The Myth of Climate Wars?</a>” Alaa Murabit and Luca Bücken argue that these critics are mistaken. “Rather than resisting the securitization of climate,” they say, “advocates and policymakers should be advancing…‘the climatization of security’” by “using security to increase the salience of climate action, highlighting the shortcomings of current security frameworks, and promoting gender inclusiveness and local leadership as holistic and long-term solutions for fostering local, regional, and international peace.” <br /><br />There is compelling evidence that the resulting agreements are likely to be more durable and the peace longer-lasting if </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">local women are more involved in conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">. Both for that reason and for the sake of gender equity more generally, Murabit and Bücken are quite right to suggest that we need to give them the tools they need to do that. Nevertheless, trying to temper discussions of the security threat posed by climate change by “climatizing” security talk seems to me a dangerous mistake. Rather than doing that, I submit, we should abandon the security frame entirely at the level of messaging, instead emphasizing <i>conflict prevention</i> and <i>peacebuilding</i>, terms that have the distinct advantage of not suggesting that desperate people whose wells have run dry are our enemies. <br /><br />The only reason Murabit and Bücken give for retaining the emphasis on security is that “linking climate change to security can positively contribute to mobilizing climate action.” Presumably their thought is that talk of threats to our national security is likely to galvanize people into action by convincing them that climate change is a threat to their personal well-being. Certainly, that’s possible: if you’re worried about some threat, a rational response is to try to nip it in the bud by addressing its root cause. What seems more likely, however, is that many people will respond to discussions of the security threat climate change poses by pushing for hardened borders and more preparations for the climate wars they have been led to think they need to worry about. Consider, for instance, the reaction we have seen in the US to</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> migrants from Northern Triangle countries seeking asylum, </span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/how-climate-change-is-fuelling-the-us-border-crisis" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">some of whom</a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> fled after finding that their traditional farming techniques no longer workable in light of increasing drought and changing rainfall patterns. Far from spurring climate action, first Candidate and then President Trump's and others' presentation of these people as threats to national security </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">has spurred calls to “build the wall.” Similarly, </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">refugees fleeing the Syrian Civil War--</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">a conflict </span><a href="https://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-contributing-factor-syrian-conflict-18718" style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">precipitated</a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">, in part, by record-setting droughts--</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">have been greeted by nativist backlash throughout Europe. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Not only are there no good reasons to retain the security frame, however; framing climate change as a security threat carries serious risks. As Murabit and Bücken themselves note, emphasizing the security threat posed by climate change could “challenge already-strained international cooperation on climate governance, while driving investment away from necessary interventions—such as the shift to a low-carbon economy—toward advancing military preparedness.” Even more worrisome, there is a real chance that framing climate change as a security threat will exacerbate frightening recent trends in European and American politics. After all, the more people harmed by the disruptive effects of climate change are presented as threats to our way of life, the more reasonable it will come to seem to for governments to take extreme measures to protect their citizens. Just recently, for instance, the crowd at a Trump campaign rally <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/watch-trump-laugh-over-a-comment-about-shooting-migrants.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=s1&utm_campaign=nym&fbclid=IwAR3kweuWkqg4myKcHzeogxG1vOZI88lD-zt1Sek4_xfq-PJbhId7VlST3x4">cheered</a> when an attendee suggested we shoot incoming migrants; President Trump made a joke about the comment. <br /><br />Admittedly, Murabit and Bücken are probably right that, given its implications for migration, public health, resource scarcity, and other pressing policy issues, it will be difficult if not impossible to completely disentangle climate and security discussions. Moreover, and for the same reason, it is understandable that people have become concerned about potential security threats associated with climate change. Even so, I think we do well to at least de-emphasize the point if not avoid it entirely, emphasizing instead the need for cooperation and solidarity in the face of scarcity. What evidence we have available to us seems to suggest that emphasizing threats associated with these various phenomena does little to spur climate action; meanwhile, that strategy has the potential to do a good deal of additional harm to those most affected by climate change.</span>Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-18435623415904847562019-03-28T16:59:00.001-04:002019-03-28T16:59:57.884-04:00Three Steps Congress Can Take to Prepare for the Era of Mass American Climate Migration<div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Recently, and quite rightly, the potential for significant near-term increases in climate-induced migration has received a good deal of attention; however, relatively little discussion to date has focused on the potential for climate-induced displacement within the US. This is unfortunate, since some of the same climate impacts that will drive migration elsewhere are present here, including sea-level rise, increasing average temperatures, more frequent, longer, and more intense heatwaves, and wildfires. These climatic changes have the potential to displace millions of Americans: according to one study, sea-level rise alone may affect up to 13.1 million Americans by 2100, leading to “to US population movements of a magnitude similar to the twentieth century Great Migration of southern African-Americans.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn1">[1]</a> Migration on this scale would be extremely disruptive not just for migrants themselves but also for the communities where they take up residence. To minimize these harms, Congress should act now both to minimize the number of people who find themselves compelled to flee their homes and to help those forced to move. In what follows, I explores the various potential drivers of climate-induced displacement in the US and recommend policies to achieve both aims. <br /><br /><br /><i>Potential Drivers of Climate-Induced Displacement in the US </i><br /><br />The factors likeliest to lead Americans to move differ from one region to another. <br /><br />On the east coast, by far the most potent driver of displacement is sea-level rise. In 2011, Hurricane Sandy demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of parts of New York, and Miami and Charleston are already experiencing considerable, frequent flooding. The latter have already driven some residents away.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn2">[2]</a> Although communities across the east and gulf coasts are at risk, Florida appears to be by far the most vulnerable: a recent analysis by Climate Central found that twenty-two of the twenty-five US cities most at risk of coastal flooding are in the Sunshine State.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn3">[3]</a> <br /><br />In the Southwest, higher temperatures will be the primary driver of migration. Across the region, average and average maximum temperatures are expected to increase,<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn4">[4]</a> and heatwaves are projected to become more frequent, longer, and more intense.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn5">[5]</a> For instance, in Phoenix—probably the most at-risk major city in the Southwest—the average temperature in July could approach 110 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn6">[6]</a> Heat stress is already the leading cause of weather-related death in the US, and the annual number of deaths is expected to increase as heatwaves worsen.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn7">[7]</a> Faced with these scorching temperatures, we can expect that many people will pack their bags and head for cooler climes. <div style="text-align: right;">
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In the Western US as a whole, pressure to migrate will come, not from heat or drought <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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directly, but from their most destructive consequence: wildfires. According to a report by the US Global Climate Change Research Program, “[m]odels project…up to a 74% increase in burned area in California, with northern California potentially experiencing a doubling under a high emissions scenario toward the end of the century.”<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn8">[8]</a> Even worse, annual burn areas in western Colorado and northwestern Wyoming could increase by up to 650% with just one degree Celsius of additional warming—at this point, a fairly optimistic scenario (see Figure 1 at right).<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn9">[9]</a> Fires threaten the safety, not only of those in their direct path but, because of their effects on air quality, of those in surrounding areas as well. </span><div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZaeNSULpNpmc4AJMZ_Yh7SYNWXXIMVjFoDv4eQp2IjLS9wbdWnK0pCsemDuVANpstQ3B2ryk7aTrP7TBhmwpCe3QWWJ2yPkGtlYzFARj91zDxOKritRFNClfHLb8nhRN8X6ZmSPBo5Y/s1600/wildfire+risk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="439" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZaeNSULpNpmc4AJMZ_Yh7SYNWXXIMVjFoDv4eQp2IjLS9wbdWnK0pCsemDuVANpstQ3B2ryk7aTrP7TBhmwpCe3QWWJ2yPkGtlYzFARj91zDxOKritRFNClfHLb8nhRN8X6ZmSPBo5Y/s1600/wildfire+risk.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Percent Increase in Median Annual Area Burned with a 1ºC<br />Increase in Global Average Temperature.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /><br /><i>Strategies for Decreasing the Risk of Displacement and Reducing Harms to Migrants </i><br /><br />In light of these risks, Congress should take action to minimize the number of people who find themselves compelled to flee their homes and to reduce the harms suffered by those forced to move. Three strategies seem especially promising. <br /><br /><u>Strategy 1</u>: Congress should create a new safety net program to help people adapt to climate change or move if necessary. As is the case with many environmental problems, sea-level rise, heatwaves, and wildfires will disproportionately affect lower-income people, who are at once less equipped to protect themselves from these threats and less capable of escaping them by migrating than wealthier people. A means-tested, federal safety net program allocating funds to lower income people to help them adapt—by, say, buying an air conditioner—or move away would help to reduce these inequalities. The program could be administered by FEMA, which already has the institutional infrastructure and expertise necessary to help people harmed by natural disasters. To make sure the people who need it most know about the program, Congress could allocate funds for TV advertising, as the Obama administration did to get the word out regarding the Affordable Care Act. <br /><br /><u>Strategy 2</u>: Congress should mandate that prospective residents be informed of climate-related risks before buying property or building new homes. At present, many states require that sellers disclose flood-related risks, but twenty-one states require no such disclosure, and none require that wildfire- or heat-related risks be disclosed.<a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_edn10">[10]</a> A program like this would help prospective residents to make informed decisions and to plan appropriately for future contingencies, likely reducing the number of people who move to disaster-prone areas in the first place. As a result, fewer people would be harmed, and the aforementioned safety net program would be cheaper. <br /><br /><u>Strategy 3</u>: Congress should do what it can to promote of use zoning laws to limit or prohibit development in at-risk areas. Because zoning is typically handled at the local level, Congress’ power is limited here, but there are ways Congress can encourage local governments to enact smart zoning laws. For instance, Congress could make participation in the National Flood Insurance Program contingent on the enactment of strategic zoning laws. Like laws requiring disclosure to prospective residents of climate-related risks, laws like these would help to reduce the number of people living in disaster-prone areas, in turn reducing both the number of people who will be harmed and the cost of a new, climate-related safety net program. <br /><br />All of these policies are likely to be opposed by homeowners in disaster-prone areas, who may very well see the value of their homes decrease as a result. This should not lead Congress to balk, for in the long run, these policies will help fall more people than they hurt. Still, the potential for resistance from homeowners might make it politically expedient to make the safety net program universal rather than means-tested. In that case, all homeowners would benefit from the program. <br /><br /><br /><i>Conclusion </i><br /><br />Climate change poses a variety of threats to the health and well-being of millions of Americans. Without aggressive mitigation measures in the very near future, many of the potential harms will be unavoidable. Even so, by working now to establish and publicize a new safety net program to help especially vulnerable people, mandating that prospective residents be fully informed of the risks, and taking what steps it can to encourage smart zoning laws, Congress can significantly reduce both the harms people will suffer and the extent to which climate change will upend their lives.<br /> <br /><br />Notes<br /><br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref1">[1]</a> Hauer et al., “Millions Projected to Be at Risk from Sea-level Rise in the Continental United States,” <i>Nature Climate Change</i> 6, no. 7 (2016): 691-695. <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref2">[2]</a> Oliver Milman, “‘We’re Moving to Higher Ground’: America’s Era of Climate Mass Migration is Here,” <i>The Guardian</i>, September 24, 2018, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas-era-of-climate-mass-migration-is-here">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/24/americas-era-of-climate-mass-migration-is-here</a> (accessed 11/20/18). <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref3">[3]</a> Kulp et al., “These U.S. Cities Are Most Vulnerable to Major Coastal Flooding and Sea Level Rise,” <i>Climate Centra</i>l, October 25, 2017, <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-cities-most-vulnerable-major-coastal-flooding-sea-level-rise-21748">http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-cities-most-vulnerable-major-coastal-flooding-sea-level-rise-21748</a> (accessed 11/20/18). <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref4">[4]</a> Based on predictions from <a href="https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/averagetemp-decade-LOCA-rcp85-2090-07-00?theme=Projections">https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/averagetemp-decade-LOCA-rcp85-2090-07-00?theme=Projections</a> (access 11/20/18). <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref5">[5]</a> Garfin, G., et al, “Ch. 20: Southwest,” in <i>Climate Change Impacts in the United States: The Third National Climate Assessment</i>, ed. J. M. Melillo, Terese (T.C.) Richmond, and G. W. Yohe, U.S. Global Change Research Program (2014), p. 471. Available at <a href="https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/southwest">https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/southwest</a> (accessed 11/20/18). <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref6">[6]</a> Based on predictions from <a href="https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/averagetemp-decade-LOCA-rcp85-2090-07-00?theme=Projections">https://www.climate.gov/maps-data/data-snapshots/averagetemp-decade-LOCA-rcp85-2090-07-00?theme=Projections</a> (access 11/20/18). <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref7">[7]</a> Garfin, G., et al, “Ch. 20: Southwest,” p. 471. <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref8">[8]</a> Garfin, G., et al, “Ch. 20: Southwest,” p. 468. <br /> <br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref9">[9]</a> National Research Council,<i> Climate Stabilization Targets: Emissions, Concentrations, and Impacts over Decades to Millennia</i>, (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2011), p. 180. <br /><br /><a href="file:///C:/Users/Josh/Dropbox/Grad%20app%20materials/Princeton/McBee%20Policy%20Memo.docx#_ednref10">[10]</a> Natural Resources Defense Council, “How States Stack Up on Flood Disclosure,” <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/flood-disclosure-map">https://www.nrdc.org/flood-disclosure-map</a> (accessed 11/27/18). </span></div>
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Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-61292585880362452772017-10-06T18:08:00.000-04:002019-06-01T06:28:38.424-04:00Gun Control<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am a bit unusual among folks on the left insofar as I actually have a lot of personal experience with guns. Though I haven't done it since I was a teenager, </span></span><span style="color: #666666;">I grew up hunting doves, squirrels, and deer with my grandpa; I think I killed my first deer when I was 11 or 12. </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">That experience has led me to think a lot of things folks say about gun regulation is misguided. The push to outlaw assault weapons, for example, has long struck me as driven by an ignorant aversion to something that looks scary on the part of people who don't actually know anything about the relevant weapons. Generally speaking, so-called "assault weapons" are not different from semi-automatic weapons generally in ways that anyone should care about, at least as far as I know (happy to be corrected on this point). Other proposed measures, like outlawing high-capacity magazines, seem to me to go in the right direction but not nearly far enough. </span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">For my part, I favor outlawing semi-automatic weapons, which </span></span><span style="color: #666666;">make it much easier to kill more people in a given period of time and </span><span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">were used in both of </span></span><span style="color: #666666;">the two worst mass shootings in the US in the last fifty years--in Orlando and Las Vegas</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">So far as I can see, there is no good reason private citizens should be able to own these weapons. You certainly don't need them for hunting. If you need more than one shot to kill an animal, what you're doing is inhumane, and you should quit hunting, go to the range, and work on your shooting until you can hunt humanely. If the concern is self-defense, I fail to see why a shotgun used at close range isn't the most effective choice anyway. And if the idea is that we need guns so that we can form militias and, in that way, protect ourselves from government overreach--well, I think anyone who thinks that this is possible with semi-automatic weapons but not without is seriously underestimating the power of the US military. And besides, it seems to me clear that the public health benefits of a ban on semi-automatic weapons obviously outweigh whatever vanishingly small chance there is that a private militia with semi-automatic weapons would be more likely to succeed in its attempts to resist government overreach than one without. Honestly, the only reason I can think of to oppose such a ban is the irrational attachment to negative liberty that infects our public discourse generally.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, there is good reason to go in for such a ban. There's robust </span><a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/4/16418754/gun-control-washington-post" style="font-family: inherit;">evidence</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> that regulations like this reduce gun-related deaths</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, and it's not hard to see why. E<span style="background-color: white;">ven if a ban didn't make it impossible to get hold of these, it would make doing so harder. It would accordingly </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666;">keep many people from getting hold of these more lethal weapons, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">and that by itself would significantly reduce the number of deaths, even if mass shootings and other forms of gun violence still took place</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">It's not clear whether or not banning these weapons would require revising the second amendment. (</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2016/06/15/can-gun-control-still-pass-muster-in-the-supreme-court/there-is-no-constitutional-bar-to-further-gun-control" style="font-family: inherit;">This piece</a><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">, at least, suggests that</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"> it wouldn't.) If it would, though, I say so much the worse for the amendment.</span>Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-16982772366769618442017-09-24T17:33:00.000-04:002017-10-09T14:04:07.544-04:00Some Very Rough Numbers on a Green New Deal<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">A couple
of recent developments got me thinking again about the possibility of a green
new deal.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">The
first was the “</span><a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2017/05/16/432499/toward-marshall-plan-america/"><span style="line-height: 107%;">Marshall
Plan for the United States</span></a><span style="line-height: 107%;">” developed by the Center for American
Progress (CAP). Observing that wages are lower and unemployment is higher among
Americans without college degrees, they propose a jobs guarantee aimed at
putting these Americans back to work at well-paying jobs in education,
healthcare, and various forms of care work. For, they note, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">There are not nearly enough home care workers
to aid the aged and disabled. Many working families with children under the age
of 5 need access to affordable child care. Schools need teachers’ aides, and
cities need EMTs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">They suggest, too,
that in addition to jobs, the government ought to fund infrastructure projects and apprenticeship programs
to train people for jobs for which they are not currently qualified.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">The other was the
Democrats’ “</span><a href="https://democrats.senate.gov/abetterdeal/#.WceQwvOGPIU"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Better Deal</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">” initiative, which also
advocates job training and infrastructure investment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">All of this seems
great. A jobs guarantee empowers labor by reducing the power of the sack, and
because, on the CAP plan, these jobs would be relatively well-paid at $15/hour or
$36,000/year after Medicare and Social Security taxes, they would have the
welcome effect of putting upward pressure on wages throughout the economy. Moreover,
jobs like these that help us to sustain and improve our lives are precisely the
sorts of jobs we need more of as we seek to build a low-carbon economy. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">The reason all this
got me thinking about a green new deal is that, their appeal notwithstanding, these
plans leave out a kind of work that is absolutely crucial to building a better
world: the construction and maintenance of green infrastructure, including not
just grid improvements and solar panel and wind turbine construction but also
the infrastructure necessary to expand opportunities for low-carbon leisure. Not
only is this work necessary; it is very well-suited for exactly the population
the CAP analysis is concerned with: you don’t need a college degree to do construction
work or to be a solar panel or wind turbine technician, though the latter do
require some training. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Maybe the reason for
this omission is that we can only fund so many jobs and so have to choose which
types of jobs to fund. But it is hardly obvious that green jobs are less
important than the kinds of jobs on which the CAP proposal focuses, and
besides, we may not have to choose: care work and educational jobs could be
funded from one source, green jobs from another. In particular, green jobs
might be funded using the revenue generated by a carbon tax and the </span><a href="http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">$20.5 billion</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> we currently spend every year subsidizing the
fossil fuel industry. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Senators Whitehouse
and Schatz recently <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060057974">proposed</a> a carbon tax that would generate $2 trillion in
revenue over 10 years (details <a href="http://www.rff.org/files/document/file/RFF-IB-15-01.pdf">here</a>), and
that proposal seems to be gaining some traction. Like many such proposals,
theirs is revenue-neutral, meaning that the revenue from this tax supplants
revenue that would otherwise have been collected by other means, such as the
corporate income tax. But a carbon tax needn’t be revenue-neutral. A carbon tax
might be structured in such a way that the revenue it generates does not
supplant but supplements other sources of revenue, and we might use that new
revenue to fund a </span><a href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">WPA</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">-style green jobs and
infrastructure program.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="height: 0px;">
<span style="color: #444444;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2012/summer/images/question22-paycheck-l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: #444444;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="597" height="500" src="https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2012/summer/images/question22-paycheck-l.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #444444;">A WPA worker receives a paycheck, January 1939. Source: <a href="https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/question22.html">National Archives</a>.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">Now, as is
well-known, carbon taxes are regressive, so some of the revenue from the tax
would need to be used to offset price spikes for lower-income people.
