justice

What is Bioethics? Environmental and Economic Justice

R. Horton

Like many people, Peter Singer was the first bioethicist to occupy any space in my consciousness. He first got my attention with his concern for animal welfare and calls for vegetarianism. I suppose he is best known for saying we should not eat animals but that it is sometimes acceptable to kill our babies, which many people find upside down, especially if they haven’t actually read all his arguments, and few of his critics seem to have read his arguments.

But Singer has also spent a great deal of effort offering suggestions on relieving the problems of globalization, wealth inequality, and further destruction of the planet. One can offer reasoned objections to his suggestions, of course, but his choice of topics and concerns helped define what bioethics was for me.

Singer’s concerns fit nicely with the term “bioethics” as originally conceived by Van Rensselaer Potter in 1970. Potter said bioethics should be “a new discipline that combines biological knowledge of human value systems.” Potter saw bioethics as a systematic attempt to ensure the survival of the planet and all the people on it. One of Potter’s goals was to eliminate “needless suffering among humankind as a whole.”

Van Rensselaer Potter

Unfortunately, by the middle of the 1970s, the term “bioethics” had already been co-opted by the medical establishment and applied primarily to medical ethics. Concerns for ensuring the well-being of humankind were replaced by concerns for patients and doctors, with a strong emphasis on patient autonomy. Today’s bioethicists tend to ignore problems that have nothing to do with healthcare or medical research, but millions of people in the world have no access to healthcare and so escape any attention from bioethicists at all, which is itself an injustice.

To be sure, bioethicists are still in the world working for justice and, in some notable cases, the survival of the planet, but those working on themes outside of healthcare or medical research are outsiders at best. (For a couple of examples, see Martha Nussbaum and Thomas Pogge.)

I will continue to argue that this is the wrong approach to bioethics. Potter’s and Singer’s concern for promoting the health of the earth and all its inhabitants is the only reasonable way to think of bioethics, and those who disagree are the ones who should defend their positions.

What are some of the issues we need to address? Just to get us started, we can look at environmental justice, war, climate change, worker’s rights, wealth inequality, access to water, human rights abuses, women’s equality, and children’s welfare. Too broad? The problems that threaten life and health are vast. Medical practice requires an enormous cadre of professional ethicists to develop policy and practice guidelines, of course, but bioethicists following the vision of Potter should be welcome at the table as well.

Bloomberg, human rights, and the ethics of soda

R. Horton

Recently, a New York court blocked New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s effort to limit the sale of sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces. The court and many individuals feel it is not up to the government to regulate the choices of individuals, even if those choices lead to death. And lead to death they do. A study at the Harvard School of Public Health claims that sugary drinks lead to 180,000 deaths worldwide each year, with 25,000 of those deaths in the US.

It isn’t at all clear whether limiting the size of drinks would reduce the disease burden, but I have to commend Michael Bloomberg for at least saying that the drinks are dangerous, which may help to raise awareness of the problem. The Harvard study links the drinks to the rise in diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The beverage industry, of course, challenges the methodology of the study.

No one claims, however, that consuming large quantities of super-sweetened sodas is in any way healthful. People can choose to kill themselves with soda, but they should at least be aware of the danger. Perhaps warning labels, similar to those that appear on cigarettes, are in order. Smokers still choose a slow form of suicide, but they can’t claim they didn’t know what they were doing.

One problem with the large drinks, besides the harm, is the pricing structure. I’ve noticed that the largest drinks are often only slightly more expensive than the smaller sizes. Forcing retailers to sell the drinks on a per ounce basis might help achieve Michael Bloomberg’s objectives, though I’m sure this solution would not satisfy free-market libertarians, who are more concerned with private profit than public good.

