Questionable Ethics #4
A couple times in this series we’ve responded to articles where Randy Cohen simply seemed to be unnaturally definitive and certain when faced with issues that had lots of gray area. This time, though, I really think he’s just outright wrong. The letter in question:
My listing on ratemyprofessors.com has a few positive ratings, but the majority are from students who gripe about the workload and the density of my lectures. May I suggest to my more-satisfied students that they post a rating on the Web site? NAME WITHHELD, CALIFORNIA
No, says Cohen. It’s “skewing the results” and it’s not ethical. He at least is a little less definitive than usual, quoting a professor who thinks it’s necessary and saying that he “sympathizes” with the position. But really, I think he’s missing the whole point of how the internet works.
How much respect ratemyprofessors.com (or R.M.P., as it’s called in the article), is not clear. To many, posting negative evaluations of your professors on the site is about as worthwhile as writing graffiti about them on a bathroom wall. To others, it’s an honest effort to evaluate professor’s teaching, helpful when many departments ignore teaching in favor of research and other achievements when evaluating professors. I did a little bit of research to try to see which is more true. Looking up professors I know, both from classes I took as an undergrad and those I’ve TAed for as a grad student, I found the ratings correlated pretty well with what I thought of them. On the other hand, the site has a category for rating whether the professor is hot, and whether the class is easy (though they aren’t included in the overall ranking). It’s badly designed, the search function doesn’t work, and the front page sensationalizes bad reviews of famous professors.
If you really do see the site as complete junk, then obviously it’s fine to defend yourself against slander and gossip. That could justify actually lying and creating false users to submit fake reviews. Asking some of the students who like you to say so on the site really is really not so bad.
Even if you think these are good, worthwhile reviews, Cohen seems to not understand how internet polls work. People who have a vested interest in them try to get others to go and vote. You can bet that someone who hated your class put up a facebook status update asking all their friends in the class to submit negative reviews. This doesn’t make the results bad—it just means they measure enthusiasm of those who like/dislike you at least as much as the measure the number of such people. No one would tell presidential candidates that “getting out the vote” was “skewing” the results. You’re supposed to do that. If the reviews submitted represent real positive opinions, there is no way in which anyone is lying.
I think the bigger problem, which Cohen doesn’t even mention, is that such a suggestion coming from a professor to a student won’t appear entire voluntary. No student tells a professor they really hate their teaching. If a student’s view of the class isn’t as positive as the professor thinks, it puts them in a really awkward situation. That is maybe not such a fair way to treat a student. I could imagine, though, that this could be done in a sensitive and reasonable-enough way to prevent this issue. If so, I see no problem with it at all.
Disability benefits
I guess disagreeing with others’ conclusions about ethics is a hot topic around here lately. Separate from our ongoing series about “The Ethicist,” today I’d like to direct you to this post at blog.bioethics.net. Summer Johnson asks: will the Down syndrome children disappear?
If current trends continue, it would appear that the answer is yes. Dr. Johnson quotes an article which says there “would have been a 34% increase in the number of babies born with DS between 1989 and 2005, in the absence of prenatal testing. Instead, there were 15% fewer babies born [with DS]….” She also claims that “some 92% of women who know their fetus has Down syndrome choose abortion.” Then, Johnson goes on to reflect about whether or not this is a good thing. (Emphasis in this and subsequent blockquotes is mine.)
But what will our society lose if all the Down syndrome children disappear? There will certainly be a thread of our humanity that would be lost. Moreover, I doubt that there will ever be a time when Down syndrome is ever completely gone from our population. 100% of women will never terminate their Down syndrome pregnancies–nor should they. Their [sic] is a richness and fullness that raising a handicapped child brings to parents’ lives and for some parents that is what they wish to have.