Fortunately, this might be accomplished using only a small portion of the
revenue generated. Estimates as to how much of the revenue generated would be
necessary for this purpose appear to range from 10-25% (details </span><a href="http://www.wri.org/blog/2016/11/climate-change-policy-benefits-poor" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">here</span></a><span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 107%;">). Just to be safe,
we can be conservative in our estimates here and go with the highest estimates.
This would still leave 75% of the annual proceeds for other things.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Now it is worth
saying that even this number may be too high. We might also want to reserve
some of the revenue collected via a carbon tax to seed a rainy day fund for
Americans forced to relocate as a result of climate change and for others
adversely affected thereby. But even if we used another 25% of the revenue
collected for that purpose, we would still collect about $100 billion per year
for 10 years. Using the numbers in the CAP proposal as a guide, that should be
enough to fund about 2.8 million jobs at an after-tax wage of $15/hr. Were we
to also use the $20.5 billion/year we currently spend in fossil fuel subsidies
for this purpose, we could create about 570,000 more such jobs, making for a
total of 3.37<i> million</i> jobs. And
remember, that’s using the most conservative figures around to make sure that
tax isn’t regressive and using an enormous amount of money to help people
adversely affected by climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">This is, of course,
a highly ambitious proposal, one unlikely to get anywhere in the current
political climate. Nevertheless it deserves serious consideration for several
reasons. Not only is it exactly the kind of bold vision needed to correct the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/18/a-majority-says-the-democratic-party-stands-for-nothing-except-the-only-thing-that-matters-in-2018/?utm_term=.fec48a6ffcd6"><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">impression</span></a><span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;"> that the Democratic
Party doesn’t stand for anything. Not only does it have the same advantages as
the CAP proposal with respect to the empowerment of labor and economy-wide
upward pressure on wages. In addition to all this, it has a distinct advantage
over many other carbon tax proposals. Even if this is not exactly the aim, the
likely if not inevitable effect of instituting a carbon tax high enough to
ensure that the prices of fossil fuels reflect their true cost to society is to
end our reliance on such fuels. It is for that reason a bad idea to use the
revenues generated thereby to fund anything we expect to continue to need funds
after we are no longer using carbon-intensive fuels: otherwise, we set
ourselves up for funding shortfalls in the future. The advantage of using
revenues from a carbon tax to fund a WPA-style green jobs program is that many
such jobs will become unnecessary around the same time we stop using fossil
fuels, and not just coincidentally. For these are precisely the jobs that bring
into existence the infrastructure we need in order to wean ourselves off of
gas, oil, and coal. As soon as they’re done, there will be nothing left to tax.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Notably, this aspect
of the proposal also gives to it something of a poetic character: for the
proposal is, in effect, to build the new world on the back of the old.</span></div>
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Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-65564443755254743242017-03-02T09:36:00.000-05:002017-03-02T17:35:49.022-05:00In Defense of Safety Nets<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">With the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and much of the rest of America's already-inadequate safety net on the chopping block, it seemed to me fitting to write a short defense of safety nets, one that emphasizes the moral and philosophical position underlying my view here rather than getting lost in the weeds, as so many discussions of safety net programs seem to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">My view here is grounded in the one of the oldest and most widely accepted moral views, the so-called Golden Rule: we ought to do to others as we would prefer that they do to us were our circumstances relevantly similar to theirs. It is also grounded in the view that one of the government's most basic functions is to protect its citizens from danger, one form of which is the vicissitudes of fortune (</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">illness, unexpected expenses, damage to or loss of property, etc.)</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">. Both these thoughts are captured nicely by the following thought experiment, developed by</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"> the American political philosopher John Rawls in the early '70s</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Try to imagine that you are in a situation where you don't know anything about what kind of person you are and are trying to imagine what a country should be like. So: you don't know if you're a man or a woman; what color your skin is; if you're able-bodied; if you're Christian, Muslim, non-religious, Jewish, or something else; if you're gay, bisexual,or straight; if you're cis- or transgender; if you're poor or rich or somewhere in between; if you have a family and friends you can rely or in hard times or if you don't; and so on. In short, all you know is that you live in some country. Now consider: if that were your situation, and if you could decide what the country you lived in would be like, how would you want it to be?</span></span></span><br />
<div style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">In particular, what kinds of resources would you like to have available to you if you fell on hard times? For example, would you want it to be the case that, if you needed help, the only place to turn would be the church and charities? Remember: because these are private organizations run by private citizens, there is no guarantee there will be any of them at all and, if there are, no guarantee that there will be enough of them or that they will be able to provide the help you need. Moreover, even if there are enough and they can help, they might not. Maybe you're gay and they don't like gay people. Maybe you're black and they don't like black folks. Maybe you're Jewish and they don't like Jews. And so on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">I don't think that's right or fair; in my view a society cannot call itself decent if it is willing to take the chance that people it might have helped die on the street. I accordingly think the government should be willing to extend a hand to anyone who needs it--to give them food to eat, a roof over their heads, and clothes to wear, whatever their color, creed, sexual orientation, etc. That way, even if I don't know anything about myself other than that I'm a citizen or perhaps even just a resident, I know that, if I'm in trouble, I can count on someone offering it to me, whatever else might turn out to be true about me. I don't just have to hope that someone might have decided to start a charity or a church that will be willing to help me: I can count on it.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicwrO0SEBc4VMz4s6LXsSstBJDbit8bK7Ylij_ULHIsui2-fZo1nEN9I_JkdbCUGYU6DDgon1l03BhdEfenMlGv-zVTH2lvKnXCul5lNiCJ6Za3KrE4AcU1b1ZH3G8nkfs1ao3j4UJbmo/s1600/safety+net.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicwrO0SEBc4VMz4s6LXsSstBJDbit8bK7Ylij_ULHIsui2-fZo1nEN9I_JkdbCUGYU6DDgon1l03BhdEfenMlGv-zVTH2lvKnXCul5lNiCJ6Za3KrE4AcU1b1ZH3G8nkfs1ao3j4UJbmo/s640/safety+net.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">A lot people have concerns about the kinds of government programs I'm advocating, and it would be impossible to address all of them without making this far too long. So I just want touch at least briefly on those I hear most often.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;">Perhaps the concern </span></span><span style="color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">about safety net programs </span><span style="color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hear expressed most frequently is that they enable free riders or moochers by giving them something for nothing.</span><span style="color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I think the fundamental thought behind this objection is that our society should be such that, the harder a person works and the higher the quality of their work, the better they do. Safety nets irritate people who press this objection because, they think, they stand in the way of the realization of <span style="font-family: inherit;">this ideal by rewarding laziness. This strikes them as unfair to people who are willing to do their part.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In principle, I
don't see anything wrong with this meritocratic ideal. In general, it seems to
me a good thing to reward people<span style="font-family: inherit;"> for working hard at helpful tasks. Nevertheless I think this is a very bad objection to safety nets for a couple of reasons.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">First, </span></span><span style="color: #444444;">I
just do not think our society is anywhere close to being meritocratic in this
sense. On the one hand, people born into rich or powerful families often do quite<span style="font-family: inherit;"> well for themselves despite not being especially capable. Sometimes this is because their families have connections and influence that enable them to do things they wouldn't otherwise be able to; for example, this appear to be what explains the admission to Harvard of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and according to his high-school teachers a "less than stellar" student (details <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/jared-kushner-acceptance-to-harvard-trump-son-in-law">here</a>)</span></span></span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Other times it is just because such people come into the world with a kind of support system or fail-safe people born into less fortunate circumstances do not: if they ever end up in a tight spot, they can rely on their family's wealth and connections to get them out of it. On the other, our society often throws up arbitrary barriers to advancement that make it much harder for some people to do well for themselves in the first place. These obstacles often take the form of class-, race-, gender-, sexual orientation-, or gender identity-based prejudice and structural barriers.</span></span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> I support safety nets in part because
I think they go some way toward rectifying that defect by removing these arbitrary obstacles to advancement by making available to everyone the kind of support system only the rich would otherwise have.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But--second--even if our society <i>were </i>perfectly<i> </i>meritocratic--even if everybody's level of well-being were perfectly correlated with how talented or capable they are and how hard they are willing to work--we would <i>still </i>need a robust safety net</span>. For the mere fact that someone is not particularly capable or useful should not mean that they lose their house, that they die because they can't afford healthcare, or that they go hungry. We should not punish those with mental illness or with physical or mental disabilities for being the way they are; instead, recognizing our common humanity and the vulnerability that is a basic fact of all our lives, we should take care of them. The opposite view is just callous indifference.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone might grant me all this but still worry that people who don't really need them will take advantage of these programs. Again I agree that it is a bad thing for people to be lazy and take advantage of programs intended to help people get back on their feet: the public coffers are not bottomless, so we would do well not to waste money on people who don't really need it. But this belief leads me to different conclu</span><span style="color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">sions than it does those who press this objection because I care more about ensuring that people do not go hungry, end up homeless, lose limbs from untreated diabetes, etc. than I do about the possibility that someone might take advantage of safety net programs. For this reason, my response to learning that people are taking advantage of safety net programs is to think that, if anything, we need to alter the programs they’re taking advantage of to make it harder and less appealing for them to do that, not abolish the programs. But even this, it bears saying, is a dangerous path. For once we start down it, there is a tendency to increase the number of hoops people have to jump through in order to benefit from the program in question. Not only does this increase the likelihood that people who need those benefits won't get them--a possibility that, to my mind, is far worse than some getting them even though they don't need them--it also often increases the cost of the program. That in turn may decrease public support for it and lead, in time, to its elimination. So there are sometimes significant costs to implementing measures designed to restrict access to safety net programs, dangers anyone attempting to eliminate free riders would do well to keep in mind. Though not ideal, i</span><span style="color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">t is far better for someone to get a benefit they don't need than for them to need a benefit they can't get.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another common objection to safety net programs is that, although it is certainly a good thing to feed the hungry, house the homeless, tend the sick, and so on, the associated costs to our liberty far outweigh the benefits of governmental programs designed to do this. This is the objection to the ACA I've heard more often than any other: people <i>hate </i>being coerced into buying healthcare. Against this, however, two points. First, liberty is without a doubt a valuable thing, but this objection suggests a perverse fetishization of liberty, a blind zeal for non-interference that fails to distinguish those freedoms that are worth caring about from those that are not. For supposing that we are talking about offering these programs in a relatively wealthy society and financing them primarily by taxing its wealthiest citizens--as we undeniably are in the United States--the freedom in question is that of people who have more than they need to hoard their wealth and deny to those who lack it the minimum necessary for a decent life. I cannot see a society that values that particularly liberty over meeting people's basic needs as anything but cruel and selfish. Moreover, it must be said that that safety net programs that ensure that all people have access to housing, enough food and clothing, and healthcare are themselves in an important sense liberating: by putting in place a kind of ground floor below which people are not allowed to fall, they insulate people from the whims of fate and, in that way, go some way toward liberating them from oppressive forces to which all of us are subject to at least some extent. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fundamental point underlying all this is a simple moral one. The vicissitudes of fortune are a kind of danger that haunts even those of us who manage to escape its cruelest blows. And sometimes, when disaster does strike, people end up in situations with which they can't or don't know how to cope--often through no fault of their own. In those moments people need a helping hand. Being a decent society means recognizing this </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">and doing what we can to help those who fall on hard times</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, not turning our backs on the needy to punish the takers, all the while singing paeans to liberty and caught up in absurd, Randian fever dreams about self-made men</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The hard truth is that none of us knows when we might need a hand; decency demands that we be willing to offer ours.</span></span></div>
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Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-78104801031938915682016-06-15T16:12:00.001-04:002017-10-06T14:06:39.014-04:00Banning Muslims and Regulating Guns<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many people oppose stricter gun regulations because, they say, regulation will not stop malicious actors from getting guns (as prohibition did not stop people from obtaining alcohol). Many of the same people, I assume, support Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from entering the country. Question: why not think Trump’s plan is problematic in the same way? If the thought is that government regulations are too blunt an instrument to solve the problems in the one case, why not in the other? Is it so hard to imagine that jihadis could find ways around a ban on Muslims entering the country?<br /><br />The answer cannot be that while such a ban would surely not stop everyone we don’t want here from getting into the country, it would stop some, since proponents of gun regulation can take the same line: while regulations will not completely stop malicious actors from obtaining weapons, they will stop some, and so they’ll make us safer overall. For consistency’s sake, we should take the same line in both cases.<br /><br />Admittedly, the argument cuts both ways: supporters of Trump’s plan might criticize those proponents of gun regulation who oppose it on the grounds that they are opposing a plan that would make us safer overall (even if it wouldn’t eliminate terrorist attacks entirely). (Whether or not such a ban would in fact make us safer is less clear in this case--not least because it would not be surprising if implementing a ban like this were to fan the flames of radicalism--but I won’t worry about this.) The answer for proponents of gun regulation seems straightforward here: even if it would make us safer, such a ban would be incompatible with some of our deepest values, tolerance of religious and other forms of diversity and opposition to arbitrary discrimination.<br /><br />Opponents of regulation might of course reply that, again, the argument cuts both ways, since regulation violates their right to bear arms. But it is hardly clear that citizens have a right to relatively unrestricted access to lethal weapons; at the very least, that claim seems much harder to defend than does tolerance of harmless forms of diversity and opposition to arbitrary discrimination. </span>Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0North Bethesda, MD, USA39.0445535 -77.11886779999997538.945893 -77.280229299999974 39.143214 -76.957506299999977tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-16093270773071383432016-05-19T13:46:00.001-04:002016-11-15T14:21:48.576-05:00Trump, China, and the Paris Climate AgreementIn a May 17th <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-climate-exclusive-idUSKCN0Y82NW">interview with Reuters</a>, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee known simply as "the Donald" had quite a bit to say about the landmark climate agreement reached this past December in Paris, and he was so wrong about so much that I felt I had to say something.<br />
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Consider first Trump’s claim that he intends to renegotiate the Paris agreement: “I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else.” “Something else,” we can only assume, means withdrawing from the agreement entirely.<br />
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The problem is that Trump is unlikely to be able to do any of this. Given that the process involved getting representatives of nearly 200 nations together in one place and took two weeks (not to mention months of planning), he certainly would not be able to convince the parties to the agreement to renegotiate it, and as Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin brought out in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/11/obamas-fast-move-to-join-the-paris-climate-agreement-could-tie-up-the-next-president/?tid=sm_fb">a recent article</a> for the <i>Washington Post</i>, there is also a good chance that he would not be able to pull out of the agreement. This is so for two reasons: first, many countries--including the US and China--are currently making a concerted effort to ensure that the agreement goes into effect before President Obama leaves office next January, and second, no nation can pull out until at least three years after it goes into effect, and any withdrawals made then will take a year to go into effect. </div>
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Unfortunately, Mooney and Eilperin also make clear, the agreement is weak enough that by itself the fact that the next president may well be unable to withdraw hardly guarantees that the US under a President Trump would take meaningful climate action. Even if bound by the Paris agreement as it stands, a President Trump could (among other things) still nix President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, a crucial part of the US’s emissions reduction strategy. He could also abandon attempts to secure funding for the Green Climate Fund, an international mechanism meant to help poor countries reduce their emissions and take steps to protect themselves from the myriad adverse effects of climate change. Mooney and Eilperin suggest that, aside from international censure, this sort of thing would not result in any penalties for a Trump administration.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWCb19dsjkJ0yvCovBNB_KFZQGyxShEmccIvmwOBKmqSuPb3pxgkigjwIuVtFFMyraBFuef7_YhPCXUmIh6AWdLfNR3ySOzuoWS5x8bPNSvA45rYhD7loUWfHQLbDQlnYn06nIYZLZ3Tw/s1600/25475874370_82f4151df4_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWCb19dsjkJ0yvCovBNB_KFZQGyxShEmccIvmwOBKmqSuPb3pxgkigjwIuVtFFMyraBFuef7_YhPCXUmIh6AWdLfNR3ySOzuoWS5x8bPNSvA45rYhD7loUWfHQLbDQlnYn06nIYZLZ3Tw/s1600/25475874370_82f4151df4_z.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/25475874370/in/photolist-EPdvTh-9hNvzC-EPd159-Fetoo9-EjpcWv-9hNwCN-Ej4WVY-FetKEh-F8nsPg-5yHWVR-9kwYUn-Ewrt8Y-jDzuj6-CSZS1A-sMpybD-EafzbC-CYSeky-DiH8wz-DoEGwd-CYScQj-CSu5zg-DqYVBT-CtAjmp-Dp6BVj-5ae5pK-BNZ3hL-C8Pssr-BiHMv8-C6udkQ-BNWjHC-BNWFAu-BNWJKL-BNYyv3-BGBPZr-BiFBtt-BGy26H-BiHTPk-Cg5eLB-C6tV3J-C6xb7A-BiyDcy-BiJ9LV-BiC1bG-Cg4Csv-C6uA6y-CdNqkh-BiHk5c-Cg4EBv-Cg54uK-CdP4D5">Gage Skidmore</a></td></tr>
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Also noteworthy are Trump’s claims that the agreement is “one-sided” and that he does not believe China will adhere to the emissions reduction pledge it made ahead of Paris (its so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contribution or INDC). The implication here is clearly that China is not pulling its weight. </div>