But this focus on public health ignores a larger problem with the food we eat. As part of its Behind the Brands project, Oxfam recently released a briefing paper on food justice and the big 10 food and beverage companies (Associated British Foods, Coca Cola, Danone, General Mills, Kellogg, Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé, Pepsico and Unilever). The report notes:

“Today, a third of the world‟s population relies on small-scale farming for their livelihoods. And while agriculture today produces more than enough food to feed everyone on earth, a third of it is wasted; more than 1.4 billion people are overweight, and almost 900 million people go to bed hungry each night.”

The report goes on to say, “The vast majority of the hungry are the small-scale farmers and workers who supply nutritious food to 2 – 3 billion people worldwide, with up to 60 percent of farm laborers living in poverty.” The inexpensive food and drink we buy demands conditions that are often horrific for the people who farm and produce the food. Many of us buy drinks sweetened with real sugar to avoid the perceived harms of high-fructose corn syrup, but note that Coca-Cola is the world’s largest buyer of sugar cane, which is associated with rampant use of child labor and unconscionably low wages.

According to CNN, the International Labor Organization “estimates 2.4 million child workers are in the Philippines. Many of them, according to the ILO, are in rural areas working in fields and mines. The organization estimates 60% work in hazardous conditions.” According to Coca-Cola’s website, “A grant from The Coca-Cola Foundation funded the construction of a high school in Bukidnon, which has the country’s highest incidence of child labor and the highest number of school-aged children not working or attending school.” The idea is that the children who are in school will not be in the fields. Also, educated children will be empowered to seek and create better economic conditions and wages.

If efforts to educate children used in the supply chain for sugary drinks actually do reduce the amount of cheap (nearly free) labor, the price of sugary drinks is likely to rise, which may in turn reduce demand for the diabetes/heat disease-inducing drinks in the first place, achieving Mayor Bloomberg’s initial objectives. Will the drop in demand eliminate job prospects for the world’s farmers? The ethics of food, and drink, is complicated.

Ron Paul, Murray Rothbard, and the loss of freedom

R. Horton3 Comments

Libertarian and conservative critics of progressives seem to endlessly repeat the same refrain that progressives are opposed to freedom and liberty. This generally baffles progressives as they see themselves as the defenders of civil liberties such as free speech, marriage equality, and religious liberty. Listing examples of the liberties they defend does nothing to quell criticism from libertarians, however, as the concepts of liberty that libertarians hold is quite different from the concepts of liberty progressives hold.

For libertarians, all liberty stems from property.  In short, if you have little property, you are not entitled to liberty. Murray Rothbard, who wrote the introduction to Ron Paul’s book, puts this idea quite succinctly in The Ethics of Liberty, saying, “Human rights, when not put in terms of property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory, causing liberals to weaken those rights on behalf of ‘public policy’ or the ‘public good.’” In other words, when progressives seek to ensure that all people enjoy the same rights, Rothbard and other libertarians claim this actually denies human rights as it causes some individuals to lose some of their property.

So, your right to free speech, for example, depends on your owning enough property to exercise your speech. Otherwise, it depends on the goodwill of some property owner to permit you to speak. As Rothbard puts it, “There is no such thing as a separate ‘right to free speech’; there is only a man’s property right: the right to do as he wills with his own or to make voluntary agreements with other property owners.” And, of course, libertarians feel that all property should be privately held.

So, when Occupy Wall Street protesters are chanting “Whose streets? Our Streets!”, they are going directly against the beliefs of libertarians. Protesters have been evicted around the country on the basis that they are on “privately held” public spaces. You can try protesting conditions in Foxconn plants outside an Apple store to test how much freedom you have on privately held property. Progressives seek to establish publicly held property to ensure that everyone (or as many as possible) has an opportunity to exercise the right to free speech. The same applies to public airwaves and Internet bandwidth.

If you want to be able to speak publicly, you must be a property owner. To have a significant voice, you must own a great deal of property. When the Supreme Court ruled that unlimited political contributions were a matter of free speech, this is really the underlying theme to their proclamation. When George Carlin declared that the owners of this country were the only ones with any freedom, some regarded him as a crazy conspiracy theorist.

Philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously helped distinguish between two kinds of liberty. Negative liberty is the freedom from interference from others. Positive liberty is the ability to act in the way one chooses. Progressives hold that liberty is meaningless to a person who has no means to act or make choices. Libertarians hold that all liberty is negative (freedom from coercion) and all rights are negative (no one is obligated to ensure that you have positive liberty).

When libertarians and progressives talk to one another, they should at least try to understand how the other is using basic terms such as rights and liberty. As for me, I completely understand why wealthy people would be libertarian. I find it much harder to understand why people who have little property (and that is most of us) would embrace these libertarian ideas.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI]

Why my students love Ayn Rand

R. Horton16 Comments

I think my Introduction to Ethics class is fairly typical. We start with Epicurus and work our way through Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Immanuel Kant. After those heavy hitters, I try to lighten things up with some essays from contemporary philosophers (in the most general interpretation of the term). So, after reading some Kant, I move to an interview with Ayn Rand for a little break.

This may not be such as good tactic. When I first chose the assignment, I did so because the interview reveals Rand’s beliefs in a way that is stark and easily digested. I assumed anyone reading it would agree with me that her philosophy is reprehensible, and I would be serving the greater good of humanity by having them exposed to it. I try not to reveal my biases in class, and I really don’t want to tell them what to believe. I just hope they will hate Rand. I’m less concerned about what they will like.

Nonetheless, I always have a few students who declare that Rand is the first reading they have liked. I ask probing questions hoping to find that maybe they didn’t really get what she was saying, simplistic as it is, but I generally have to concede that they really do like what she says. As a result, I think I have created a small band of ardent Rand supporters over the years. The Tea Party can thank me. And I think I’ve identified the two reasons she is so popular with students:

1. As I mentioned, the assignment is easy to read and digest. After slogging through Mill and Kant, I can certainly understand why they would be relieved to find something they can understand on the first pass, even if the reading completely flies in the face of their supposed religious convictions. But the second point is more meaningful to me.

2. Rand is easy in another sense as well. She really doesn’t demand much of her readers. She tells them they must be selfish and pursue only what is truly gratifying to them. Now, Epicurus said that they should seek a pleasurable life through contemplation and serious examination of the world around them with great respect for their community. Aristotle tells them they must practice constantly to become virtuous in a way that will enable not only their personal flourishing but the success of their society. Mill tells them to seek their own pleasure but that they will derive the greatest satisfaction from pleasures that require much practice and refinement to achieve. And Kant tells them they can’t lie under any circumstances. Furthermore, they must help people who are worse off than they are. To follow Kant or any of the others, they would have to put out a great deal of effort to change how they live, but to follow Rand’s advice they don’t see that much more effort is required. In their minds, at least, they are already living Rand’s ideal life. And, they get to feel pretty self-righteous comparing themselves to recipients of government aid (my students do not consider low community college tuition to be a form of government support).

I suppose I am hopelessly naive to think my students will take my class looking for hints on possible self improvement. They are seeking validation for their current lifestyles, not ideas on how to improve.

Except when they are not seeking the easy way. It is easy for teachers to get discouraged and forget all the talented and hard working students who are in constant search of new information and new challenges. Many of my students have now gone on from the community college to universities and graduate school. They have admirable careers in fields such as law, science, health, and social work. I am humbled by them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9mJpVf4dkc

For further reading:
1. 10 (insane) things I learned about the world reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
2. How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the US into a Selfish, Greedy Nation

What Makes the Trayvon Martin Case Different From Other Murders

R. Horton

I did not intend to make any comment about the Trayvon Martin case as I thought there was plenty of thoughtful commentary on it already, but I’ve been reading too  many blogs on it today, and it seems to me that many people are missing the point. As I see it, it does not matter whether George Zimmerman is Hispanic. It doesn’t matter whether Trayvon got into trouble in school (how many teenaged boys never get in trouble at school?), wore gold fronts on his teeth for a camera, or tried to act tough. If Trayvon’s problems make him deserving of death, then many people I love and admire would fall in the same category. How many of us want to be judged for the decisions we made when we were 16 and 17 years old? And it doesn’t matter that many other teenagers are murdered every year. This case is different.