I find this line of argumentation very troubling, and I said as much twice in the comments. There were also comments from two parents of children with Down syndrome, which I found disturbing in the same way. Commenter “jaws” wrote:
…I chose to keep my baby because every reason we came up with for not having her was selfish. Ten years later it was the right decision not just for my family but for the world. Her teachers say we learn more from her than she does from us. One said she was her most memorable student (after 20 years of teaching) and for good reasons. Our children’s minister said that the other children learn more from her than she does from them. I have watched her melt some of the most sinister people in the world who view terminating babies with Down syndrome differently because they know my daughter. … The world is a better place because there are people with Down syndrome here. Not just because we are the parents but just because. That’s not even to mention the scientific break through that individuals with Down syndrome are helping to conquer. Just one mom’s thoughts.
Later, commenter “Mari” posted:
I too have a child with Down Syndrome and we chose to have him with prenatal knowledge. It was a very hard decision but one I do not regret. I now feel that he was brought into this world not just to change me and my family but to touch and perhaps change many. Its not just teachers and therapists that he affects but I see friends of my daughter, his sister, in junior high. I see him melt their so cool facade and show such patience and care and joy just interacting with him. Yes, if these people are marginalized it will negatively affect our society.
So they’re saying that people with Down syndrome give us “richness and fullness.” We can “learn more from” them than we could possibly offer to them, because they teach us “patience and care and joy” and “melt [our] so cool facade.” The mechanism for that is left unspecified, but boy, are they ever sure it is true. People with Down syndrome also allow us to use them for scientific experiments, apparently. And yet! And yet our reasons for having children with Down syndrome are not selfish, but choosing not to have a child with Down syndrome would be selfish in the extreme.
Am I the only person cringing at the contradiction here? These arguments for having a baby you know will have Down syndrome are all based on how we can benefit from that baby, with no consideration at all for the child’s life. That is selfishness if I ever heard it.
Down syndrome is a serious condition. Yes, the outcome for any one person will be somewhere within a broad range of severity. But the most common health implications include “cognitive impairment, congenital heart disease, hearing deficits… and Alzheimer’s disease. Other serious, but less common illnesses include leukemia, immune deficiencies, and epilepsy.” Even a so-called mild case of a list like that is pretty serious. Do you know why children with Down syndrome teach us “patience and care and joy”? It’s a bit like watching a child with terminal cancer laughing at a cartoon. We see how our problems pale in comparison to theirs, and marvel at how they are still able to be happy. Their suffering and disadvantage shows us how to appreciate our relatively good circumstances. Let me repeat: their suffering and disadvantage.
If you are going to make the argument for not aborting a fetus you know will be born with Down syndrome, you ought to base your argument on the fact that the child’s life will still be valuable, will still have positive utility, will still mean a whole spectrum of worthwhile life experiences. We all suffer to varying degrees and in varying ways, and the existence of suffering does not mean that a life should end before it begins (or, as it is just beginning, depending on your point of view). You can make that argument. But these are standard anti-abortion arguments in general. They have nothing to do with Down syndrome in particular.
And this is not the line of argumentation that Dr. Johnson, “jaws,” and “Mari” are pursuing. They say that the presence of people with Down syndrome is important for our “humanity.” They claim it is useful and good for society to have them around, presumably because the rest of us learn about interacting with people different from ourselves. However, we will still encounter lots of people who are different from ourselves, and we can learn from them in the event that someday there are no children born with Down syndrome. The argument that we need to keep having children born with Down syndrome in order to perpetuate this would equally well apply to children born with fetal alcohol syndrome or prenatal lead poisoning. It’s an argument that would justify not fixing cleft palate, and not administering (or even inventing) the polio vaccine.
It’s unethical to use someone else’s suffering as an instrument for your own marginal self-improvement. If it were possible to live in a world where no one suffered from Down syndrome, I’d say that world would be an improvement over our current one.
Save the pandas?