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There are several problems with these claims.</div>
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First, it is not clear what if any reason there is supposed to be to doubt that China will fulfill its pledge to the international community. According to <a href="http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china.html">this analysis</a>, China is on track to meet the goals set out in its INDC. And as Joe Romm over at <i>Climate Progress</i> was quick to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/05/18/3779417/donald-denier-destroy-paris-climate-deal/">point out</a>, China in fact appears to be ahead of the game, with its emissions now apparently having plateaued a full fifteen years ahead of schedule!</div>
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All of this is possible because, Trump’s indication to the contrary notwithstanding, China is actually doing a <i>ton</i> to fight climate change. To mention just a few things the country is up to, China<br />
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<li>Plans to launch a nationwide cap and trade program in 2017 (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-president-obama-summit.html">source</a>); </li>
<li>Is rapidly expanding nuclear power generation capacity (<a href="http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/China--Nuclear-Power/">source</a>); </li>
<li>Is expected to derive 50% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 (<a href="http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china.html">source</a>); </li>
<li>Aims to decrease coal consumption by 160 million tonnes in the next five years (<a href="http://english.gov.cn/state_council/ministries/2015/03/06/content_281475066759420.htm">source</a>); and </li>
<li>Is currently constructing a nationwide network of high-voltage, direct current power lines (<a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/3/30/11332900/china-long-distance-transmission">source</a>), a move that, the authors of <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n5/full/nclimate2921.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201605&spMailingID=51246683&spUserID=MTgxNzAzNDYzODEzS0&spJobID=903435134&spReportId=OTAzNDM1MTM0S0">this study</a> found, would allow the US to reduce its emissions to 80% below 1990 levels if implemented here.</li>
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And as for whether or not China is pulling its weight, a couple of points are worth making. <br />
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First, the <a href="http://climateactiontracker.org/about.html">Climate Action Tracker</a>, “an independent scientific analysis produced by four research organisations tracking climate action and global efforts towards the globally agreed aim of holding warming below 2°C,” ranks China <i>ahead</i> of the US on climate action! (See the chart on the left on <a href="http://climateactiontracker.org/countries/china.html">this page</a>.) I argued as much myself <a href="http://climate.org/distributive-justice-in-the-paris-climate-agreement-2/">here</a>.<br />
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Moreover, if any country is not pulling its weight, it is the US. For one thing, the US’s INDC is <i>much</i> less ambitious than it ought to be, as I argued <a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3waffx2Lz-oWkNiWC16WlZPTEE">here</a>. And to make matters worse, <a href="http://rhg.com/reports/progress-toward-meeting-us-climate-goals">one recent analysis</a> found that currently the US is not even on track to achieve the relatively modest emissions reduction goals laid out in its INDC!<br />
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Together with <a href="http://grist.org/article/what-future-president-trump-thinks-of-climate-change/">his long history of climate change denial</a>, the utter obliviousness to all this Trump displayed in this interview with Reuters suggests suggest that a Trump presidency would be very bad news for the climate. But hey--at least he’s <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/05/donald-trump-poll-lice-nickelback">not as bad as hemorrhoids</a>!<br />
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UPDATE (5/27/16): Yesterday Trump made a speech about energy and the environment, and it was even worse than I had expected. He made clear his intentions not just to back out of the Paris agreement--which, as I've indicated, he may well be unable to do--abut also to do two terrible things that--I also said--he actually could do and that I expressed concern about: nix the Clean Power Plan and end adaptation funding for vulnerable communities across the globe. And as if this weren't enough, he also espoused a whole bunch of other really bad ideas I won't bother to get into. If you're interested, you can read more about it and watch the whole thing <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/27052016/donald-trump-republican-party-election-fossil-fuels-coal-oil-gas-fracking-climate-change-paris">here</a>.<br />
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I might also mention that, while doing research for <a href="http://climatealert.info/2016/05/25/the-future-of-us-climate-policy-is-uncertain-but-stability-may-be-on-the-horizon/">this related blog post</a>, I came across <a href="http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php">this UN page</a> showing progress toward ratification of the Paris agreement. If you're as worried about what might happen with US climate policy if Trump becomes president as I am, you'll find this helpful.</div>
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Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0North Bethesda, MD, USA39.0445535 -77.11886779999997538.945893 -77.280229299999974 39.143214 -76.957506299999977tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-26625950146975368812016-05-01T19:17:00.002-04:002017-06-13T11:54:10.749-04:00Why does Wittgenstein Emphasize that Following a Rule is a Practice?<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">The piece below is a very slightly modified version of the essay I submitted as part of my application for last year's edition of the summer school put on every year by the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. (While my application was accepted, I was unfortunately unable to attend.) This post is a bit different from my usual posts insofar as it does not attempt to be accessible to those unacquainted with Wittgenstein. But it seemed to me like something that, while not groundbreaking enough to merit publication in a peer-reviewed journal, deserved to see the light of day.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">*</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="color: #666666; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> *</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="color: #666666; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="color: #666666; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> *</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">In some of the best-known and most written-about parts of Investigations §§185-242, Wittgenstein appears to be concerned to emphasize that following a rule is a usage, a custom, an institution, or a practice (he seems to use these terms interchangeably):</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">198. “So is whatever I do compatible with the rule?” -- Let me ask this: what has the </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">expression of a rule -- say a signpost -- got to do with my actions? What sort of connection obtains here? -- Well, this one, for example: I have been trained to react in a particular way to this sign, and now I do so react to it. </span></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">But with this you have pointed out only a causal connection; only explained how it has come about that we now go by the signpost; not explained what this following-the-sign really consists in. Not so; I have further indicated that a person goes by a signpost only in so far as there is an established usage, a custom. [1]</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">199. Is what we call “following a rule” something that it would be possible for only </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">person, only </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">once </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in a lifetime, to do? -- And this is, of course, a gloss on the </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">grammar </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of the expression “to follow a rule”.</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on which only one person followed a rule. It is not possible that there should have been only one occasion on which a report was made, an order given or understood, and so on. -- To follow a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">customs</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (usages, institutions).</span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span><span style="line-height: 1.2;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">202. … ‘following a rule’ is a practice.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have long wondered why it is that Wittgenstein is concerned to emphasize this point. Since I think I have </span><span style="color: #666666; line-height: 19.2px; white-space: pre-wrap;">finally </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">gotten a bit of clarity here, I'd like to explain my idea.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hilary Putnam has suggested, helpfully, that in §199, Wittgenstein’s point is fairly simple. According to Putnam, he means only to note that it does not even make sense to speak of someone’s following a rule, making a report, giving or understanding an order, or doing all sorts of other things in certain circumstances, namely those in which they cannot be said to be taking part in some established practice. [2] </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is why Wittgenstein says in §199 that following a rule is not “something that it would be possible for only </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">person, only </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">once </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in a lifetime, to do.” If, for example, mankind had never done any mathematics, and if someone were to write out the series 1, 2, 4, 8, 16..., it would </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">make no sense</span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to say he or she was applying the rule we write as </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">x</span><span style="font-style: italic; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">n</span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> = 2x</span><span style="font-style: italic; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">(n-1)</span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (cf. §204). As things are, where people have done mathematics for thousands of years and it is as ubiquitous as anything could be, that would be a fine way to describe someone who had been taught basic mathematics and did the same thing, but it would be a mistake to describe the actions of the person in my example this way.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">Though Putnam does not say so, the same thought also seems to explain why in §200 he indicates that it would be inappropriate to say of the people he describes there that they are playing a game: since there is in the relevant tribe supposed to be no practice or custom in which they might thereby be said to be taking part--that is, no game they might be playing--it makes no sense to say that they are playing one. And he makes a similar point with his rhetorical question at §204: “would the following be possible…: mankind has never played any games; once though, someone invented a game--which, however, was never played?” Wittgenstein makes clear that this is supposed to be a grammatical or conceptual point about the concepts of following a rule, giving an order, playing a game, etc., precisely the sort of mundane and uncontroversial reminder in the provision of which Wittgenstein tells us in §127 the philosopher’s work consists.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">Putnam’s reading certainly helps to make clearer the sense of these remarks, but it does not solve all of the relevant interpretive problems. For, we may still ask, why does Wittgenstein consider this grammatical point an important one to make? In particular, how is this point related to the one he seems to be making in §198, where he first indicates that rule-following is a practice?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before we can answer those questions, we need to understand §198. That passage opens with a re-articulation of the question at the heart of this whole discussion: “But how,” he has an interlocutor ask, “can a rule teach me what I have to do at </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">point? After all, whatever I do can, on some interpretation, be made compatible with the rule.” Unsatisfied with this way of putting the problem, Wittgenstein suggests an alternative formulation: “No, that’s not what one should say. Rather, this: every interpretation hangs in the air together with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support. Interpretations by themselves do not determine meaning.” Wittgenstein’s point would seem to be that--at least given the way that his interlocutor understands the problem--it will not do for the interlocutor to answer his own question--“how can a rule teach me what I have to do at </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">point?”--by saying simply that the rule will do so as soon as it is interpreted. For interpretations themselves admit of various interpretations, as do the interpretations of those interpretations, and so on. The interlocutor of course realizes this, and that is why he is distressed: interpretation seemed like the best candidate for solving his problem, and now that he sees it cannot help him, the problem seems to him insoluble. He recognizes that rules give clear instructions in ordinary life, but he cannot understand how this is possible. </span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">It is here, in remarks clearly intended to help Wittgenstein’s interlocutor see his way out of these difficulties, that Wittgenstein first emphasizes that following a rule is a “usage, a custom.” (In fact in §198 he is speaking about following a signpost, but the idea is that a signpost is the expression of a rule of some sort.) Perhaps, then, we can make some headway by asking how the claim that following a rule is a practice might be thought to constitute or point the way to a solution of the “paradox” Wittgenstein articulates at §198.</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">It will help us to do that if we consider Wittgenstein’s more explicit statement of his favored solution (or dissolution, if you like) in §201:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That there is a misunderstanding here [i.e., in the interlocutor’s thought that a regress of interpretations is unavoidable] is shown by the mere fact that in this chain of reasoning we place one interpretation behind another, as if each one contented us at least for a moment, until we thought of yet another lying behind it. For what we thereby show is that there is a way of grasping a rule which is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">an interpretation, but which, from case to case of application, is exhibited in what we call “following the rule” and “going against it”.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As many commentators have said,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the point here would seem to be that the interlocutor’s mistake was to think that, as Wittgenstein puts it, “every interpretation hangs in the air together with what it interprets, and cannot give it any support,” or in other words, that every rule not only admits of but requires interpretation in order for it to have any clear meaning. [3] This assumption, Wittgenstein means to indicate, is confused: in a large portion of real life cases, rules neither need nor even so much as admit of interpretation. They simply leave no question as to how they are to be followed, and when they do, it is just false that their interpretations always leave room for further interpretation. Now let us ask: how might Wittgenstein’s remark in §198 that “a person goes by a signpost only in so far as there is an established usage, a custom” be meant to help us see this?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to suggest that these remarks are supposed to help us to appreciate that the interlocutor’s assumption is mistaken by prompting us to reflect on what it is really like to participate in the relevant practices, customs, etc. In §194, Wittgenstein writes that “when we do philosophy, we are like savages, primitive people, who hear the way in which civilized people talk, put a false interpretation on it, and then draw the oddest conclusions from this.” By emphasizing that following a rule is a practice, he means to get us to see how we have done this in the present case. Once we remember what it is really like to take part in the relevant practice, we will recognize the mistaken assumption he points out in §201 and see how it makes us think we need to solve the rule-following “paradox.” We will see how it can be the case, as Wittgenstein says it is, that “there is a way of grasping a rule which is </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">an interpretation.” [4]</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">What, then, of §§199-200? Why is the grammatical point Wittgenstein makes there worth making?</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is an idea. Wittgenstein’s interlocutor is distressed because he has found himself unable to identify some method an individual might use to determine what a rule requires in a given case. He had hoped that interpretation might do the job, but now he sees it cannot. At other places in Wittgenstein’s text, we see the interlocutor get his hopes up at the prospect that intuition might do the same thing (e.g., §213). I want to suggest that the point of §§199-200 is to show Wittgenstein’s interlocutors that this whole approach is mistaken. The interlocutors think that questions about what a rule requires are to be decided by considering psychological facts about individuals, facts about their intuitions or the way they interpret the rule. But--Wittgenstein explains in §199--this just cannot work. For if it could, it </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">would </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">be possible for there to be “only one occasion on which only one person followed a rule.” They would only need to interpret it rightly or intuit its sense. But, he here reminds us, that is </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">possible! Rule-following and all the other activities he mentions are practices, and so they cannot occur in the absence of the whole “whirl of organism” that sustains them </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as</span><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> practices. [5]</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">These passages are thus intended to help to disabuse Wittgenstein’s interlocutors of the thought that they must answer the question at issue in these hopeless ways. Wittgenstein’s hope would then have been that, having seen that their approach to these questions cannot but fail, these interlocutors would be more open to and so more able to understand the solution to which Wittgenstein points the way in §198 and articulates more explicitly at §201.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span id="1" style="line-height: 1.2; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout I use the translations in the 4th edition of the </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Investigations</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, trans. G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker, and Joachim Schulte, (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009).</span></span></div>
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<span id="2" style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2] </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See Putnam’s “Was Wittgenstein </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Really </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">an Anti-realist about Mathematics?” in </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wittgenstein in America</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, ed. McCarthy and Stidd (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001), pp. 143-149.</span></div>
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<span id="3" style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[3] </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">See, for instance, David H. Finkelstein, “Wittgenstein on Rules and Platonism” in </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The New Wittgenstein</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1.2; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, ed. Alice Crary and Rupert Read, (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 53-73.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span id="4" style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[4] </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John McDowell makes basically this point at “Wittgenstein on Following a Rule,” in </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mind, Value, and Reality </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 238.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"><span id="5" style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[5] </span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I take this by-now famous phrase from Stanley Cavell. See </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Must We Mean What We Say?</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, (Charles Scribner’s Sons: New York, 1969), p. 52. </span></span></div>
Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-8890674203726733822015-12-10T18:08:00.000-05:002015-12-10T18:08:54.152-05:00Why does Economic Inequality Matter?Recently I read through Harry Frankfurt's new book, <i><a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10536.html">On Inequality</a></i>, the two main theses of which are that inequality as such (whether income, wealth, or of some other sort) is, in itself, morally irrelevant, and that what really matters is that everyone have enough. Not surprisingly, the book is carefully argued, yet I remain unconvinced, and I want to take a minute to think about why.<br />