It is different because of the police response to it. It is different because the police say they did not have enough evidence to arrest anyone, but they do not appear to have made much effort to gather evidence. They seem to have spent more time trying to find evidence Trayvon was up to no good than they spent trying to find out whether he was the victim of stalking and murder. The police seem to have dismissed the case as just another death of a young, black criminal. They seem surprised that anyone cared enough about Trayvon to pursue the case and try to get the facts.

Yes, it is a tragedy when anyone is murdered, but it is an outrage that young men of a particular color are viewed as disposable human beings by many in our society. That someone’s life could be of so little value that it is deemed unworthy of investigation is appalling.

Don’t force me to pay for your religious practice

R. Horton

Members of the Catholic Church have expressed outrage that the new health laws require them to provide contraception to women. This was weeks ago, but Catholics continue to double down on this position. They say the state has no right demanding that they violate their own religious beliefs.

This argument makes perfect sense. The government has no right telling private individuals how they should conduct their affairs. So long as they aren’t taking public money, serving the general public, or hiring non-Catholic employees, there should be no controversy at all.

But according to an article in Mother Jones:

Under Obama, Catholic religious charities alone have received more than $650 million, according to a spokeswoman from the US Department of Health and Human Services, where much of the funding comes from. The USCCB, which has been such a vocal critic of the Obama administration, has seen its share of federal grants from HHS jump from $71.8 million in the last three years of the Bush administration to $81.2 million during the first three years of Obama. In fiscal 2011 alone, the group received a record $31.4 million from the administration it believes is virulently anti-Catholic, according to HHS data.

Under the first amendment, the government must not establish a religion. Funding of faith-based charities avoids violating the first amendment by demanding that those charities do not use their services to promote their faith or discriminate against those of other faiths.

Requiring them to use public funds to offer public services without discriminating against non-Catholics is not an attack on religion. Permitting charities receiving public funds to discriminate against non-Catholics would be using my taxes to promote religious views I find reprehensible. I am amazed that conservatives, libertarians, and Tea Party members aren’t outraged at this use of taxpayer money. Surely conservatives believe we should trim the federal budget and protect religious liberty at the same time.

If Catholic Charities want to exclude contraception from their health plans and refuse to recognize the rights of same-sex marriages, they should immediately refuse all public funding, including federal, state, and local funds. If they refuse, the federal government should simply withhold the funds (courts have supported such actions in the past). Or, they can continue to receive taxpayer money and offer their services without discrimination.

Citizens United, Unions, and Corporate Persons

R. Horton1 Comment

We’ve all heard that the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling by the Supreme Court opened the door to unlimited and undisclosed spending to influence elections. It is widely presumed that the court’s decision granted first amendment rights of free speech to corporations by declaring them to be “natural persons.” But corporations have had rights as persons for a long time. By most accounts, the court has recognized corporations as having all the rights of natural persons since 1886. For a detailed discussion of the 1886 ruling, see Thom Hartmann’s Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became “People” and How You Can Fight Back.

The Citizens United ruling did not establish corporations as people but declared that spending on speech cannot be limited because such limits would deny flesh and blood people the right to hear all points of view. For an in-depth discussion and analysis of the ruling, see “The problem with Citizens United is Not Corporate Personhood” by Rob Hager and James Marc Leas.