This is something that gets my goat every time I see it referenced in a nature documentary, on a T-shirt, wherever. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’ll own up to the fact that the immediate impetus for this post came from a Facebook game. I guess it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The game is called Pet Society, and it’s in the (honestly pretty boring) style of virtual pet games like Tamagotchis but with more modern flair and Flash animation. You keep your pet healthy and happy, decorate your pet’s home, and interact with your pet’s friends (the pets of your Facebook friends). It’s a good time-filler for those days when my work in lab involves a lot of waiting, but not for long enough periods to get anything meaningful accomplished while I wait. Here’s a cropped screenshot from the “Garden Store,” where your pet can purchase seeds to plant or various lawn furniture and decorative items.
What is that NPC cashier talking about? Well, if you play any games on Facebook, you won’t be surprised to hear that the game includes a way to spend real money on “premium” items for your pet. This NPC is advertising the fact that the makers of Pet Society have recently partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to offer WWF- and giant panda-themed items for sale. 10% of the profits will apparently go to the WWF.
Now, that’s a good thing in general. Although I hesitate to call myself an environmentalist for reasons I’ve explained here before, as far as I know the WWF is a good and worthwhile organization. I’m in favor of conservation. I’m generally irritated by products that advertise themselves as a way to donate to a worthy cause, because if the product’s junk you’re still wasting 90% or whatever portion of the money you spend. You’d be better off just donating the handful of change directly, or better yet, donating the full cost of the item (or more) instead of buying something you don’t need. But fine, if it’s more effective at raising money, go ahead.
However, that’s not really the topic I want to discuss. I want to talk about giant pandas in particular. Why are we so fixated on saving them? I suspect it is mostly because they are adorable. And they certainly are. But let’s look at the different reasons why species survival is such a challenge for giant pandas. (I’ve heard all of this from many sources, but I’m confirming the specifics by checking this article.)
- Poachers hunt pandas for their fur.
- Their habitat is shrinking, leading not just to reduced living space but also to reduced availability of the bamboo that makes up basically their entire diet.
- Basically their entire diet is bamboo, and if it’s not available they’ll pretty much starve. (With the teeth and digestive system of an omnivore, they are capable and allegedly willing to eat other things, but if given the choice they apparently go for bamboo the vast, vast majority of the time.)
- Bamboo hardly has any nutritional value for pandas because they cannot completely break down the cellulose, so they need to eat constantly in order to stay healthy.
- Female pandas are only fertile for 2-3 days a year.
- Female pandas raise their cubs alone, and are only able to care for one at a time. When a panda gives birth to multiple cubs, she chooses one to raise and lets the other/s die.
- It’s very difficult to convince pandas to mate in captivity. (Zookeepers have actually tried giving pandas Viagra and showing them videos of mating pandas to get them in the mood.)
Now, the first two are caused by humans. We ought to enforce laws and crack down on poaching in general; it’s bad for many species. We should also be more conscious of our impact on the world’s ecosystems. Nevertheless, it seems to me that humans are maybe not the main problem. To paraphrase the NRA slogan, it’s pandas that are killing pandas. They’re only barely able to reproduce. They can’t seem to feed themselves properly. (They’ve even evolved a kind of thumb out of a wristbone, so great is their need to hold stalks of bamboo in order to survive.) As much as I am in favor of conservation efforts, I remember that new species develop and become extinct all the time, and that this happens based on how well-adapted a particular species is for survival. The panda does not seem all that well-adapted. I think we be focusing our conservation efforts on animals that are working with us for their survival, not against us.
Questionable Ethics #3
Welcome back to another edition of Questionable Ethics, where we demonstrate to Randy Cohen and the rest of the New York Times Magazine staff that ethics aren’t something you can simply decree. Let’s get right to it; here’s this week’s column and here’s the first letter.
My daughter, in her late 20s, has a same-sex partner. Most of our very large, very Catholic family knows this except my husband’s parents.They have a summer home, and their rule is that nonmarried children and their opposite-sex partners may not share a bedroom. My daughter and her partner often claim a small room for two, and her grandparents regard the girls, who live together, as good friends. My younger daughter thinks it unfair that she and her boyfriend must sleep in separate rooms. We have a family reunion coming up. Should I say something to my in-laws about my older daughter? NAME WITHHELD
Cohen says that it’s unethical for the writer to out her daughter without her knowledge or consent (unless some crazy monster threatens the globe, but can only be stopped by a lesbian). That seems straightforward enough. Then he goes on to assert that the daughter should “adhere to that rule or find another place to stay.” Sounds like a reasonable call, but what does it mean to adhere to the rule?