<br />
I won't summarize the argument of the book. Suffice it to mention just one consideration Frankfurt puts forward over and over again. Suppose that I have enough money that, while I can't have everything I want, I am comfortable and never want for anything important, like food or healthcare or money to pay for my children's education, and suppose you have twice as much. In this and like cases, Frankfurt points out, it is not clear that the mere fact that you have more money than I do entails that there is anything amiss here.<br />
<br />
This argument seems plausible, so far as it goes. I think Frankfurt is right to say that inequality is morally irrelevant in this case and others relevantly like it. But I am not sure that it shows that there is nothing amiss in the staggering levels of economic inequality we observe today in America and globally. (If the word "staggering" seems excessive to you, take a look at <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/files/outofbalance.pdf">this</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/21/the-top-10-of-americans-own-76-of-the-stuff-and-its-dragging-our-economy-down/">this</a> (from which I pulled the chart below), <a href="https://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/11/18/living-on-two-dollars-a-day">this</a>, and the first chart in <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph">this article</a>.) It seems to me and, apparently, also to many others, that something rankles in the fact so few have so much in a country and a world where so many have so little. But if Frankfurt is right--as he seems to be--that inequality as such is morally irrelevant at least in cases like the one I mentioned in the last paragraph, what is it that rankles? Why exactly does economic inequality matter?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/05/OECD-wealth2.png&w=1484" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="610" src="https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/05/OECD-wealth2.png&w=1484" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wealth inequality in the US. Notice that the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 90% combined. Likewise for the top 5% versus the bottom 95%.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Of course, increases in inequality may well have effects worth worrying about. For instance, income inequality appears to be strongly correlated with the increasing politic polarization we've seen in the US in recent years, and there even appears to be some reason to think the increase in inequality we've seen during the same period played a part in bringing about the increases in polarization (<a href="https://www.dallasfed.org/assets/documents/research/papers/2014/wp1408.pdf">source</a>). That is really interesting, but--to be clear--I don't want to focus on that here. Instead, like Frankfurt I want to ask: is there anything wrong with economic inequality just by itself, whatever its effects?<br />
<br />
Near the end of the book, Frankfurt suggests inequality might be of concern in some cases because it signals a lack of respect (pp. 76-77). I think that's plausible, but the suggestion needs further elaboration Frankfurt doesn't give it. What reason might those with relatively low incomes or relatively little wealth have to feel disrespected?<br />
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Perhaps it is the fact that they are struggling to meet their basic needs even as others have many times what they need even to live very satisfying lives. Frankfurt is right that, in general, it is a terrible thing when people don't have enough to live reasonably satisfying lives, of course. But what he seems to miss is that the fact that some people have so much less than they need is made worse than terrible by the fact that their neighbors could so easily help but don't. When that happens, a situation that was already terrible becomes appalling, and those who are struggling might reasonably feel that they are not being given the respect they deserve merely in virtue of the fact that they are human beings. That is, I am suggesting, if one person is struggling to meet her basic needs, and another has vastly more than he needs by any reasonable measure, the first is entitled to some of what the second has, and the fact that they are not getting it might reasonably be taken as a sign of disrespect.<br />
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That is one possible answer, anyway; here's another. It seems clear that a human being can only work so hard--at some point, you have to eat and sleep, at least. So consider a situation in which two people are each working as hard as a human being can possibly work but are earning different amounts of money. What could justify this? Perhaps the value of the work they're doing. If one is working to create an even higher-definition TV and the other is trying to cure cancer, for example, it seems appropriate that the latter earn more than the former. But there are limits here. For one thing, it is not plausible that any jobs employers are actually willing to hire people to do are so useless that the people who do them don't deserve to make enough to get by. Moreover, it is hard to see how any kind of work could be so valuable that people who do it deserve to make 300 times what people doing some other kind of work make. And yet this is precisely what is happening in the US. Today many full-time workers struggle to get by (for instance, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/04/13/adjunct_pay_a_quarter_of_part_time_college_faculty_receive_public_assistance.html">adjunct professors who have to rely on food stamps</a>), and some American CEO's make over 300 times what the average worker does, up from about 20 times in 1965 (<a href="http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/">source</a>). And so, it can seem, people's incomes are not in sync with the value of the work for which they are paid. This state of affairs offends meritocratic sensibilities and does so, moreover, precisely because of the magnitude of the inequalities in play. (Of course, things are even worse if we look at the broader global picture, in which <a href="http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/briefingpapers/food/vitalstats.shtml">2.8 billion people live on less than $2/day</a>.)<br />
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What do others think? Have I put my finger on the problems with economic inequality? Have I missed something? I'm genuinely asking here: I'm not sure myself whether or not I buy all this, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-16038316641854243792015-07-04T12:00:00.000-04:002015-07-04T09:06:17.367-04:00The Nature of Philosophical ExpertiseOn June 22nd <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2015/06/22/416368227/why-we-need-philosophers-engaged-in-public-life">this nice piece</a> by Tania Lombrozo called "Why We Need Philosophers Engaged In Public Life" was published on NPR's 13.7 blog. In general I'm sympathetic to the piece and agree with its main point--that it would be a good thing if philosophers were more visible in the public eye and played more of a role in important debates. But the article ends with the following passage, which--while striking--seems to me a bit misleading, and I want to explain why:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When a political issue concerns the economy, we often turn to economists — they're quoted in news stories and interviewed on air. When a policy issue concerns the environment, we sometimes hear from ecologists or biologists of an appropriate ilk. But when it comes to the kinds of issues we've confronted in a single week of news — issues about race, identity, moral responsibility and more — we rarely hear from philosophers. I think it's time we did.</blockquote>
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I worry that this passage presents an inaccurate picture of the nature of philosophical expertise, in effect assimilating it to other kinds of disciplinary expertise. Here's the problem with that assimilation. With respect to experts in the other fields Lombrozo mentions--ecology, biology, economics--two things seem true:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>The fact that they are experts in their fields is, all by itself, reason to think they might be worth consulting if we have questions about some subject in their field.</li>
<li>The fact that someone is <i>not </i>an expert in some field suggests--defeasibly, of course--that he is not as good a resource in such situations as someone who is.</li>
</ol>
<br />
Trouble is, neither (1) nor (2) is true of philosophers, at least not with respect to the kinds of issues in the public discussion of which Lombrozo would like to see philosophers involved. As for (1), the fact that I have whatever degree of philosophical acumen I have managed to garner in my time in the field does not by itself make me any more worth consulting about the obligations of the global rich to the global poor or the extent to which being trans-racial is like being trans-gender, sinceas it happens, I am not especially well-informed about these issues and have not seriously thought about them more than or even as much as many non-philosophers. And as for (2), the fact that someone is <i>not </i>a philosopher does not entail that they are <i>not </i>just as or more worth consulting about these things than me or, for that matter, any other philosophers. I am positive, for instance, that many people in the black and LGBTQ communities have much better thought-out views about the latter issue than I--a straight, white, cisgender man--do, since they have probably thought about the relevant issues more than I have and have certainly had relevant experiences I haven't had. Philosophical expertise would thus seem to differ from economic and other forms of disciplinary expertise in both these respects .<br />
<br />
So in what does philosophical expertise consist? If we can't make <i>some </i>sense of this, it will be a mystery why there is anything at all to Lombrozo's suggestion that it would be a good thing for more philosophers to weigh in publicly on political and other significant issues.<br />
<br />
Here's an idea. Ideally, a philosophical education consists in exposure to wide range of debates and a relatively low degree of specialization on any one of them (relative, that is, to the degree of specialization necessary in, say, physics). This is why (1) and (2) above are false with respect to philosophers. But that is not to say that philosophers don't, in the course of their education, acquire a sort of toolbox that helps them to engage in whichever debates they set themselves to thinking about more productively. In order to do philosophy competently, I need--for example--to know what a "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_conditional">counterfactual</a>" is and what people mean when they refer to the "<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contrapositive">contrapositive</a>" of some claim. I need to be able to determine the structure of arguments I encounter, and I need to be able to understand what people are talking about when they say an argument is <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/">valid or sound</a> and determine for myself whether or not they are right. And I need a broad acquaintance with the history of ideas, on which contemporary philosophy inevitably builds, even if not always consciously. In all of this, philosophers typically differ from those without any philosophical background and so are better-positioned to come up with clear and interesting ideas when they set out to do so. <br />
<br />
A natural answer to our question, then, is that philosophical expertise consists precisely in possession of this toolbox--that is, the knowledge and skills that are instilled by a good philosophical education and that enable philosophers to be productive in their work. It is primarily because they have this toolbox, and not because they have mastered any particular debates, that philosophers have a useful role to play in public life. For if this is the nature of philosophical expertise, it would seem to follow that, if a philosopher were to set herself to thinking about some issue in light of all of the relevant information and with all of the relevant experiences, she would be more likely (though by no means guaranteed!) to come up with something interesting, helpful, or enlightening to say than someone without philosophical expertise but whose situation was otherwise identical.Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-11952536219484577482014-11-29T08:38:00.000-05:002014-11-29T09:38:19.479-05:00The Appeal of Moral Realism<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am now and how long been sympathetic to <span id="docs-internal-guid-425c263f-fbc1-d492-55ed-0793aabba884"><span style="font-variant: small-caps; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moral Realism</span></span>, or</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-variant: small-caps; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moral Realism</span>: the tripartite view that (1) ethical claims admit of truth and falsity; (2) some such claims are true; and (3) the ethical facts are <i>stance-independent</i>*; that is, ethical claims, when true, are not made true by the fact that they are endorsed by or follow from the views or attitudes of any actual or hypothetical individual or group.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are of course arguments for this position that I find persuasive; likewise arguments against alternatives. But it has occurred to me that an important source of my sympathy seems to be that it is hard for me to see how two claims could be false. The first is that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(A) even if human beings had never existed, true moral claims would still be true,</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">the second that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(B) even if no one believed them, true moral claims would still be true.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, many people I know would be somewhat embarrassed to be heard endorsing <span style="font-variant: small-caps; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moral Realism</span> in a public forum, and many simply find the thesis off-putting. For instance, recently I heard a friend who is organizing a conference explain his decision not to invite a particular philosopher to do the keynote because he just couldn't stand to sit through another defense of <span style="font-variant: small-caps; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moral Realism</span>. I find this somewhat confusing, and I'd like to make some more sense of this reaction. In particular, if you're one of these people, I'm curious to hear what you think of (A) and (B). Do they strike you as plausible? If not, why not?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*: The term is due to Russ Shafer-Landau.</span></div>
Josh McBeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15183500069795650023noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-33216605420225130022014-08-11T12:04:00.002-04:002016-05-20T12:15:41.303-04:00The Argument from Relativity<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0in;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Back in the late '70's, in a book called <i>Ethics:
Inventing Right and Wrong</i>, John Mackie put forward an argument
he called "The Argument from Relativity," and a lot of people have
spilled a lot of ink over the years trying to figure out what to say about it.
He doesn't put things in <i>quite </i>this way, but still I
think it's fair to say the idea is basically this: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(1) People disagree about the answers to ethical questions.<span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">(2) </span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">(1) is better explained by the fact that people's moral views
reflect their different ways of life than by the hypothesis that they
express "perceptions, most of them seriously inadequate and badly
distorted," of the objective truth</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">(3) So we ought to believe the first
explanation.</span><span style="color: black;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently while in conversation with a friend, it
occurred to me that there is a pretty straightforward objection to this
argument: it's not clear to me that the hypotheses Mackie mentions in (2)
are mutually exclusive. Mightn't it be the case that the perceptions of
some of the parties to the dispute are badly distorted precisely because of
their way of life? Perhaps it is only with the right kind of upbringing,
or in the right cultural context, that one can come to perceive the moral
truth. (Presumably this is what Aristotle would say were he and Mackie
somehow to find themselves in conversation.) And if it might, then
Mackie's (2) presents us with a false choice, and we needn't accept his
argument's skeptical upshot. Instead we can simply grant his claim that
people's ethical views seem to reflect their ways of life to at least some
extent but still insist that the claims made by the parties to an ethical
dispute express mostly
distorted perceptions of the objective ethical truth.</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0in;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It may be that this is a bit of a cheap shot, since in fact it
might better reflect Mackie's thought if, instead of (2), I were to substitute
(2*)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2*)
(1) is better explained by saying that ethical claims express commitment to a
moral code rather than potentially true claims about the objective ethical
facts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But (2*) is obviously false, since the claim that ethical claims
express commitment to a moral code does not <i>explain</i> (1) but
rather entails its falsity. This is because, if that is true, then if one
person says that abortion is always wrong and another says that sometimes it's
okay, they're not actually disagreeing as to whether or not some claim is true
but rather just expressing different commitments. The situation is
basically the same as one where one person says he's made it his policy not to
wear patterned ties and another says that his is to wear only patterned ties,
which is obviously not a case of disagreement about what sort of ties one
should wear. It that's right, then the argument's not sound and perhaps not even valid. (The issue hinges on whether or not you think every claim
follows from a contradiction. If that's right, then a suitably revised
version of (3) does actually follow from (1) and (2*), so the argument is
valid.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Or maybe Mackie's thought was instead that<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2**)
(1) is better explained by saying that ethical claims are basically claims
about what is or isn't allowed by some moral code we can have no
reason to accept (so that their truth is in this sense relative to an arbitrary
code) rather than potentially true claims about the objective ethical
facts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But, again, this doesn't help Mackie. If ethical claims
were relative in this sense, then the only kinds of ethical disagreements that
would be possible would be disagreements about what was or was not allowed by a
particular code, so that ethical disagreements would look pretty much the same
as disagreements about which moves are allowed in chess. There could be
no disagreements about which standards to accept because, on this view, it does
not make sense to ask which moral code is true, just as it doesn't make any
sense to ask which set of rules is the right one for chess. There is no
right or wrong set of rules: it's just that people who use different
rules are not playing chess. But, for precisely that reason, (2**) seems
actually a pretty bad explanation of (1), since many moral disagreements seem
to be disagreements about which standards to accept. So if (2**) was
Mackie's idea, then, again, it appears that his argument doesn't support any
skeptical conclusions.</span></div>
</blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854459548168336396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-47659746268842318412014-02-13T17:03:00.001-05:002016-04-15T10:38:40.123-04:00The Argument from Unnecessary Harm<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">O</span></span><span style="line-height: 115%;">riginally my intention was not to create an
animal ethics blog. Rather the idea was (and still is) to write on a
variety of topics. But since I don't think I'm going to be able to get my
mind off of these issues until I say at least a bit more about them, I've
decided I want to write at least the beginnings of a response to the deepest
points my friend Adam made against me in his "<a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.com/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html">In
Defense of Fish</a>." In particular, I want to focus on the following argument, a form of which Adam makes, and which I will c</span>all <i>The Argument from Unnecessary Harm</i>, or AUH for short:</span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">One ought not to cause harm except in certain special cases, such as those </span> in which it's necessary to do so in order to preserve one's own life.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">To kill a subject of a life--something there is something it is like to be--is to cause that subject harm.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">So one ought not to kill a subject of a life--even in the most humane ways possible--except in certain special cases.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">The fact that the subject of life in question is not a human being is not one of the special cases mentioned in (3).</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;">So in general, humans ought not to kill non-human subjects of lives, <span style="text-indent: 0px;">even in the most humane ways possible</span>.</span></li>
</ol>
I am not persuaded by this argument because I'm not convinced that (4) is true. But I'm also not convinced (4) is false. In fact, I'm deeply conflicted on the matter, and for that reason I've chosen to present my thoughts in the form of a dialogue between and fictional omnivore and a fictional proponent of AUH, with neither of whom I'm ready to identify myself, and in whose mouths I do my best to put what seem to me the most compelling arguments for in favor of each position.<br />
<div>