Further, if the ruling established corporations as person, it also established unions as persons, given that it removed any restrictions on what unions could spend. People on the right are quick to point this out. The Facebook group called Individual Rights and Government Wrongs wrote:

“According to OpenSecrets.org, twelve of the top twenty donors to political campaigns since 1989 are unions. And their donations have overwhelmingly gone to Democrats—only one union donated as much as 10 percent to Republicans, and eight gave less than 5 percent to Republicans. Further, of the top twenty donors, OpenSecrets ranks only one as leaning towards Republicans in their donations. Apparently, donations from unions do not ‘drown out the voices of everyday Americans,’ even though less than 12 percent of the American workforce is unionized.”

The rightwing sees hypocrisy on the left for decrying the ruling without offering any criticism of the influence of unions, which the right feels is as pernicious as what the left fears from corporate influence.

At least one person on the left sees Citizens United as part of an elaborate union-busting scheme. Douglas Webster wrote on Daily Kos, “the next step after Citizens United — giving more freedom to use more money more clandestinely to business and unions — is to launch a full-scale attack on unions…and especially those in the public sector.” Indeed, since the time he wrote that (February 2011), attacks on unions seem to have grown more intense.

This discussion does not answer the question of whether the speech of unions is equivalent with the speech of corporations. I once heard an explanation of why corporations had the right to spend money to exercise their free speech rights that claimed corporate speech was analogous to a group of people pooling their money to buy a megaphone to amplify their voices. My immediate reaction to that claim was that some corporations were using money they got from me to promulgate speech I find highly objectionable. I do not expect corporations to speak for me. I do not want corporations to speak for me. They are not extending my right to free speech.

On the other hand, I join a union precisely because I do want the union to speak on my behalf. When I pay money to a union, I am hoping to amplify my speech to help balance what I perceive to be unfair corporate control of almost all media in the world. If the union begins to express views I find objectionable, I can and will withhold my money. I would like to withhold my money from corporations that express views I find objectionable, and I do withhold most of it from such corporations, but, like you, I buy products and services from people who do not always share my values and views.

So, I do not find the speech of unions and corporations to be equal. I am not saying the activities of unions should not be regulated and monitored, but I do feel our obligation to regulate corporations is greater. In either case, I believe spending on elections should be disclosed. Transparency promotes more ethical behavior generally, and I cannot think of an instance where transparency would harm the function of democracy when it comes to financing elections. If you can think of exceptions, please let me know.

The High Cost of Occupation: The High Cost of Injustice

R. Horton

According to various reports, the Occupy Wall Street movement has cost cities upward of $10 million. As the protesters are angry at the diversion of public funds away from public services (I know people say no one knows what they want, but they are really quite clear about what they want), it might seem that this wasteful spending is only making things worse. The more cities spend on police, the less they can spend on libraries, public parks, infrastructure, and all the other things that make society work. We might ask whether military ordnance such as Tampa Police Department’s tank (no, armored rescue vehicle) is a good use of money, but policing protests takes a few pennies either way.

Somehow, it seems cities always have enough money to deploy an army to suppress a non-violent protest but not enough money for basic services. The cash tin for security is bottomless. But surely, even those in power would rather not have to spend all this money on security if it can be avoided. No one wants to have to live with barricades everywhere. And no one wants to live with the inconvenience of constant protests.

And that is the point. Protests are intended to create a situation that everyone would rather avoid. As Martin Luther King put it, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” This is what this movement, and any other political movement, seeks to accomplish. It is obvious that $10 million is not enough to create a crisis for the current established order.

When the current order is threatened, it will of course blame the dissenters for a new sense of crisis and chaos. This blame is misplaced. It is a breakdown of order that provokes civil disobedience in the first place. Mass movements are made up of people who want a just and civil society. As John Rawls, another great American philosopher, said, “If legitimate civil disobedience seems to threaten civil peace, the responsibility falls not so much on those who protest as upon those whose abuse of authority and power justifies such opposition.”

Which brings us to the final point. The purpose of protests is to make the cost, financial and otherwise, of injustice greater than the price of justice.