Perhaps the daughter and the girlfriend ought to admit that they are “nonmarried” and claim separate rooms. This will be confusing to everyone, since they have been sharing a room in the past. It effectively forces them to come out to the grandparents, which we’ve agreed is an unethical thing to do. (Ditto if they opt out and find their own room. What for? everyone will ask.) Additionally, the odds are pretty small that this family lives in a state where it is possible that this couple can currently become married. So they can’t stay in separate rooms as a nonmarried couple, and they can’t share a room as a married couple. It’s hardly ethical to compel a person to comply with a paradoxical rule like this.
Maybe this daughter simply can’t win with her grandparents. They disapprove of her sexual orientation, they disapprove of sex before marriage, they disapprove of same sex marriage. Yet she is (I assume) in a caring, committed, long-term relationship with someone she wants her extended family to get to know. At some point, one may certainly argue, the daughter is justified in defying rules which are oppressive and unfair. The spirit of the law her grandparents have laid down is that committed relationships are important, and promiscuity is to be discouraged. She is obeying the spirit of the law, and harming no one by ignoring the letter.
On a different course, one might point out that it’s unlikely the grandparents have no idea that these two young women are a couple. They’ve lived together for years. The friend always comes along on family trips, and is coming to a family reunion. I’ve never had that kind of relationship with a roommate, and I don’t know any people who have. One could suggest that the most ethical thing to do is to encourage the daughter to explain the situation to her grandparents, and allow the grandparents to decide which of their “family values” is most important: no homosexuality, no sex before marriage, or actually valuing your family.
Letter number two:
I locked my bicycle to a fence outside my building a few times over two weeks. One morning, it was gone. My landlady had the police remove it, claiming she tried to alert the owner by letting the air out of the tires. She left no note. At the precinct, an officer said she told them the bike had been there for three months. Fortunately, I reclaimed it undamaged. Unfortunately, the police cut the locks: replacement costs are $150. Should my landlady cover that? NAME WITHHELD, NEW YORK
Cohen claims that while the landlady had the legal right to have the bike removed, the ethical thing is for her to replace the broken locks and apologize. However, several points of fact are left ambiguous here. Perhaps they were trimmed out of the letter before publication. I am left wondering: does the fence count as part of the rental property? If so, then surely the writer is entitled to use it, just as one would have use of a lawn or a driveway that came along with a rental. Unless there was a clearly signed and established rule that bikes were not to be chained to the fence, it’s no more ethical (or legal) for the landlady to take the bike than it would be for her to go into the writer’s apartment and walk away with the television set. Of course, the entire building is technically the landlady’s property, but these rights of (reasonable) use are what is signed over in the lease.
If the fence is somehow distinctly part of the landlady’s property—for example, the writer rents a room or two in the landlady’s house, and all the other rooms in the house are considered solely hers—then it would appear that she acted completely within her rights and behaved appropriately. If you leave a bunch of your personal stuff on your neighbor’s porch without informing them, you effectively gave them your stuff. They have no obligation, legally or ethically, to tape a sign on it and wait ten days to see if anyone claimed it. That would actually seem kind of crazy. They are free to throw it away if they want to. The landlady’s actions could be seen as analogous to that sort of situation.
In the absence of answers to these questions, I don’t see how it’s possible to determine who is at fault, and who owes what to whom, and I don’t see how Randy Cohen can purport to have such authoritative knowledge on what is ethical here.
Cis and trans
I’ve read a couple posts by recursiveparadox lately (here: the first and the second) about the prefix/word “cis,” as in “cisgender,” meaning the opposite of “transgender.” Apparently there has been some sort of huge uproar—follow the many links in RP’s posts if you are interested—because some people think the word “cis” is a slur. It’s intended to refer only to the fact of not being trans, to help in a situation that would be awkward at best and unfairly normative at worst (since “normal” or “regular” are the words that come to mind if you are trying to name that side in a comparison).