<div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDu4fLB_e_d2Z2GOlNnQk6EiQM5mpoOcKe-RQGjAicQ4rFOcfALT8ltIgVc2lqiq_dkzROCJQcKIs9RrooezoNvRS583jLTsSpRJralaSPXP7Pjvu-88zAjbRDf4UBKGMLlgAKYMrzGOn/s1600/gunpowder+bison.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDu4fLB_e_d2Z2GOlNnQk6EiQM5mpoOcKe-RQGjAicQ4rFOcfALT8ltIgVc2lqiq_dkzROCJQcKIs9RrooezoNvRS583jLTsSpRJralaSPXP7Pjvu-88zAjbRDf4UBKGMLlgAKYMrzGOn/s1600/gunpowder+bison.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bison at a nearby farm, where I've bought meat in the past. [1]</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">* * *</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<br />
<b>
Proponent of AUH</b>: You're wondering why you should believe (4). The most obvious reason to believe (4) is just that there are not any differences between animals and humans that make it okay to kill the former but not the latter.<br />
<span style="color: blue;"></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"></span>
<b>Omnivore: </b>I disagree. In fact, it seems to me there are two.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
First, there is the fact that it is (presumably) quite a different thing to be a human being and to be--for example--a chicken. In particular, there is the (apparent) fact that a human being can reflect on her life, can imagine her life being different than it is, and decide she'd rather it be that way, and so can set goals for herself and experience the satisfaction that comes with achieving them, whereas chickens and (I take it) all or at least most other animals can't do any of this. If my assumption here about the mental lives of animals is right, then it seems fair to say that the life of a human being is much, much richer than that of any animal. For if the capacity I've mentioned is necessary, as it seems to me to be, to experience successes and failures <i>as </i>successes and failures, and if these experiences at least in part constitute some of the best and worst experiences a human being might have, then neither the depths of suffering nor the heights of joy that are possible for humans are even available to animals. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And second, there's the fact that animals just can't do many if not all of the most impressive things humans can do. For instance, animals can't write plays, novels, poems, and dialogues, can't do open-heart surgery, and can't do scientific experiments.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Just for the sake of clarity, let me add a couple more points before we move on:<br />
<br />
First, I'm fully aware that the differences between humans and animals are different depending on which type of animal in particular we're talking about, and that some animals might have the capacities I just denied them to some degree. I want to grant that to the degree an animal has any morally significant qualities, they will merit different treatment.<br />
<br />
And second, I don't at all mean to be suggesting that because there are these differences between us and animals, we can kill them cruelly, or casually, or for no reason. My suggestion is just that in view of the differences between human beings and animals, it's okay to kill animals in circumstances and for reasons in and for which it wouldn't be permissible to kill a human being. For example, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118);">I think it's permissible for Josh to catch and eat fish in something like the way the admirable fisherman he described in <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.com/2013/07/in-defense-of-fishing.html">"In Defense of Fishing"</a> does, provided of course that the environmental consequences are not too severe and, more generally, that no other unsavory consequences besides the fish's death results from his doing so. But were it the case that I derived a similar level of enjoyment from hunting and eating human beings, it would--needless to say--not be okay for me to do that--even if there were no adverse environmental or other consequences.</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<b>Proponent of AUH:</b> When I hear things like this, I can't help but recall the words of Elizabeth Costello, one of the main characters in J.M. Coetzee's short novel, <i>The Lives of Animals</i>:</div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
[Animals have] no consciousness that we would recognize as consciousness. No awareness, as far as we can make out, of a self with a history. What I mind is what tends to come next. They have no consciousness <i>therefore</i>. Therefore what? Therefore we are free to use them for our own ends? Therefore we are free to kill them? Why? What is so special about the form of consciousness we recognize that makes killing a bearer of it a crime while killing an animal goes unpunished? [2]</blockquote>
Even though what you're saying is significantly different from the remarks of the imaginary omnivores Costello's responding to, my reaction is the same as hers. Your view just seems ludicrous to me. Even supposing you're right about this way the mental lives of human and animals differ, <i>why</i> should these differences between humans and animals make the difference you say it does?<br />
<span style="color: blue;"></span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="color: blue;"></span>
<b>Omnivore: </b>Well,<b> </b>as for the second difference between us and them--that we can accomplish more momentous things than they can--I take it it's relatively obvious why this difference should make a difference. Since an animal, if allowed to continue living, will never do anything of much moment, and since a human being, if it kills that animal and uses it in some way, might, it's possible that a person might make better use of an animal's life (or, in the case of, say, keeping chickens for their eggs) its freedom than it ever could.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Why the first difference should matter is indeed less obvious. I suppose I take the fundamental reason this difference matters to be that, because there is this difference between us and them, animals lose much, much less than human beings do when they die. When a young person dies, she loses any prospects she might have had of getting married, having children, building a home, reaching the peak of Mt. Everest, publishing a great book, creating a great art work, being at the forefront of a social or political movement that winds up effecting meaningful change, starting a successful business, or of accomplishing whatever other goals she might have had. Of course there's a sense in which animals lose similar prospects--finding a mate, or lots of them, and having children, migrating, hunting--whatever. But in an important sense they don't, since no matter what they might have gone on to do in their lives, they never could have experienced any of it as the achievement of a goal. Nor could they experience failing to do any of these things <i>as </i>failure. Rather, I take it, when they achieve what (in a sense) they want, they feel a kind of satisfaction and a cessation of want, and that when they don't get what they (in a sense) want, they feel discomfort. But neither the highs nor the lows that can come with living a human life ever enter in for them, since animals don't--indeed <i>can't</i>--have goals, at least not in the sense we do (or so I'm assuming).<br />
<br />
It occurs to me now that my thinking here is something like my thinking about the difference between a thief who, knowing full well what he's doing, steals the car of a single mother struggling to make ends meet and one who does the same to a millionaire. Both of the thieves have done something blameworthy, certainly. But the first thief has committed a much worse crime than the second just because he takes so much from someone who can afford to lose so little, whereas what the second takes from the millionaire the latter can replace with a wave of his hand. Killing a human being seems to me something like robbing the single mother, killing an animal like robbing the millionaire. The salient difference is just that whereas it's wrong to rob even a millionaire, it's not wrong to kill animals in certain ways.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118);"><b>Proponent of AUH</b></span>: This all still strikes me as perverse. Just consider what the things you're saying sound like transposed to interactions between humans. Regarding the first difference, you're saying that because since, if you take something from someone else, they wouldn't really lose that much, it's okay for you to do it. And regarding the second, you're saying that because there's no reason to expect someone to anything very important with their life if left to their own devices, you can do whatever you need to do with them in order to achieve your own, more momentous or meaningful or higher ends (within limits, of course, as you've made clear).<br />
<br />
Of course, we <i>do</i> think in something like these ways in some other cases. As for the first line thought, think, for example, about why it's okay for a job applicant to take a job if he's offered it, even though by doing so he does a kind of harm to any other applicants for the same job by foreclosing for them certain possibilities (namely, having the job in question) previously open to them. Part of the reason is surely that <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">the extent to which the other job applicants will be harmed if one of them takes the job is minimal: they are merely deprived of a possible experience of which they never had any reasonable assurance in the first place. </span></span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span>But that can't be the whole reason this is okay: otherwise it would in general be all right for us to cause small amounts of harm to others, and it's not. To round out the story, we need to notice that when someone applies for a job, he gives his tacit consent to the possibility that some other candidate might harm him by depriving him of any hope he might have had of getting that job.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are also a handful of cases in which we think in something like the second way I mentioned as well, surprising as this may be. Think, for example, about imprisonment. Ideally, the way this works is that when people do things harmful to others, we deprive them of their autonomy and force them to do something that will make them into better people, ones who will no longer make others worse off. (I've been given to understand that American prisons generally fall depressingly far<i> </i>short of this ideal, but that's not relevant for my purposes. It's the ideal case that matters.) But here too, the only reason it's okay to imprison someone is that they have, in a way described to Socrates by the laws in Plato's <i>Crito</i>, given their tacit consent to our doing so, even if they in fact protest: by choosing to live in a country where one is imprisoned for breaking the laws, one gives one's tacit consent to being imprisoned if it can be shown, in accordance with whatever conventions for doing show prevail in that country, that one has broken those laws.</div>
<div>
<br />
What disturbs me about your suggestion is that you seem to think the ways of thinking I described are okay in our relations with animals even though animals do not ever consent to being killed or otherwise having their lives interfered with in any way or for any reason.</div>
</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118);"><b>Omnivore</b>: I agree with what you've said about the job applicant case and about imprisonment, but I don't think your remarks show that there's anything amiss in the way I'm thinking about our relations with animals. Everything hinges here on how we think about the fact that, as you put it, "</span>animals do not ever consent to being killed or otherwise having their lives interfered with in any way or for any reason." <br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118);"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118);">You can begin to see what I mean if you consider the following line of thought. It seems reasonable to say that John cannot consent that Mary do something to him if John cannot consider how his life would be were Mary to do whatever she's proposing and judge that way for his life to be acceptable. But, I take it, at least most if not all animals lack this capacity (and as before, if they can, then these considerations don't apply to them).</span> And if that's right, it seems it's the case not only that animals don't in fact consent, but in addition that they couldn't possibly do so. And if animals can't consent, they can't refuse consent either, at least not in the same sense people can. <br />
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Now, with this picture of how things stand firmly in view, consider with me these the following facts:<br />
<ol>
<li>The millionaire in my example doesn't consent to having his car stolen. </li>
<li>The chicken whence came the fajitas I ate over the holidays did not consent to being killed and eaten.</li>
<li>The bricks my house is made of didn't consent to being made into a house.</li>
<li>Babies don't consent to being taught a language.</li>
</ol>
(1) clearly constitutes a reason why the millionaire should not have been robbed: in general, if someone is capable of giving consent, we shouldn't do anything with their property unless or until they consent to our doing it. But is it clear that (2) similarly constitutes a reason why the chicken shouldn't have been killed and eaten? To me it's not obvious it does. The trick, as I see it, is to figure out what reasons it does give us, and why.<br />
<br />
(2) is more like (3) than (1): regarding both (2) and (3), things couldn't have been otherwise, since neither the chicken nor the bricks could possibly have consented. This consideration suggests it might be the case with chickens as with bricks that we may do with them as we will, and that the fact that a chicken doesn't consent to being treated in a certain way gives us <i>no </i>reason to do or refrain from doing <i>anything </i>to or with regard to it.<br />
<br />
But of course, chickens are not bricks: while chickens can't experience successes and failures as such, they do experience pleasure and pain. In view of this difference, many people have thought, quite reasonably, that w<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">ith chickens it is just not the case, as it is with bricks, that we may do with them whatever we will. So, in terms of its practical significance, (3) differs significantly from (2).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">Might then certain types of people who can't consent, like babies, provide a better model? </span>Like bricks and chickens, babies human beings not only don't but in fact cannot consent, since both groups lack the relevant capacity. Nevertheless, (4) doesn't license us to do as we will with babies. Rather, since babies will one day be able to consent or refuse to consent to have certain things done to or with them, we are obligated to respect the decisions we can expect them to make. In order to do that, we have to figure out what those decisions might be, and so (4) gives us reason to do our best to put ourselves in their shoes and figure out what we would want were we in similar circumstances. Since it's hard to see why anyone would prefer never to have learned any language, the conclusion it seems this exercise ought to lead us to draw is that we have a very strong reason to teach children languages.<br />
<br />
So <i>is</i> (2) like (4)? Not quite. Unlike with babies, it's not the case that chickens will one day be able to consent or refuse to consent to have certain things done to or with them. Since that means there simply are no decisions we can expect them to make one day, it simply cannot be true that we are obligated to respect those decisions. Still, though, something like the same imaginative procedure seems in order. Perhaps, then, (2) gives us reason to ask what a chicken would consent to were it to have, just for a moment, the opportunity to step back and, with human-like cognitive abilities and full knowledge of what it's like to be a human being, reflect on its life.<br />
<br />
So what <i>would</i> a chicken like that want? Consider, for example, the case of the chicken whence came my holiday fajitas. If we had been able to ask it beforehand whether or not it was okay with it if I made it into fajita meat, what might it have said, assuming for the sake of argument that it had somehow acquired human-like cognitive abilities and some general knowledge about human life?</div>
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<b>Proponent of AUH*:</b> Obviously that it's not all right with being fajitas, right? If they could, I take it animals would make the same choice any human being would.<br />
<br />
<b>Omnivore: </b>Well, the chicken certainly <i>might </i>think like that. But mightn't the chicken instead think like this? "I suppose that under certain conditions, I could make myself amenable to being made into fajitas. Certainly I want to be allowed to live a full life, where that means growing into adulthood, laying a bunch of eggs, spending a good deal of time pecking for grubs and such in fields, roosting in a comfortable environment, raising a few chicks, hanging around other chickens, and generally living well. But I realize that once I've done all of those things, there's really not that much more to a chicken life. More life would just mean more of the same. And while I'm sure I would enjoy it, I realize that it's possible that if I allow my life to be cut short, my life might be made to serve purposes toward the achievement of which it wouldn't <span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">otherwise have contributed. In particular, I could help to make it possible that some people (those who eat me) live lives more enjoyable than mine could ever be, that they live good, admirable lives, or that they accomplish something great. And besides, fajitas are delicious, so at the very least they'll enjoy eating me. So I suppose that, after I've gotten my fill of chicken life, and so long as the people who eat me make it a point to make their lives live up to the sacrifice I've made and are sufficiently appreciative of that sacrifice, and I am killed in the least painful way possible, I could become fajitas."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluW5HX5xjhsKYHJlkPj2T_j23yn0g6SZH0oz13FAjMq2P-_CN-Jjx74DCYiaBhlWVm-S95JG541Bn1_B3GAsNs_jkCaVUfYtHDGnW3HDf2L00aBjERIaEvBjzTdP-CKPSbRtXS_iD2vzw/s1600/chicken+fajitas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgluW5HX5xjhsKYHJlkPj2T_j23yn0g6SZH0oz13FAjMq2P-_CN-Jjx74DCYiaBhlWVm-S95JG541Bn1_B3GAsNs_jkCaVUfYtHDGnW3HDf2L00aBjERIaEvBjzTdP-CKPSbRtXS_iD2vzw/s1600/chicken+fajitas.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chicken fajitas. [3]</td></tr>
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It seems to me wholly reasonable to think this is what the chicken would think if it could. If it is, then there is nothing wrong with killing the chicken as long as we allow the chicken to live a full life before we kill it and do our best to make its death count by living our lives well, to be thankful for it, and not to make its death any more unpleasant than it absolutely has to be. And note that what accounts for this, in the reasoning of the chicken itself (as I've imagined it), are precisely the facts I mentioned before as salient, namely the fact that a chicken's experiences are less rich than some we can have and its accomplishments less momentous than those possible for us. This is the fundamental reason why I suggested earlier that these are the differences between us and them that make a difference.</div>
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<b>Proponent of AUH:</b> Okay, fine: I admit that a chicken <i>might </i>think like that. But surely you would admit that it might also think in the way I suggested. If you do, it seems to me your view faces a tough question: how ought we to choose on which of the two possible ways the chicken might think to base our behavior?</div>
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<b>Omnivore: </b>You're right--that is a tough question, and there's no obvious answer to it. But--crucially--your view faces the same tough question, since if you can't rule out the possible answer I've suggested for the chicken, I don't see any grounds for your claim that killing it (with all the caveats I've mentioned) is impermissible. In any case, here's a proposal for deciding this question that suggests mine is the better approach. If you can think of a better alternative, I would be very interested to hear it.<br />
<br />
Perhaps it helps here to think again about babies. We can perhaps imagine someone growing up and feeling resentful that they were ever taught a language. But does that--<i>should </i>that--stop any parent from teaching their children language? Of course not. But why should this be? Perhaps the answer is that what's important is not so much what the child might end up wanting later in its life as what it <i>should </i>want at that time. And it should want to have learned a language, since not knowing one would be incapacitating. <br />
<br />
Now, I want to suggest, perhaps we can think of the animal case in a similar way. Perhaps we ought not to be concerned with what our imaginary super-smart chicken might in fact think as in what it should think. And, I submit, it should think in the way I've suggested rather than in the way you've suggested, since my way is more selfless and, for that reason, nobler.<br />
<br />
Vegans and vegetarians have often invited omnivores to ask themselves whether or not the pleasure they derive from using or consuming products made from dead animals was so great that it justified the killing involved. Similarly, my position invites omnivores to ask themselves a question when they choose to use or consume animal products: will you live your life so nobly, or accomplish anything so great, or experience anything so wonderful, that you can claim to have a right to do what you're doing? The difference between this question and the vegan's or vegetarian's is that whereas the latter is meant to show the omnivore that his actions are unjustifiable, mine sets him a task.</div>
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* * *<br />
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Proponents of AUH, how should the conversation go after this? Or what should the proponent have said that I left out? Or is there a more compelling defense open to the omnivore? I'd love it if someone were to write a continuation of the dialogue in the comments. I'm especially interested to hear about any considerations that suggest the mental lives of animals are richer in some significant way than the omnivore in the dialogue assumes.</div>
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<u>Notes</u><br />
<u><br /></u>[1] Image from the farm's Facebook page, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/gunpowderbison?fref=ts">https://www.facebook.com/gunpowderbison?fref=ts</a>.<br />
[2] J.M. Coetzee, <i>The Lives of Animals</i>, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 44.<br />