Brooks and the Milquetoast Revolution

R. Horton3 Comments

In today’s New York Times column, David Brooks mocks the Occupy Wall Street protesters for offering only mild and ineffective solutions to the country’s problems, rather than radical changes that would significantly alter the American system. It’s funny, but I haven’t seen or heard any OWS protesters claiming to be radicals or to want to overthrow the American system. Rather, I have seen people who love their country and want to let their leaders know they are not expendable. This should not be radical; in fact, no one should ever have to assert this position. We should assume all Americans are of value and that repairing our nation will require shared sacrifice.

He says, “They will have no realistic proposal to reduce the debt or sustain the welfare state. Even if you tax away 50 percent of the income of those making between $1 million and $10 million, you only reduce the national debt by 1 percent, according to the Tax Foundation.” I happen to think that removing the Bush-era tax cuts, ending corporate subsidies for corporations making huge profits, and closing tax loopholes that enable rich individuals and corporations to pay taxes at an exceptionally low rate or not at all, you will have an impact on the national debt.

But what if I am wrong? I am a humanist and not an economist, after all. I don’t have the solutions for the economic problems of the country, but I do feel that everyone should be subject to the same laws, same punishments, and same regard. After the financial collapse in 2008, we were told that banks were too big to fail and that we must rescue them. Taxpayers bailed out the banks only to see them become even larger through mergers and continue the same dangerous behaviors that caused the economic failure in the first place. We rescued them, rewarded their bad behavior, and are now being treated as if our voices do not matter.

If the banks are too big to fail, and the government won’t break them up, we must make them smaller ourselves by moving our money to credit unions and smaller banks. We must hold corporations accountable for their crimes. We must ask them to pay their share of rebuilding our country. Mr. Brooks is correct; this is not radical. He may also be correct that it will not solve all the financial problems of the United States, but it will be fair.

It is more important for me to live in a fair and just society than it is to live in a prosperous society. We should not need a revolution to achieve this.

Can philosophy matter?

R. Horton

In the last century, it seemed philosophy might disappear from public consciousness. Much of philosophy had become so technical and so removed from the problems of daily life that most people who were not professional philosophers could not even name a living and working philosophers. Philosophers hardly have the recognition of other public figures even now, but they are addressing concerns that are public–medical ethics, corporate ethics, how to live a good life, and so on.



In Stephen Toulmin’s book, Cosmopolis, he describes various aspects of modernism, and concludes that it is no accident that philosophers are beginning to take seriously concerns that Descartes thought had no depth. After centuries of theoretical and technical exploration, philosophers are returning to discussions of how to live and how to make life better for others. Toulmin says it is no accident that “more and more philosophers are now being drawn into debates about environmental policy or medical ethics, judicial practice or nuclear politics.”[1] He says some philosophers may fear being drawn away from the technical questions of academic philosophy, but he argues, “These practical debates are, by now, not ‘applied’ philosophy but philosophy itself.”[2] The problems facing the world now are not new. Wars, pollution, and poverty have been with us for centuries. But these same problems are acute, chronic, and critical. It is easy to despair at our lack of progress, but Martha Nussbaum reminds us that progress has been made. In Frontiers of Justice, she says, “Racial hatred and disgust, and even misogynistic hatred and disgust, have certainly diminished in our public culture, through attention to the upbringing of children and their early education. The careful attention to language and imagery that some pejoratively call ‘political correctness’ has an important public purpose, enabling children to see one another as individuals and not as members of stigmatized groups.”[3] As humanists, we cannot solve the world’s problems, but we can choose to contribute to moral progress and promote a common understanding and care for one another, regardless of how many people join us along the way.


[1] <!–[if supportFields]> ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM {"citationItems":[{"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/141815/items/3W4MJ9MI"]}]} <![endif]–>Stephen Edelston Toulmin, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, University of Chicago Press ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 190.<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>

[2] Ibid.

[3] <!–[if supportFields]> ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM {"citationItems":[{"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/141815/items/2R3RZAXP"]}]} <![endif]–>Martha Craven Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 2006), 413.<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>