I agree with RP when she says that, “It is not a weapon, it is a classifier, used for discourse only.” I cannot imagine why anyone would be offended by it… but my intention is not to rehash that argument or to take anyone to task. (RP does a more than adequate job.) My reason for posting is that, as a scientist, I am very excited about this term. It is awesome! It is brilliant!
I think I did hear “cisgender” once a few years ago but didn’t run into it again until I read this stuff, and I guess I didn’t see the connection before. In all the posts I read in my wild goose chase to understand this recent controversy, I only saw one passing reference to the origins of the term. I feel like explaining it might take some of the edge off the anger that folks are apparently feeling out there, so here goes.
This is trans-2-butene. The CH3 functional groups are on opposite sides of the double bond.
This is cis-2-butene. The CH3 functional groups are on the same side of the double bond.
(Images thanks to Wikipedia.) So… if your gender identity is opposite that of your birth sex, we say you are transgender. And then, if your gender identity is the same as your birth sex, what to call you? Cisgender, of course! Not an insult. Not even a value judgment. Just a clever borrowing of a simple fact from chemistry! (Science to the rescue!)
Of course, even this terminology still presents gender identity as a binary rather than a continuum; it’s not perfectly inclusive. I think we ought to be able to agree, however, that it’s a significant improvement over comparisons between “trans” people and “normal” people. Apparently, the word “cisgender” has been in use since the mid-1990s. I’m surprised it hasn’t caught on more since then.
Philly libraries closing?
The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that the city’s library system plans to shut down on October 2.
The Free Library of Philadelphia has posted notices at its branches and on its web site advising users that all libraries will close at the end of business on Oct. 2 if the state Legislature does not act on the city’s budget request.
The notices also say that all material will now be due Oct. 1 and that nothing can be borrowed after Sept. 30.
Besides closing libraries, the Nutter administration’s so-called Plan C doomsday budget includes eliminating court-system funding, shutting down all recreation centers and laying off up to 3,000 workers, including police and firefighters.
Layoff notices could go out on Friday if the Legislature does not approve the city’s request for a temporary sales-tax hike and a two-year deferral of payments into the pension fund.
I admit I don’t know the whole back story, and this does sound a little bit like an attention-grabbing stunt meant to pressure the legislature. Even if it were a stunt, though (which I doubt), it’s such an extreme one that it still means the situation is very dire. I mean, it’s not necessary to cut funding for libraries and fire departments and police departments and rec centers and courts (?!) in order to get people’s attention. Any one of them would be plenty if that were the only reason. The city government has posted this PDF showing the service changes possible under “Plan C.” It includes more cuts, such as reduced trash collection and the closing of the entire Fairmount Park system.
The whole thing sounds dreadful, but I admit it was the library system closing that really tugged at my heartstrings. When I was growing up, the highlight of my week was biking to the local library with my family to return the picture books that filled our backpacks, and to fill our bags up again with new ones. Libraries contribute so much to public literacy, even just by insinuating the expectation that people be literate, and that they ought to value literacy and information availability. I can’t imagine a major city like Philadelphia going on without them, especially considering their longstanding history of free libraries. It’s always sad when people lose their jobs, but cutting back on a particular service (as many of the budget cuts would do) is different from cutting it out entirely.
It’s Thursday already, and I haven’t been able to dig up any news about progress on this budget. Here’s hoping that things turn around soon.
Questionable Ethics #2
This is the slightly belated second installment of our series covering the ethical ambiguities unmentioned in Randy Cohen’s New York Times Magazine column, “The Ethicist.” (See here for a bit more background.) This week, Cohen covers two dilemmas about disclosure.