[3] Image from <a href="http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/chicken-fajitas-4">http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/chicken-fajitas-4</a>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854459548168336396noreply@blogger.com0Baltimore, MD, USA39.2903848 -76.61218930000001139.0937408 -76.9349128 39.4870288 -76.289465800000016tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-76147307752498539322013-09-26T09:16:00.002-04:002014-01-23T18:39:39.112-05:00Two Minor Points<span style="font-size: x-large;">F</span>inally I've found some time to write again. Since Adam and I discussed fishing (see <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.com/2013/07/in-defense-of-fishing.html">my post</a> and <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.com/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html">his response</a>), I have come to realize that if I'm even able to, it's going to take me some time to formulate a cogent response to Adam's remarks about the most fundamental issue we discussed in our exchange (whether or not one can justify killing and otherwise using fish and other animals under normal--that is, not extreme--circumstances). So I don't think I'll post anything directly addressing that issue for a while. In the meantime, though, I do want to respond to a few of the more minor points he makes in his post before I move on to some non-fishing topics.<br />
<br />
At one point in his post, Adam says the following:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.999999046325684px;">So while I do think that you’ve hit on, and usefully emphasized, an important idea with that of the ‘moral remainder’ of killing fish (and presumably, animals in general), I would argue that, rather than search for ways we might offset or discharge this remainder, the truly admirable thing would be to simply not incur it in the first place. </span></blockquote>
I think Adam's last sentence bespeaks a misconstrual of my remarks about moral remainders--an understandable <span style="font-family: inherit;">one, to be sure, but a misconstrual nevertheless. I think he's taking it that one incurs a moral remainder only when one does something wrong, and that to discharge a moral remainder is something like atoning for a sin or doing penance. <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13.333333015441895px; text-align: justify;">But, I take it, we have here two distinct cases, and moreover ones that are worth keeping distinct. As I'm understanding this notion, when one discharges a remainder, one fills out the picture of what one did in the first place in such a way that one’s act merits a positive assessment where it was impossible to assess it before. Before I used the example of a promise: when one makes a promise, one incurs an obligation to fulfill it. That obligation is the remainder; until one fulfills the promise, the act of making it is neither right nor wrong. By contrast, when one atones for a sin or does penance, one attempts to offset prior wrongs that have that status regardless of what one does subsequently. When, for example, a former criminal does some sort of community service as a way of making things right with the community he harmed, he's already done something wrong (assuming, for the sake of argument, that the laws he broke were good ones). When he does this, he doesn't discharge a remainder because there is no remainder in this case; instead, he does penance. So--and this is the most important point--t</span></span>he fact that, by doing something, one incurs a remainder is no reason not to do it. Otherwise it would be the case that we always have good reason not to make promises. Rather, one might say that when one incurs a remainder, one acquires reason to do whatever it takes to discharge it.<br />
<br />
In another place, Adam writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.333333015441895px; line-height: 14.999999046325684px;">You...discuss the pleasures of feeling engrossed with nature, of escaping the frenzy of urban climes for the serenity and peace of just being out on the river, and so forth. [...] you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not inclined to view this as having any justificatory force whatsoever; again, the simple reason being that this just is not something whose attainment requires killing animals (hiking, canoeing, and nature photography are probably the most obvious alternatives that spring to mind).</span></blockquote>
I won't argue with Adam that, at least to some extent, one can experience the pleasures he mentions in other ways than by fishing, perhaps, as he suggests, by hiking, canoeing, and taking photos. But there is one pleasure of fishing regarding which this is much less clear to me. In my first post I let Michael Pollan, who obviously had a similar experience while hunting wild pigs, describe this experience for me. This time I'll give it a shot in my own voice. <br />
<br />
That day on the Gunpowder, I found, all of a sudden, that I was more engrossed in what I was doing, more rapt with attention, than I have ever been in anything. I found myself absolutely absorbed by and hyper-aware of every detail of my situation--the cold water against my legs, the movements of the fish near the opposite bank, the sun on my neck, the weight of the rod in my hand and of the line at its end, the way my fly landed in the water, and a hundred other things. I was, to use a phrase I can't resist borrowing from John McPhee, a "panoptic glaze of attention," and I stayed that way for a while--probably at least twenty minutes. This was the experience that I found so calming, and that made my trip so rewarding.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhabPIIqpyjmfLwCyT5Wu4x5rsi5IPI3YCJcXOKMRxtUpGk8alwvvo_MunzCfBJfD952k45rmSdA8gAUQupM0zkuTiGVRthxC4S9XaETE6ghd6vUQeT_9VDC6K9ZdzsER8twodpJIB5HZam/s1600/CIMG1718.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhabPIIqpyjmfLwCyT5Wu4x5rsi5IPI3YCJcXOKMRxtUpGk8alwvvo_MunzCfBJfD952k45rmSdA8gAUQupM0zkuTiGVRthxC4S9XaETE6ghd6vUQeT_9VDC6K9ZdzsER8twodpJIB5HZam/s1600/CIMG1718.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me hiking on the Appalachian Trail in western Maryland, March 2012.</td></tr>
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My experiences lead me to doubt very much that one might have the experience I just described while hiking, canoeing, or taking photos in nature. For while I've only canoed once, I've hiked and backpacked more than almost anyone else I know and taken pictures consistently while doing so. And after all of that I have to say that I have never had anything close to the experience I just described while doing any of those things.<br />
<br />
I suppose it could be that I've just been unlucky, and that others have had precisely the same sort of experience while canoeing or hiking or taking photos. But I doubt it. I doubt it because when I was fishing, I was doing something I wouldn't be doing were I doing any of those other things: I was <i>pursuing</i> something. The difficulty of not spooking the fish, and of getting one's fly to drift through the water in such a way as to trick the fish into thinking it's food--both necessary if the pursuit is to come to anything--demands the kind of awareness I brought to the river that day. That is not true of the activities Adam mentions.<br />
<br />
Given just this much, one might suggest that merely sneaking up on or waiting for wildlife (birdwatching, for example) would bring with it the same demands and so might sometimes involve the same sort of awareness. I've never been birdwatching and so can't say for sure whether or not this is right, but it strikes me a plausible suggestion. Still, I have my doubts about it. The simple fact that, when fishing, my plan if I caught anything was to <i>kill</i> and to <i>eat</i> it makes fishing so different from birdwatching that it's hard for me to imagine experiencing the two activities in the same way. Just consider that when birdwatching, one looks forward to the delight of witnessing the sought-after bird, a tiny testament to the beauty and striking perfection of form of which nature is capable. When fishing, by contrast, I look forward to something very different, something much more somber: the moment when I <i>destroy</i> another such testament. Consider too that this somber rite--stalking, killing, and eating the fish--is one that humans have performed probably as long as they have been around. When I fish I feel connected to that heritage, and so to something bigger than myself. Both the gravitas of the activity and the connection with our common heritage as human beings are completely absent when watching birds.<br />
<br />
In any case, I'm no longer sure it even makes much of a difference whether or not the sort of experience I had while fishing can be had in other ways. In my original post, I brought up this experience in the course of an attempt to show that the "exchange" (as I was then thinking of it) that takes place between oneself and a fish when one catches it is a fair one. I'm no longer convinced that this is the right tack to take. I don't mean that I think the exchange unfair to the fish. I'm not sure now what I think about that. I just mean that I'm less confident now than I was at the time that that one is a very promising way to defend fishing or, for that matter, meat-eating more generally. So in spite of my protestations here, and for different reasons, I'm inclined to agree with Adam that my experience has no justificatory force, or at least none of the sort I previously took it to have.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854459548168336396noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-74471121392752175332013-07-29T16:34:00.000-04:002013-09-24T17:29:48.870-04:00In Defense of Fishby ADAM CURRAN REID<br />
<br />
Many thanks to Josh for the opportunity to publish on his blog. What
follows is a slightly revised and expanded version of my original remarks in
response to "In Defense of Fishing," along with a lengthier summary of our
subsequent exchange over email. Comments are welcome and encouraged.
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<span style="font-size: large; font-weight: normal;">My original response</span></h2>
Hey Josh. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As an ethical vegan <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en01">[1]</a>, I obviously
disagree fundamentally with much of what you say, even while I appreciate how
honest, open, and morally serious you are in trying to work through your
thoughts on these issues in such a systematic way. What follows are just a few
general comments and reactions I had while reading your piece, very much
offered in the spirit of friendly inquiry.<br />
<br />
At a general level, I think you’re absolutely right to note that
considerations about ‘fairness,’ the environment, and the like can only go so
far in thinking one’s way through to the moral core of the issue. As you
rightly point out, the more pressing question seems to be whether there could
be <i>any</i> defensible justification for killing animals (or as I
would say, using animals in any way, shape, or form) — particularly in view of
the fact that we can (again, as you rightly note) live perfectly healthy, happy
lives without doing so. <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en02">[2]</a>
<br />
<br />
My response is that there simply is no so such justification. Animals
are not things; nor are they resources or property. Animals are <i>selves</i>;
beings with a subjective experience of the world, a capacity to feel pain,
pleasure, fear, safety, confusion, disorientation, etc. (i.e. states that are
‘like something’ to be in). Granted, most, perhaps all, non-human animals lack
the requisite cognitive sophistication to conceptualize, much less articulate,
any of this (which is precisely why they need human advocates), but this
shouldn’t, in my view, stop us from recognizing that these are beings for whom,
and to whom, quality of life matters (I include in the phrase ‘quality of life’
here the basic interest in continuing to have one). I would argue that these
considerations alone suffice to ground the strong animal rights position that
animals ought to be viewed as having a fundamental moral standing, up to and
including a comprehensive package of basic rights (first and foremost being the
right not to be killed, enslaved, experimented on, and so on). Obviously this
is meant to be taken only as a snapshot of — not an argument for — the strong
animal rights position; if anyone is looking for an argument, I’d recommend <a href="http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/" target="_blank">Gary Francione</a>, or my former
professor, Will Kymlicka (specifically, the first few chapters of <i>Zoopolis</i>: <i>A
Political Theory of Animal Rights</i>, co-authored with Sue Donaldson).
<br />
<br />
But getting back to the question at hand — why, or on what grounds,
might we think it morally defensible to kill animals, given that, let’s face
it, we really don’t <i>need</i> to — to my mind the most important
consideration here is just that; necessity. As long-time vegan, animal rights
activist, and Rutgers professor (of law and philosophy) Gary Francione often
points out, there is an important if underappreciated sense in which many of
us, perhaps even most of us, actually are vegan (in spirit) already. This is
the sense in which we already accept (or, one hopes, we <i>would</i> accept,
upon reflection) the principle that animals ought not to be made to
suffer <i>unnecessarily</i>. Here’s the catch: however we go on to unpack
the details of what it means for something to be ‘necessary’ in this context,
it seems clear that even the most minimal construal is going to have to
preclude anything whose justification appeals solely to reasons based in
convenience, entertainment, recreation, pleasure, and so on. The trouble is,
these really are the only reasons we have for continuing to use animals. [This
is a rough paraphrase of something he said during an interview once; I am
unable to recall the exact source, but I'm sure it can be found on his
website].
<br />
<br />
One might object at this point by claiming that there are deeper,
socio-historical reasons in support of our legitimately using animals — reasons
deriving from cultural or religious traditions, for example — in short, reasons
which are not wholly <i>reducible</i> to convenience, pleasure, and
the like. In my view, this objection amounts to little more than what
philosophers refer to as the "naturalistic fallacy" (a.k.a. the "is/ought" problem), which points out that one
cannot legitimately derive an "ought" (e.g. we <i>should </i>continue
using animals) from an "is" (e.g. we <i>have always</i> used animals).
We should also bear in mind here that we would hardly accept, as a legitimate
moral justification for, e.g., sexism or slavery, the claim that practices of
this sort are culturally prescribed and/or religiously enshrined. To the
contrary, we would insist that cultural and religious traditions that enjoin
such practices should transform — indeed conform — to the universal moral truth
that men and women are entitled to equal concern and respect, that people are
not property, and so on. Vegans, of the strong animal rights persuasion,
maintain that the same goes for using animals.<a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en03">[3]</a><br />
<br />
Getting back to the necessity, or lack thereof, of using/killing
animals: though not directly in response to this, at one point you talk about
the fallacy of supposing that the <i>only</i> rewards of killing a
fish are to be found in the enjoyment of a tasty meal; noting that there are in
fact a great many other rewards to be had. You then list amongst such rewards
the satisfaction of, e.g. knowing where the fish lived, how it was caught,
killed, roughly what its diet was like, etc. Since these are only going to be
counted as ‘rewards’ if one <i><span style="font-family: inherit, serif;">already</span></i> thinks it
morally permissible to kill (and eat) fish, I don’t view them as having any
real countervailing weight against the unnecessary suffering injunction
introduced above (for these same reasons, I would personally also dismiss the
satisfaction of feeling connected to the land, harvesting one’s own food, etc.
since these are all pleasures one can obtain without using and/or killing
animals). You then discuss the pleasures of feeling engrossed with nature, of
escaping the frenzy of urban climes for the serenity and peace of just being
out on the river, and so forth. Though I personally found this to be more
interesting, you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not inclined to view this
as having any justificatory force whatsoever; again, the simple reason being
that this just is not something whose attainment requires killing animals
(hiking, canoeing, and nature photography are probably the most obvious
alternatives that spring to mind).<br />
<br />
RE: your discussion of the idea of a ‘moral remainder’ or ‘moral
residue’ — more precisely, your remarks about the acknowledgement of, and
attitude toward, this remainder as the mark that distinguishes the venerable
from the despicable angler — my thoughts are less clear. Certainly I do
recognize that there is <i>a</i> difference between the two types of
anglers you describe (presumably a moral difference, though I’m not sure just
what sort of difference this is); though, as a vegan, I’m more inclined to
gloss the distinction as one between the infliction of more vs. less harm.
Still, trivially, recognizing the fact that less harm is obviously preferable
to more harm (in whatever context) is fully compatible with questioning (or, in
my case, denying) the <i>need</i> for any such harm to begin with.<br />
<br />
I suppose the parts I had the most trouble with were your remarks about
solemnity, deep respect, and attitudes of this sort in the context of killing
and eating fish. At one point you mention how one might even think of appropriately
reverent, ‘humane’ killing as a kind of sacrament. But to whom (or what), and
for whom (or what) is this sacrament undertaken in the first place? Oneself?
The fish? In any case, why does the act need to take place at all? I was
similarly perplexed by your suggestion that part of this attitude can be
thought of in terms of gratitude or thankfulness. At one point you say "one
might thank the fish for giving up its life?" I realize, of course, that this
isn’t an especially novel notion, as it is no doubt part of many traditional
hunter-gatherer cultures. The trouble is, it’s incoherent — or so, at least, I
would argue. In the first instance, the fish does not ‘give up its life,’
rather, its life is <i>taken</i>. Moreover, the fish obviously lacks the
cognitive capacity to appreciate the thought that its death, in whatever small
measure, contributes (as nourishment) to the aspirationally admirable life of
the angler who kills it; nor can the fish acknowledge, much less accept, the
angler’s gratitude, any more than it can refuse consent to being recreationally
jerked and tugged around by a hook, attached to a line, caught in its lip. So
while I do think that you’ve hit on, and usefully emphasized, an important idea
with that of the ‘moral remainder’ of killing fish (and presumably, animals in
general), I would argue that, rather than search for ways we might offset or
discharge this remainder, the truly admirable thing would be to simply not
incur it in the first place.
<br />
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Further Clarification</span></span></h2>
Following my initial response (in the comments section) to his post,
Josh and I engaged in a lively and very fruitful email exchange; an exchange
that afforded me a number of opportunities to clarify my position by responding
to some important questions and objections that he raised. I suspect that we
will have more to say about these issues in subsequent posts, but for now
here’s the gist of it.<br />
<br />
The first objection Josh raised was to note that, even accepting the ‘no
unnecessary suffering’ injunction for the sake of argument, it’s not clear why
(on my view) killing animals should count as inherently wrong since, simply
put, this needn’t involve suffering at all. Josh writes,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Suppose I grant for
the nonce that one ought not to cause unnecessary suffering. Even so, it seems
to me you still lack an adequate basis for claiming that I ought not to kill
anything, that is, not just fish, but also bears and geese and people and so
on. The reason is just that death needn't involve any suffering. For one thing,
you don't have to cause an organism to suffer prior to its death in order to
make it die. As a case in point, consider this story. When I was much younger,
I used to go deer hunting with my grandpa. Once, when I was hunting with him, I
spotted a large buck within range and took aim. Shortly thereafter, the deer
turned toward me. I shot him through the trachea and spinal cord, breaking his
neck; he fell immediately. Thereafter, he didn't even twitch; he died
immediately, before he even knew he was in danger. It seems to me obvious that
that deer did not suffer prior to its death. And as for death itself, I don't
think one experiences one's death; indeed, how could one? As Wittgenstein says
(<i>Tractatus</i>, 6.4311), "Death is not an event in life." So how
could death itself involve any suffering? If I'm right that this deer did not
suffer when I killed it, then your principle is irrelevant and implies nothing
about the moral status of my action. If you want to claim that I ought not to
have done that, it seems to me you need to give me some other reason. I suspect
you probably have one, and if so, I'd be interested to know it."</blockquote>
I actually agree with most everything Josh says here. Certainly death
needn't be preceded by much, or even any, suffering. Death can sometimes occur
instantaneously (as his deer example illustrates); death, so to speak, needn't
always involve the experience of <i>dying.</i><br />
<br />
Moving on to Wittgenstein (though I'm actually more familiar with this
from Thomas Nagel; see his essay "Death," in <i>Mortal Questions</i>),
Josh and I are more or less in agreement here too: death is not a state of
experience; death, rather, is the cessation of <i>all</i> experience.
Hence, by definition, no animal (fish, deer, human, etc.) experiences its own
death. Death is just the onset of nothingness; but even that is misleading,
since, again, there literally is no <i>subject</i> that undergoes
this onset. So it looks like death, by its very nature, cannot
straightforwardly be considered a harm, since a necessary condition of
something even so much as counting as a harm — namely, the existence of a
subject to whom the harm is attached — is entirely absent. Therefore, strictly
speaking, no animal can be harmed by their own death. Or so, at least, one
could argue.
<br />
<br />
Again, I more or less agree with all of this (or at least, for the sake
of argument, am happy to go along with it). If I came off in my initial
response as implying that I take the wrongfulness of killing fish (or any other
animal) to be essentially or primarily a matter of the wrongfulness of
inflicting <i>felt </i>harm, then I apologize, for I was not being
clear.