The first letter is from an intern in a district attorney’s office who is often taken for the DA or an ADA when making phone calls. Cohen explains that getting mistaken for the prosecutor is apparently a common problem, even for public defenders, and suggests that we don’t have an infinite obligation to disabuse people of their silliest misconceptions. One ought to make an honest, concerted effort to explain one’s actual identity—merely saying the words one time is not necessarily enough, but something like a preface to every sentence is unnecessary. This seems like reasonable advice that most would agree with.
However, Cohen adds an odd caveat that I think is not so universally acceptable. He writes, “If this were a situation in which the person being interviewed might respond differently, then you would have to continue to clarify your job title, even repeatedly, even at the risk of becoming an old bore.” But… when is that? How does one recognize one of those situations, without having psychic powers? A statement like this can hardly be considered an ethical rule if it is next to impossible for a human being to follow.
Additionally, though, particularly in the legal context, I can see a good argument for doing precisely the opposite. If you are gathering information about a trial, and suspect that witnesses are cooperating with you because they believe you to be from the prosecution side when you are actually from the defense, so much the better for you! The defense should have equal access to that information, and shouldn’t have to bend over backwards so that even the most stupid of witnesses can have the opportunity to obstruct justice. Similarly, if witnesses are telling you things only because they believe you to be in a position of power instead of just a lowly intern, probably they are trying to curry favor, politically or otherwise. Better that their information gets received while no corrupt back-scratching is promised. If someone imagines they’ve been promised favors when they haven’t, that’s their own fault. I’m not sure I am convinced by this, but a reasonable person certainly could conclude that if “the person being interviewed might respond differently,” one has no more moral obligation to clarify one’s identity than in any other case.
The second letter is the following:
I volunteer as a Sunday-school teacher at my Catholic church. While I consider myself Catholic and understand Catholic beliefs, I do not agree with all that the church teaches. When a student asks me about a topic on which the church and I differ, may I reply with my own beliefs in addition to the official doctrine? B.J.,WASHINGTON
Cohen answers that B.J. may, as long as the differing beliefs are presented impersonally as things which some modern Catholics believe. He says it is morally acceptable, and suggests it is morally obligatory, to include this because it is “objectively true, pertinent to the discussion and informative for the students.” While I do personally like the idea of a Catholic Sunday school class including an explanation of the ways many Catholics disobey the Pope, the principle Cohen’s defending here seems so counter-intuitive that I am sure it is not the only possible ethical ruling on the issue.
Cohen says that in a class meant to teach a certain set of material, it is ethical to stop and explain why and how some people disagree with the material being taught, provided that people truly do disagree, and that their disagreement is “pertinent” and “informative.” This sounds like a lovely abstraction, but we would not accept a biology teacher who set aside curriculum time for creationism, or a history teacher who made sure students knew that many people out there don’t believe the Holocaust ever happened, because they would not be doing their jobs (even though these statements are surely true, pertinent, and informative). Perhaps we can imagine a limited context in which these lessons would be acceptable: debunking the claims against evolution made by ID proponents, or discussing the complex sociology of racial hatred—that is to say, pointing out that some disagree with the curriculum, and then explaining why they are wrong.
But this is certainly not what is being proposed in the case of B.J., who is also in a unique situation teaching Sunday school. In that context, even if it is not delivered explicitly, the message is still, “You should believe this.” Presumably, the “this” that B.J.’s church wants the students to hear about is Catholic doctrine, not the ways in which some of the congregants disregard it. B.J. is teaching under the auspices of the church, and so might reasonably be expected to check with the religious education coordinator about what was expected and allowed. This would give the church ample opportunity either to give the go-ahead and assuage B.J.’s concerns, or to inform B.J. that they’d rather find a different volunteer.
One might also take a stand on more basic principles and argue that one has a moral obligation not to propagate beliefs and ideas one disagrees with—that is to say, it would be unethical for a Muslim or a Jew or an atheist, or even for a Presbyterian or a Lutheran, to agree to teach a Catholic Sunday school class, since doing so would misrepresent their own identity and act against their own interests. (This would not be true if a non-Catholic was teaching an academic course, perhaps in comparative religions, which discussed Catholic doctrine. In the Sunday school setting, the teacher is a religious authority figure, at least attempting to instill beliefs in students.) From this ethical perspective, B.J.’s struggles and doubts about proper behavior may be seen as evidence that teaching the class is already too much of a moral compromise.