<br />
<br />
Two points: the first is that my general philosophical leaning on the
question of "how, and if so, in what sense, can a person be harmed by
their own death?" is basically just Nagel's view (at least, I <i>think</i> it's
his view): roughly, the badness or 'harmfulness' of death consists in the
denial of possible future experience; thus we should say that it is the <i>pre-mortem</i> <i>person</i> who
is harmed by their own death, because this is the subject who, after all, is
robbed of future existence. One could argue that the same reasoning applies
straightforwardly in the case of non-human animals as well: since it is
independently plausible to think that all animals have a basic interest in
continuing to exist <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en04">[4]</a>, in killing one, we
are violating a basic interest, and in violating this interest, we are harming
a pre-mortem self.
<br />
<br />
But this is already far too intellectual and, in my view, not really
necessary anyway; which brings me to my second point. As a vegan
abolitionist <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en05">[5]</a>, my view is this:
because fundamental interests <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en06">[6]</a> are <i>species-independent</i>,
membership in a particular species is not a prerequisite for membership in the
class of beings to which fundamental moral concern ought to be extended. Simply
put, the moral reasons in virtue of which it’s wrong for a human to kill
another human — even in such a way as to ensure the death is as painless as
possible; indeed, even instantaneous — are equally reasons for thinking this is
impermissible in the case of non-human animals. <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en07">[7]</a> As I see it,
the alternative double standard is ultimately just speciesism of one form or another.
<br />
<br />
Josh’s second question comes in the form of an interesting
dilemma-posing thought experiment. He writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I got the impression
from your original comments that you think that, if it were necessary for
humans to eat meat, in the sense that, if we didn't, we would fail to get some
essential nutrient and so eventually die, it would be permissible to eat
animals. Am I right about that? If I am, then I wonder what you think about
this. Suppose that it were necessary for us to eat meat in this sense. Would it
then be permissible for us to eat one another? If you say no, as it seems to me
you should, it seems to me that you are according humans and non-human animals
different sets of basic rights, which, I take it, is something you want to
avoid." </blockquote>
This is, indeed, a tricky question, one that’s been
exercising me for a while now, ever since Josh first posed it to me. In response, I would begin by directing the reader’s attention to an
instructive passage from Kymlicka and Donaldson <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en08">[8]</a>, a passage which I believe holds the key to framing
a plausible vegan response to the dilemma Josh
poses.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...[T]his
term [inviolability] does not mean that basic rights are absolute and
exceptionless. This is not true in either the human or animal case, as in
cases of self-defence. Human beings have an inviolable right to life, but
killing another human being is permissible if it is done out of self-defence or
necessity. So, too, with animals. There is also a historical dimension
to the issue of inviolability. At different stages of human history, or
in particular contexts, humans have had to harm and/or kill animals in order to
survive. In that sense, too, basic inviolable rights are not absolute or
unconditional. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"This
raises a more general point about the nature of justice: namely, that it only
applies in certain circumstances — what Rawls (following Hume) calls the
'circumstances of justice.' Ought implies can: humans only owe justice to
each other when they are in fact able to respect each other's rights without
jeopardizing their own existence. Rawls calls this the requirement of
'moderate scarcity:' justice is <i>necessary</i> because there isn't an unlimited pool
of resources such that everyone can have everything that they want; but for
justice to be <i>possible</i>,
the competition for resources must be moderate rather than severe, in the sense
that I can afford to recognize your legitimate claims without undermining my
own existence. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"We can
contrast this with what are sometimes called 'lifeboat cases,' when there is
too little food or shelter for all to survive. In these lifeboat
conditions, the most extreme actions may need to be contemplated. In
order to avoid everyone on the boat dying, one person may be sacrificed, or
sacrifice themselves, and various proposals have been made about how to decide
who should live and who should die. <u>But the existence of such extreme
lifeboat cases tells us nothing about the basic rights we owe each other in the
normal case where the circumstances of justice <i>do</i> apply</u>. In moderate
scarcity, rather than lifeboat cases, murdering other humans for food or
shelter is wrong."<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
(Underlining added) </div>
</blockquote>
<br />
The potential application of these remarks to the case Josh
describes is clear enough: the circumstances of justice, one could argue,
simply do not apply in a world like this; indeed, to a vegan, the world itself
is essentially just one big survival situation (morally speaking). In such a world, we would have no choice but
to kill and eat animals in order to survive.<br />
<br />
To be sure, this is not (yet) an altogether
satisfying response; though it does, I think, contain the makings of one.
Though promising as far as it goes, the problem is that, as it stands, it does not really
address the full force of Josh’s challenge, since now the question has become:
in virtue of what, by vegan lights, are we justified in viewing the
circumstances of justice as continuing to hold between one another, but <i>not</i> between ourselves and non-human
animals? Appeals to ‘necessity’ are no
use here either, since our survival in this world could equally be obtained by
killing (and eating) one another. Why,
then, should we not regard this as equally morally permissible? Indeed, wouldn’t our failure to do so
constitute the very <i>essence</i> of
speciesism?
<br />
<br />
The
short answer, I think, is: yes. To
understand ourselves as no longer in the circumstances of justice with
non-human animals in such a case, even while retaining this standing with our
fellow humans, <i>would</i> amount to a form
of speciesism; I cannot see a way around this. Now, if you are
vegan, this might appear to be a somewhat awkward point to concede; thought it is not, I think, a
damning one, for reasons that should become clear in a moment. But first, consider the following alternative. Suppose one were to argue that
it actually <i>would</i> be morally <i>permissible</i> to kill and eat humans in
such a world, stressing, all the while, the following qualification: the equal <i>permissibility</i> of killing human and
non-human animals in this scenario does not<i>
</i>automatically<i> </i>entail that one is
morally <i>obligated</i> to show no
preference between the two. If this much is
accepted, then perhaps vegans could consistently maintain that, in the scenario
Josh describes, preference could legitimately be shown for killing non-human
animals (over humans) in order to survive?
If the former strategy appears somewhat awkward, this one is bound to seem downright
lawyerly in its verbal maneuvering, and I doubt very much that there are many
who would be persuaded by it. At the moment, then, perhaps the only thing one can say
for sure is that, if you are a vegan, such a world would be morally tragic
whatever the correct response turns out to be.<br />
<br />
As it happens, I myself feel that the first strategy is the correct response. In saying this, however, I am opening the door to a very natural objection. In particular, some might insist that my countenancing speciesism in this hypothetical scenario fatally undermines any supposed reasons of <i>principle</i> I might cite for rejecting it in <i>this</i> world. The claim, then, is that I cannot <i>consistently</i> have it both ways; what goes for the one case, goes for the other. This objection is overblown. To see that this is so, note that, by itself, the fact that
some, probably most, vegans (myself included) would feel compelled in such a
case to accept solidarity with their own species over countenancing the equal
permissibility of killing human and non-human animals really lends nothing at all in the way of support to the strong conclusion that we are secretly, deep
down, tacit speciesists — any more than my choosing to kill a complete stranger
over my partner in an extreme ‘lifeboat’ type of scenario implies that,
deep down, part of me harbours a secret desire to kill strangers. In short, if my response to Josh’s dilemma
reveals anything, it is that speciesism, of the sort we are considering here,
is nothing if not a tragic, last-ditch, moral <i>compromise</i> that vegans would view themselves as forced to make. On that note, it struck me that this
scenario is potentially very interesting to consider from the perspective of Josh’s
notion (sub Hursthouse) of the ‘moral remainder,’ or ‘moral residue.’ In such a
world, it seems to me (and, if I’m not mistaken, to Josh as well) that our
killing/eating behavior would accrue an enormous moral debt in just the sense
he describes in his post. Of course, my
initial suggestion — that the truly admirable thing to do would be to simply
not incur such debt in the first place — would not apply here. Indeed, the
global condition of our species in such a world would seem to be one of moral
emergency; the cost of survival itself involving a sort of ‘moral tax’ that we
would have no choice but to pay. One response would be to stress that we have a
standing duty to <i>bring about</i> the circumstances of justice
where they don’t currently obtain. <a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en09">[9]</a> So, with this in mind, in response to Josh’s
dilemma vegans can and should maintain that, however we understand our moral
responsibilities toward non-human animals in the immediate interim in such a world, our
long-term responsibility is clear: we would be under a moral obligation to seek
out alternative means of survival; means that do not require us to kill animals.
What’s more, given our considerable ingenuity as a species,
this would presumably be well within our reach. <br />
<br />
Most important of all, however, is to bear in mind Kymilcka
and Donaldson’s final point in the passage above — which is simply to remind us
that, whatever our feelings about what we might, or even must, do in these
hypothetical ‘moral emergency’ scenarios, such philosophizing really tells us
little to nothing about what we should do in the here and now. In other words, (thankfully!) we do not live
in the sort of world Josh raises for consideration; it is <i>not</i> necessary to kill and eat animals to survive. In <i>this</i>
world, I submit, we <i>do</i> find ourselves
in the circumstances of justice with animals.<a href="http://reflectionshereandthere.blogspot.ca/2013/07/in-defense-of-fish_29.html#en10">[10]</a>
<br />
<br />
In closing, and at the risk of sounding too clichéd, I would just add
that it really is the essence of philosophical inquiry to examine one’s own
life first and foremost. I’m not sure I’d go as far as Socrates in saying that
the unexamined life is not worth <i>living</i>, but I do feel that we owe
it to ourselves to examine, and re-examine, our convictions (and our
assumptions) from time to time and, most importantly, be prepared to revise, or
even reject, them should we come to feel that, on reflection, they are no
longer worthy of our continued allegiance. This is particularly important with
respect to our consumptive decisions, since, arguably, these are the decisions
that have the most direct impact in the world — not only on our own health and
well-being (physical, spiritual, moral), but also on that of the planet and,
indeed, the other beings (human and non) with whom we <i>share</i> this
world. At the end of the day, of course, this is all just words; and words can
only take us so far. If anyone is interested in learning more about these
issues, I would highly recommend the documentary film <a href="http://www.peaceablekingdomfilm.org/" target="_blank"><i>A Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home</i></a> — which, unlike
some films of its kind, is every bit as powerful and tastefully done as it is
watchable and (for the most part) non-graphic. On a personal note, I would add
that this film is what compelled me to go vegan, by helping me to find the
courage to realize that my own consumptive behavior (as a vegetarian of almost
ten years) was still fundamentally out of sync with what I innately knew to be
right, but had long ignored.
<br />
<br />
Thanks again to Josh for the opportunity to post my response on his
blog, and, of course, for the interesting (and ongoing!) debate about these
important issues.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<hr align="left" noshade="" size="1" width="33%" />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en01"></a>[1] By "ethical vegan" I mean someone whose veganism derives from the
belief that animals have an intrinsic moral status as beings that ought always
to be treated as ends in themselves. The term is sometimes used to
differentiate vegans of this sort from those whose veganism is motivated by,
e.g., health concerns, religious prescription, or environmental reasons.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en02"></a>[2] The truth of this notwithstanding, one might still wonder what veganism
would entail if (contrary to fact) it actually was <i>not</i> possible
to be at least as healthy on a balanced, nutritionally responsible vegan diet
as an omnivore diet; that is to say, if being vegan meant being less healthy
overall than nutritionally responsible omnivores. This has actually come up in
conversation a couple times for me and, though I confess I've not really
thought it through in any great depth, my gut reaction has always been to say
that one ought to still be vegan. Some vegans might think that, even if this is
the right response generally speaking, there is in principle <i>some</i> threshold
(of unhealthiness) beyond which it would simply be <i>unreasonable</i> for
veganism to imply that one ought nevertheless be prepared to accept. Then
again, other vegans might deny this. Thankfully, this scenario is
counterfactual only; it <i>is </i>possible to be perfectly healthy on
a nutritionally responsible vegan diet. But even so, it behooves vegans to
consider it carefully, since we should all of us, vegan and non, aspire to
better understand the logic of our own convictions. At the moment, I confess
that I'm not sure where I stand on this 'threshold' question.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en03"></a>[3] A more promising objection strategy (according to some) is to stress that, even granting for the sake of argument that we ought not to use animals for any of the reasons considered so far, the case of medical experimentation is not as clear-cut. Here, one might argue (indeed, even some self-styled ethical ‘vegans’ argue this), we <i>are</i> morally justified in using/killing animals since, had we <i>not </i>used animals in this way, many humans would surely have died over the years (and, indeed, would die in the future), bereft of the life-saving medicines and treatments we would otherwise have acquired. In short, one might argue that we have an <i>overriding</i> interest based in our own survival (which, presumably, is as <i>necessary</i> a reason as any) that justifies using animals; simply put, the alternative is a ‘sacrifice’ we should not have to make. The right response to this, I think, is clear enough. Here I defer to Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson, who elaborate the response as follows. On p.44 (Kindle edition) of their book <i>Zoopolis</i>: <i>A Political Theory of Animal Rights</i> (Oxford University Press, 2011), they write:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...[T]o view this as a sacrifice is already to misunderstand the moral situation. After all, there are countless medical technologies and medical advances that don’t exist today because we refuse to use human subjects for invasive experiments. It is hard to overestimate the advances that medical science could have made by now if researchers had been able to use human subjects, rather than imperfect animal stand-ins. Yet we do not view this as a sacrifice. We do not wake up every day lamenting all that untapped knowledge; we are not bitter about the restriction on human subjects that has so hampered medical advance; we do not worry that an overly squeamish attitude about respecting the rights of a few humans is standing in the way of longer and healthier lives for the rest of us. Indeed, anyone who viewed prohibitions on using humans as research subjects as a sacrifice would be seen as morally perverse. We fully understand, in the human context, that medical knowledge must advance within ethical boundaries, or it simply isn’t knowledge that we have a right to. This may force us to be more creative about how we learn, or to be more patient in waiting for results. Either way, it’s not something we view as a sacrifice. It’s a recognition that a world in which better or longer lives for the many are purchased by sacrificing the few is not a world worth living in. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It will require a huge adjustment for societies to accept that medical knowledge gained by harming and killing animals is not knowledge to which we are entitled. But the costs of the adjustment would be temporary. After a few decades in which new practices became customary, and a new generation of researchers trained, animal experimentation would be perceived much as human experimentation is viewed today. Its prohibition would not be viewed as a cost, just as the absence of human experimentation is not viewed as a cost." </blockquote>
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en04"></a>[4] As Francione puts it (paraphrase), "To say that a being who is
sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with
eyes has no interest in continuing to see." I am not sure exactly where he says
this, but it can be found on his website.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en05"></a>[5]Vegan abolitionism is the view that there simply are no grounds for
our using, and killing, animals period. Abolitionism thus contrasts with what
is known in the literature as "welfarism;" which is the view that there is
nothing inherently wrong, in principle, with using, and even killing, animals
for human ends, provided that we do so in a way that is ‘humane.’ Peter Singer
is a good example of a well-known contemporary welfarist; Gary Francione is
perhaps the most well-known vegan abolitionist.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en06"></a>[6] Roughly, our interests in not being abused, enslaved, physically
exploited, killed, eaten, and so on.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en07"></a>[7] It’s conceivable that one could object that part of the problem here
is that, all due respect to Nagel, it actually is <i>not</i> entirely
clear just what’s morally wrong with painlessly, instantaneously, killing a
person — provided, of course, the victim has no prior knowledge of their
immanent death. To be sure, it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously raising such
a concern beyond the context of the philosophical armchair, but nevermind
that. The response is clear enough: we don’t need to know, with exhaustive
philosophical precision, <i>why</i> something is wrong in order to
know <i>that</i> it’s wrong — and we certainly do know <i>that</i> it’s
wrong, other things being equal, to kill someone.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en08"></a>[8] Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson, <i>Zoopolis</i>: <i>A
Political Theory of Animal Rights</i> (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp.
40-41; Kindle edition.
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en09"></a>[9] This point is owed, once again, to Kymlicka and Donaldson (Ibid.)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="en10"></a>[10] Kymlicka and Donaldson allow that there may be isolated
communities of humans (in <i>this</i> world) whose survival depends
on hunting animals; such communities, they say, might plausibly be regarded as
not within the circumstances of justice with animals. (Ibid.)<br />
<br />
<br />
© Adam Curran Reid 2013. All Rights Reserved.Adam Curran Reidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06976961209338455024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-22149320119620100262013-07-26T09:44:00.000-04:002013-07-26T12:33:10.652-04:00New Developments<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since I tried to defend fishing, my friend and colleague at Hopkins, Adam, has been vigorously defending the fish. Beginning with some very challenging comments he posted on my first entry, he and I have been in near constant dialogue for about a week now. I have learned a lot from talking with him. In particular, I've realized that I was wrong about a few things, and that there are several issues I still need to address before I can feel good about fishing. In a way that's a bummer because I'm really enjoying all the fishing I've been doing, but it's also really great because this sort of helpful feedback and criticism is precisely what I was hoping I might be able to get by publishing some of my thoughts. Thanks to Adam for that. And for that matter, thanks more generally to everyone else who has been reading and talking to me about my post. I have really enjoyed it so far, and I sincerely hope for more of the same in the future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, I've invited Adam to collect together some of the ideas he's put forward in our discussions over the last few days and post them as a guest author. He's already put something together and should post it sometime soon. I thought that would be a good thing for a couple of reasons. First, if you're really interested in this issue, I think you'll find it helpful to look at Adam's comments, since he defends a position very different from the one I suggested in my last post. And second, Since I've come to feel that my views need to be revised in light of his comments, I'm considering writing a follow-up post where I try to deal with some of the issues he brings up. If I do that, it will be helpful for anyone interested to be able to refer to his comments.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01854459548168336396noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6937910156594652683.post-33522927656093497572013-07-12T15:58:00.003-04:002014-01-23T18:29:10.993-05:00In Defense of Fishing<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">R</span>ecently I’ve had some
experiences that have gotten me thinking again about whether or not it’s
acceptable to kill animals: I took up fly fishing, and I read a couple of
pieces by Michael Pollan, first an article called “<a href="http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/the-modern-hunter-gatherer/"><span style="color: blue;">The Modern Hunter-Gatherer</span></a><span style="font-size: small;">” and then the book
whence that article is adapted, </span><i>The Omnivore’s Dilemma </i><span style="font-size: small;">(New
York, NY: Penguin, 2006). I’d like to articulate some of my
thoughts on the matter here, for my own benefit if for no one else’s.
Among other things, I want to think about what role, if any, the gut-level
inclinations to believe or assent to deontic or evaluative claim that some
philosophers call “moral intuitions” really play in thinking about what to do,
how to live, and what matters and how much (philosophers call this practical
reasoning). And in a more practical vein, I want to figure out whether or
not I can keep up this new hobby in good conscience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There are lots of
different kinds of animals and lots of different ways to kill them, but all I
want to talk about here is doing the sort of thing I did the other day. I
went out to the Gunpowder River north of Baltimore and fished healthy
populations of brown, brook, and rainbow trout with dry flies, or hooks made to
look like flies that float on the top of the water and, if you’re lucky, trick
the fish into thinking a tasty bug is floating over their heads. As it happens
I didn’t catch anything, but if I had, I would have killed the fish as quickly
and painlessly as possible, and afterwards I would have eaten as much of the
animal as I know how to make any use of. Granted, this is a very
particular case; if the truth be told, I suspect it has some wider
ramifications, and I may say a bit more about these in a future post. But
as it has long seemed to me that the best way to make any headway in one’s
thinking about ethical matters is to focus on the most specific cases one can,
I want to begin with just this case.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So is there any reason
to think it is not acceptable to do what I set out to do, to catch, kill, and
eat a non-endangered species of trout in the ways I’ve described?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With the world’s
population <a href="http://www.census.gov/popclock/"><span style="color: blue;">now over seven billion</span></a>, one has to consider the
possibility that it’s just not fair for any one person to eat an animal.
In general, one can coax a lot more meals out of the plants, insects, etc. that
animals eat than from the animals themselves.[1] This is why you find
fewer and fewer organisms as you start going the higher up the food chain
(e.g., there is a lot more clover on the earth than there are lions).
Given that this is so, it’s possible that there are so many people on the earth
today that there is just not enough arable land to support the number of
animals it would take for everyone on the earth to eat meat regularly or even
at all; similarly in the case of ocean critters: it’s possible that there
are so many people on earth that there is just not enough ocean to support the
numbers of sea critters there would need to be for everyone to eat seafood
regularly. I believe I read some time ago that we’ve already reached the
point where this sort of situation obtains for relatively high frequencies of
meat-eating and amounts of meat, like 1/2lb. meat per person per day. But
I’m not sure about this. If anyone can point me toward hard data on this
score I’d be interested to see it. In any case, the relevant question for
my purposes is just whether or not there are so many people on the planet that
I can’t sustainably eat a wild brown, brook, or rainbow trout a few times a
year. I don’t know the answer to this question, so this is something I’ll
have to look into. But if there are, then I am happy to admit that I
ought not to be eating these fish that often, since, I take it, there is
nothing special about me that entitles me to take more than my approximately
1/7,000,000,000th of the world’s food.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Setting aside concerns
about fairness to other people, though, are there any other reasons I ought not
to have gone fishing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One reason is that it
may not be fair to the fish. In killing an animal to eat it, we are
requiring it to give up quite a bit. If we have to do this in order that
we might keep on living ourselves, then our demand seems fair and
reasonable. But if we don’t, then it’s no longer clear that this is
so. Given, then, that one can meet all of one’s nutritional requirements
and feel great even if one never eats meat, or for that matter any animal
product whatsoever, you might think worry that we are asking too much. Is
the sacrifice we require of the trout when we catch and kill it excessive?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That it is can seem
obvious if we think of ourselves as inflicting considerable pain on a fish when
we kill it and if we regard as the only reward that comes from killing and
eating the fish the opportunity to eat a tasty meal. It seems that a
gustatory experience could ever be so good as to justify causing such
suffering. But I think this line of thought is mistaken: the pain
is less severe and the rewards more numerous than it supposes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As for the pain, the
amount of physical and psychological stress on a properly-caught and
-dispatched fish during those processes is, to all appearances anyway, not
really that much. Ideally the hook goes through the fish’s lip rather
than deeper in the throat or lower, and after getting several hooks stuck in my
own fingers, I can tell you that that just can’t hurt that much. For what
it’s worth, I imagine that in the following passage, David James Duncan, author
and fly fisherman, describes the experience of being caught on a fly
more-or-less accurately (though I doubt trout are cognitively quite so
sophisticated as the passage makes them out to be):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Deploying two troops of teeth, the trout clamped
down viciously upon the ant….The trout crunched the ant again and again, but as
it did so there came a whole bevy of bad businesses: the trout was
swimming down, but it was going up; this sort of thing should never
happen. And there was a pain in its mouth which its Racial Memory
identified as toothache, a malady the poor trout had believed itself immune
to.[2]</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I take it that being
reeled in is, as the passage suggests, more tiring and confusing than anything
else: mostly it just involves trying to swim away without making any
headway. And once one gets the fish reeled in, the idea is to kill it as
quickly and efficiently as possible. There are several ways to do
this. What seems best to me is to first hit it on the head with a piece
of wood or a rock to stun it and then to use the method shown <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95czyQ9npk4"><span style="color: blue;">here</span></a>.
I realize this may seem pretty gruesome, but in fact it makes for a death that
is not only very quick but, compared to, say, being eaten alive by a raccoon or
a bird right out of the water, presumably relatively painless as well. If
you don’t believe me, contrast that last video with <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hecXupPpE9o"><span style="color: blue;">this
one</span></a> of an eagle grabbing fish out of the water, and keep in
mind that if the fish don’t suffocate before the bird begins to eat them, they
will be eaten alive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As for the rewards of
catching and eating trout, they are far more numerous than just a tasty meal,
though that reward by itself is certainly not negligible. Besides taste,
there is to begin with the satisfaction of knowing exactly where the fish you
plan to eat came from, at least roughly what kind of life it lived, how it was
killed, and what its diet was like. Information like this is hard to come
by when you’re dealing with fish from the grocery store, and it can tell you
quite a bit. For instance, it can tell you something about the impact on
the relevant ecosystem of harvesting the fish, about the quality of the fish’s
life and death, and about its nutritional quality. And that information
can help you to make a more informed decision about whether or not it would be
a good idea to eat the fish, from both an ethical and a nutritional
standpoint. Compared to eating a fish regarding which you know none of
this sort of information, it is simply a delight to eat a fish that you know
was sustainably harvested, lived a normal, healthy life, was killed humanely,
and was not fed food fish ought not to eat or pumped full of antibiotics and
hormones. There’s also the sense of connection to and fundamental
dependence on the land one gets by harvesting one’s own food, a sense hard to
come by for city-dwellers like myself. And of course there’s the fact
that fish are food, and eating them makes it possible for us to continue living
our own lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These are rewards of
fishing that one can pretty easily appreciate even if one has never
fished. But there’s another reward of which that’s not true, or of which
that at least was not true for me. I have in mind the experience of being
absolutely rapt, of being so engrossed in one’s surroundings that one ceases
even to think, let alone to be aware of anything beyond the river, the rod, the
fly, and the fish. Pollan does a nice job of describing this experience
of total mindfulness in the opening paragraph of his article “The Modern
Hunter-Gatherer.”[3] He’s talking there about hunting wild pigs, but if I
understand him right, the experience is basically the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Walking with a loaded
rifle in an unfamiliar forest bristling with the signs of your prey is
thrilling. It embarrasses me to write that, but it is true. I am not by nature
much of a noticer, yet here, now, my attention to everything around me, and
deafness to everything else, is complete. Nothing in my experience has prepared
me for the quality of this attention. I notice how the day’s first breezes comb
the needles in the pines, producing a sotto voce whistle and an undulation in
the pattern of light and shadow tattooing the tree trunks and the ground. I
notice the specific density of the air. But this is not a passive or aesthetic
attention; it is a hungry attention, reaching out into its surroundings like
fingers, or nerves. My eyes venture deep into thickets my body could never
penetrate, picking their way among the tangled branches, sliding over rocks and
around stumps to bring back the slenderest hint of movement. In the places too
deeply shadowed to admit my eyes, my ears roam at will, returning with the
report of a branch cracking at the bottom of a ravine, or the snuffling of a. .
.wait: what was that? Just a bird. Everything is amplified. Even my skin is
alert, so that when the shadow launched by the sudden ascent of a turkey
vulture passes overhead I swear I can feel the temperature momentarily fall. I
am the alert man.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85Cru2FUIpKqaGuo8R_SzlHd9QExh-mYvkWikv2ufv1lPwq3wnX-vRVgrp0hWVmacdCvaB2VOmd_zNeZ20BdJOrQzoyrOI-jvoAfYMG6K0Ddib4L0Yu-xOs9GC7b2K8Nmp0j9SqbrokmI/s1600/Gunpowder+7-18-13.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85Cru2FUIpKqaGuo8R_SzlHd9QExh-mYvkWikv2ufv1lPwq3wnX-vRVgrp0hWVmacdCvaB2VOmd_zNeZ20BdJOrQzoyrOI-jvoAfYMG6K0Ddib4L0Yu-xOs9GC7b2K8Nmp0j9SqbrokmI/s1600/Gunpowder+7-18-13.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me fishing the Gunpowder.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This meditative state of
heightened awareness I find remarkably relaxing, so much so that it, together
with the incredible sense of calm that comes from spending a few hours on a serene
and secluded river away from the hustle and bustle of city life, makes fishing
one of the best ways to unwind I know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Upon reflection, then,
it seems to me hardly clear that what we have in this case is an unfair
exchange, so I’m not convinced that I did anything wrong on this score.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is, however,
another set of considerations that suggests to me not that I ought not to have
gone fishing, but that I need to be very careful about the way I go about
it. For it seems to me that even if there are no good environmental
reasons to worry about killing trout, and even if the sacrifice an angler
requires of the fish she catches and kills is not excessive, she might still be
doing something reprehensible in catching, killing, and eating a trout.
This is because, from an ethical point of view anyway, it seems it also makes a
difference both how one thinks and feels and what one says about killing and
eating a trout and how one lives one’s life subsequently, so much so that these
things can make the difference between a despicable and a venerable
fisherman. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think the best way I
can explain what I have in mind is by setting forth two very different ways of
killing and eating a fish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the one hand, one
might dispatch the fish clumsily and thoughtlessly, giving no thought to the
fish’s discomfort. One might regard the fish as basically an inanimate
thing and killing a fish an act no more interesting from an ethical point of
view than, say, chopping a log. One might even make fun of the fish,
thinking or saying how stupid it is because it can be fooled by artificial
flies, many of which honestly don’t look too much like insects (consider <a href="http://www.tenkarausa.com/product_info.php/products_id/133"><span style="color: blue;">this one</span></a>). And in either of these cases,
one might later give no more thought to eating the fish than one might give to
eating a French fry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand,
though, one might regard the catching and killing of the trout as a solemn
affair and do so with a deep sense of respect for and gratitude to the fish,
taking care throughout the process to be as kind as possible to it and to
remain mindful of what one is putting it through. One might thank the
fish for giving up its life, as I understand Native Americans and other
hunter-gatherers are wont to do,[4] and as Pollan himself did in a toast
he reports in the following passage:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I passed the platters of
chicken and corn and proposed a toast. I offered thanks first to my
hosts-cum-guests, then to Joel Salatin and his family for growing the food
before us (and for giving it to us), and then finally to the chickens, who in
one way or another had provided just about everything we were about to
eat. My secular version of grace, I suppose, acknowledging the various
material and karmic debts incurred by this meal, debts which I felt more keenly
than usual.[5]</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One might even go so far
as to make and keep promises to the fish to make as much use as possible of its
body and to live out the rest of one’s life, which is made possible in part by
the fish’s death, in such a way as to make its death worthwhile—say by helping
to protect endangered trout habitat, or by achieving something noteworthy in
the arts. (The thought with this last promise being that not every kind
of life is such that the fact that eating a fish would help to prolong it is a
good reason to eat a fish. Rather, I submit, this is true only of
admirable lives.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems to me plain
that while something rankles in the former scenario, anyone who behaves in the
way I describe in the latter is admirable. Indeed, I’ll even go so far as
to say that what we have in the former scenario approaches murder, while in the
latter we have something more like a sacrament. But why should it make so
much of a difference to our evaluation of an angler’s act how he thinks, feels,
and speaks about it and how he acts subsequently?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As for the angler’s
thoughts and feelings, I should say I think that an angler can only be partly
blamed for any inappropriate thoughts or feelings she may have while fishing,
since it seems we are not totally in control of these aspects of our inner
life. Still, insofar as our thoughts and feelings about fish and fishing
reflect our views on those topics (and, for what it’s worth, I take it this is
so to a considerable extent), I think it does make sense to praise or blame
people for their thoughts and feelings. For our views are under our
control, and some, like the view that trout deserve some respect and
consideration from us, are better than others, like the view that they deserve
none. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As for the angler’s
words, I think they make a difference because I believe that fish, as living
things, have some degree of dignity, which we ought to respect, and because I
think that one way we can do that is by saying appropriate things about and to
them (by thanking them for their sacrifice, for instance). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think an angler’s
subsequent actions matter for a different reason, a reason I’ll need to
introduce some jargon to explain. Suppose you make a promise to a friend
and then fail to keep it for some good reason. Suppose too that whatever
kept you from fulfilling your promise came up so suddenly and was so urgent
that it was impossible to contact your friend to let them know beforehand that
you weren’t going to be able to keep your promise. If you do something
like this, it seems clear that you ought to do something to make it up to your
friend. At the very least, you ought to explain to them what
happened. Better, though, would be to get them a small gift and offer to
do something for them. However that may be, the important point is that
some philosophers call this obligation to make it up to your friend that you
incur when you break your promise a <i>moral remainder </i>or <i>residue</i>.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6937910156594652683" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a> In more general terms, we can say that a moral
remainder or residue (at least as I understand the notion) is, roughly, an
obligation (a) that one incurs when one does something (e.g., when one fails to
keep a promise) and (b) whose fulfillment or lack thereof affects the moral
status of that act in the performance of which it was incurred (thus, if you
make it up to your friend later, your failure to keep your promise is as a
result less blameworthy than it would have been otherwise).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, it seems to me that
catching and killing a fish leaves an angler with a moral remainder, and I
think that the reason an angler is admirable if she uses every part of the fish
possible, thanks the fish for its sacrifice, and promises the fish to live out
the rest of her life in such a way as to make its death count is that she
thereby discharges that remainder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These considerations I
find persuasive enough that, for the time being anyway, I plan to keep
fishing. Now that I’ve reflected on what it must be like to be a fish
that is humanely killed; on the many rewards of catching and eating wild trout;
on the different ways one might think, feel, and talk about doing this sort of
thing; and on the ways I might discharge the moral remainder with which one is
left when one does so; I feel that it is at least possible to catch and eat
trout in a way that I can not only live with, but in fact be proud of, at least
if I’m right to think that I can do so without taking more than my fair share
of the world's food. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course there are lots
of interesting further questions one could examine at this point and about
which I certainly plan to think more in the future, and if I cannot come up
with decent answers to them, I may still have to abandon this newfound
hobby. Why, for instance, ought we to believe fish have any degree of
dignity or deserve respect? And why should it be the case that performing
certain acts should and others not leave one with a remainder to discharge?
Is there any principled way of dividing up the cases? Do we need a
principle? But perhaps most troublesome, one might worry, as my fiancée
Erika did when she read this, that while these considerations do seem to
constitute a sufficient defense of my plan to catch, kill, and eat a trout, it
seems clear that no analogous considerations could possibly justify murdering
and eating a human being. Why not? Why should the species of the
victim make such a difference here? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">These are all difficult
questions answering which necessitates thinking considerably more deeply about
a number of issues. I think I may have a decent answer to at least the
last one, and I might spell it out in a future post. But this post seems
to me long enough already, and a good start to a blog that I hope will allow me
to share some of my thoughts with my friends and family and to discuss with
anyone interested some issues I care about in a spirit of friendly inquiry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[1] An obvious
exception is organisms like cows and other ruminants that can eat things humans
can’t digest (grass, for instance). I may consider the (non-obvious)
moral implications of this fact in a future post.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[2] From <i>The
River Why</i>, twentieth-anniversary edition, (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club
Books, 1983), p. 197.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[3] This paragraph
is also in <i>The Omnivore’s Dilemma</i>, p. 334.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[4] <i>The
Omnivore’s Dilemma</i>, p. 331.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[5] <i>The
Omnivore’s Dilemma</i>, p. 271.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[6] While I
wouldn’t be surprised to learn that others speak this way too, I’m familiar
with these terms only from Rosalind Hursthouse’s book <i>On Virtue Ethics </i>(Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 199), pp. 71-77.</span></div>
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