Donating for disaster relief
I saw a great public service announcement about disaster relief on TV yesterday, and the message felt so important that I have to share it with you. It also feels appropriate because on this date eight years ago, there was such a flurry of charity, of desire to help in any way possible, and of confusion about what kind of help would actually be useful. (I’m no Rudy Giuliani, but thanks to all of our repeated references to a yearless “September 11,” the memory seems just as fresh every year. I guess we meant it when we said “Never forget.”)
The PSA was by the Center for International Disaster Information, which “provides information and guidance in support of appropriate international disaster relief.” They cater to just about everyone—companies, NGOs, the general public—with coverage of specific disaster areas and general tips for donation and assistance. Here’s a similar ad; I couldn’t find the exact one I saw on TV.
In case you can’t play the video, or if you want more of an explanation, CIDI did a pretty thorough job of spelling it out succinctly in their Guidelines for Donating to a Disaster Incident (emphasis theirs):
Monetary Contributions to Established Relief Agencies are Always the Most Useful Response to Disasters
Financial contributions allow professional relief organizations to purchase exactly what is most urgently needed by disaster victims and to pay for the transportation necessary to distribute those supplies. Unlike in-kind donations, cash donations entail no transportation cost. In addition, cash donations allow relief supplies to be purchased at locations as near to the disaster site as possible. Supplies, particularly food, can almost always be purchased locally – even in famine situations. This approach has the triple advantage of stimulating local economies (providing employment, generating cash flow), ensuring that supplies arrive as quickly as possible and reducing transport and storage costs. Cash contributions to established legitimate relief agencies are always considerably more beneficial than the donation of commodities.
I never really thought about it this way before. I think many people haven’t; it’s much more satisfying to give a physical object because it’s easier to imagine someone using it. However, just because something’s easier to imagine doesn’t mean it’s true. And it’s always much more important that donations be helpful to the recipient than that they be satisfying to the giver.
At first I was startled by how specific a mission the CIDI appears to have, but they convinced me quickly that it is a vitally important and broadly applicable mission. I’m glad they’re out there, fighting the good fight.
Afghanistan v. Iraq
There seem to be more and more people questioning whether we should be sending additional troops to Afghanistan (or, for that matter, questioning if we should still be there at all). I’m not sure where I stand on this, though I definitely think it’s good that we’re having the discussion, rather than just accepting the assumption that the US should stay there. That said, it appears to me that there are two main reasons we would stay. The first is a selfish national security motive. If we left, the argument goes, the Taliban or Al Qaeda or something similar would take over and send more terrorist attacks to the US and Europe. It seems really clear to me that on that front we can get 90% of the benefit of being there very easily by just maintaining a base from which we can shut down training camps, sending drones over the area, and so forth. A really large presence wouldn’t be necessary. We wouldn’t be able to get rid of the longer-term threat by giving everyone there a great modern education, but that is unlikely anyway.
The other argument for staying is a moral one. We invaded and took over the country, and now we have an obligation not to leave until doing so doesn’t mean horrible things for the lives of people there. This has been a primary reason given for us staying in Iraq, and I actually think it’s a much better argument there than it is for Afghanistan. Iraq was, I think most people would now agree, a war of choice. It might have seemed like it would have national security benefits, but it definitely didn’t seem like we were forced into it. The only thing that made it seem urgent was the supposed WMDs, and the US clearly has to take responsibility for that error. The only act of war, as far as I know, was the shooting at planes patrolling the no-fly zones, and no one seemed to think that that on its own deserved anything more than the occasional retaliatory missile strike. Afghanistan, though, was clearly a case of self-defense. The government there (through its close relationship with Al Qaeda) used its territory to train people to attack the United States. That’s an act of war, and the government was a continuing threat. There was little alternative than to displace the government.
Consider the analogous situation for an individual. You’re attacked by a mugger, but happen to have a knife on you and would them in self-defense. Are you liable for the medical bills? Of course not. Now, it’s easy to point out that a country isn’t a unitary actor, and that many of the people in Afghanistan who would be hurt by the US leaving (say, children and women) had no role in allowing the Taliban to control the country. I still think, though, that the analogy works perfectly well. Say instead of wounding your attacker, you had to kill him, and that the attacker had a child. Would you be obligated to take care of the child? Clearly the child did nothing wrong and is in a horrible situation. To some extent, any random passerby (or better yet, society overall through the government) would have an obligation to help, but I don’t think your obligation is any greater because you’re the one that killed its father.
I think the same applies to Afghanistan. If the reason we’re staying is more humanitarian than self-interested, we have to acknowledge that the Afghanis in question have no greater claim to US resources than to the resources of any other country, and that Afghanis in horrible poverty or lacking liberty are no more deserving of help than any other poor or oppressed person anywhere else on the planet.
Not in their control
I’ve been doing some thinking since I read this post over on Friendly Atheist. Hemant Mehta reported on a vote in Goshen, IN to add sexual orientation and gender identity to its list of qualities protected in its anti-discrimination laws. They didn’t—the proposal failed 4-3.
In response to a man who asked in a local news interview, “Where do we draw the line?” Hemant said:
You draw the line in favor of helping people who are being discriminated against for things that are not in their control. That’s what the moral thing to do would be.
It really got me thinking about how some people make the crazy argument that by allowing same-sex marriage, the government is endorsing pedophilia and all sorts of other actually objectionable things. That argument is still crazy, but Hemant’s statement gave me a little bit of insight into where that argument might be coming from. (I say “might” because I doubt that many people are actually thinking it through to this degree. There is some chance that what I’m about to explain is happening on a subconscious level, and in any case, I think having logically sound reasons for our beliefs is important, even if no one has noticed a hole in your logic yet. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)
The point it sounds like Hemant is making is that if a quality is innate to you, you shouldn’t be treated poorly because of it. This is almost true, but it raises some big questions about free will. What about people who were “just born with” violent tendencies or compulsive urges to steal? Is it discrimination to charge them with assault or robbery? In the limited context of this story, it’s being used to say that LGBT orientations are something that people are born with, and nobody chooses what they are attracted to or what gender they identify with. But what about people who are attracted to young children? It’s easy to imagine that they didn’t choose that attraction, any more than people choose what body type or hair color appeals to them most. I have no idea what goes on in the mind of a pedophile, but it seems reasonable to contend that they “didn’t choose it.”
Of course, even if you are sexually attracted to children, we believe you have an obligation not to act on those desires, and it’s okay for society to punish you if you do. And if you were born a violent person (whatever that means), it’s okay for society to punish you if you allow yourself to act on your violent inclinations. But! But! protests the Religious Right. Can’t we make the same argument about homosexuals?
And there we have our problem. Because you can make the same argument. But that was never the real argument in the first place. The difference between homosexuality and pedophilia isn’t that one is innate and the other isn’t, it’s that one is fine and one is bad. There’s nothing actually wrong with homosexuality; it doesn’t hurt anyone in any way. Two individuals of the same gender freely consenting to be in a romantic relationship with each other? That’s great for both of them, and as good for the rest of society as every other stable relationship. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that even if someone has certain brain chemicals that make them want to molest children, acting on those desires still constitutes coercion and assault, and it’s completely acceptable to punish them.
When we make laws about how people should be treated, we have to think about what is good for society (or at least, what society is indifferent to) and what is bad for society. The innateness of a particular quality only comes into play insofar as it means we have to be more careful to be right when we come to a conclusion about its goodness or badness. (See: strict scrutiny.) I don’t know if it’s possible to have a public discussion about discrimination against homosexuals on these terms, but it feels more intellectually honest than simply repeating, “That’s just who they are!”
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