Validation bias and the danger of technocracy

My recent post on healthcare included a section sharply critical of the AMA.  I explained why doctor salaries (and thus, healthcare costs) are inflated by licensure requirements, and highlighted some of the ways the AMA is historically and presently to blame for that.  I’ve since done some reflection on why the AMA behaves as it does, and would like to clarify my impression of its motives.

Whenever we allow professionals to serve as gatekeepers to their profession, cynical minds like mine are quick to point out the potential for outright financial corruption.  Their initial fear – that licensing boards will suppress competition for-profit – is understandable and perhaps even healthy.  But it is also an incomplete model of regulator behavior, and one which (if focused on exclusively) risks weakening the overall argument against centralized regulation of market entry. Regulator conflict of interest is not limited to pure graft.

Really, the incentive for financial gain is tied up with a deep human desire to validate our own importance and the importance of our work, which in the case of technical experts leads them to exaggerate the importance of their own expertise.  This leads to a mutually intensifying interplay between profit and snobbery: if the expert can convince himself that the would-be market entrant is truly so inferior that the public must be protected from them, the financial gain of shutting them out seems more like a reward for their public service.

In each of the policies I described in my earlier articles and many others, the AMA means well.  It is comprised of people who have devoted their lives to healing others, and conceive of themselves as guarantors of quality in the healthcare industry.  But this is the danger of technocracy: the experts become so enraptured with their subtle intricacies of their field that they come to exaggerate the need for that knowledge, at the expense of competing considerations.  In the case of healthcare, the competing consideration is access – through both cost and patient convenience/proximity – which is part of why American healthcare today is very high quality, but endlessly expensive.

The incentives faced by AMA members are not unique to doctors or healthcare; really, they’re a problem with licensure laws in general.  Wine experts will advise you to buy a $50 bottle over a $5 box of Franzia, because they truly believe the difference is worth it.  Gun lovers will tell you to spend hundreds of dollars on all sorts of accessories – scopes, grips, special ammo, etc. – to achieve the most marginal improvements in accuracy, because THEY can tell the difference.  Music lovers will stick up their nose at generic iPod headphones, and coffee lovers at McDonalds coffee, and fashion lovers at a cheap suit, and all of this is fine when these people are making purchasing decisions for themselves.  But when you empower a narrow band of wealthy experts in a narrow, lucrative field to make cost/benefit and risk tolerance decisions for everyone in society, they will always prioritize higher quality over cost reduction at a rate that’s simply unacceptable to those outside their geeky circle of enthusiasts.

Healthcare is no different, and a century of regulation written by those most passionate about healthcare is a huge part of why it costs so damn much. It’s not that there’s no way to provide it cheaply, it’s that those ways are illegal.  The AMA stubbornly opposes any encroachment on the licensed general practitioner monopoly based on the most far-fetched risks of decreased quality or safety, even when those measures would yield comparatively massive increases in affordability or convenience.  The FDA does the same with drug approval decisions.  Nobody wins from that tradeoff except the regulators.

The dangers of technocracy are multiplied (and yet easier to overlook) when the field in question is seen as a public good, or when the providers are seen as selfless public servants driven by non-profit motives.

For some reason, people seem more willing to accept a tiered system of cost-quality tradeoffs in the markets for cars, phones or banking services than they do in the markets for education or healthcare.  Providing a minimum level of education and healthcare to everyone in society is seen by many as a moral imperative.  Maybe it is; but, that doesn’t make the cost-quality tradeoff disappear!  When policymakers impose quality-assurance regulation out of pious refusal to accept anything less than top-notch education and healthcare for their constituents, it inevitably proves counterproductive to the parallel goal of universal provision.

When wealthy business owners or Wall Street executives get in bed with federal regulators to protect their own incomes at the expense of consumer choice, progressives are the first to cry foul.  The left sees plainly how the state is a tool for corruption when the industry in question is commonly associated with greed.  But when the industry in question pertains to the provision of things liberals value, they too often cannot bring themselves to suspect the intentions of those rigging the game, accepting instead the most cursory hand-waving about consumer protection.  They should not be so naïve.  Whether driven by profit or by validation-bias, strict licensure requirements keep doctor wages artificially high at the expense of the most vulnerable in society.  Deregulating the profession would amount to precisely the sort of rich-to-poor wealth transfer the left should be able to get behind.

Tolerance of intolerance, revisited

One of the earliest entries on this blog (which I won’t link to now because the writing makes me wince – but hey, I was 18!) was entitled Bigotry Against Bigots.  In a jumbled, rambling and exaggeratory way, high-school me expressed my opposition to “Hate Crime” legislation stiffening legal penalties for crimes committed with allegedly prejudiced motives, and touched on the hypocrisy of not tolerating intolerance through a CISV anecdote.

Recent events in Charlottesville and the ensuing public debate on the proper response to hate speech have prompted me to revisit and develop those ideas.  Specifically, I’d like to address Karl Popper’s “paradox of tolerance” – shared by many illiberal would-be censors in the wake of the kerfuffle – which Wikipedia summarizes thusly:

“The paradox of tolerance, first described by Karl Popper in 1945, is a decision theory paradox.  The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant.  Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion tht in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance.”

That conclusion is wrongheaded for two reasons.  First, intolerant segments of otherwise tolerant societies are not always large or strong enough to threaten the tolerant majority; and second, for so long as the intolerant remain relatively powerless, their viewpoints can be more effectively counteracted through measured tolerance (allowing them to speak and then engaging in firm but respectful dialogue) than through intolerant means like censorship or forceful repression.

Writing in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Popper could be forgiven for fretting “when a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant.”  But WWII merely proves that is possible, not that it’s inevitable; as written, the claim is pretty vague, and doesn’t specify just what “limits” he’s referring to. 

If the limit were the initiation of force, I would agree; we should be intolerant of violence.  But that’s widely accepted, and doesn’t seem to be what people are using Popper to argue.

Rather, Popper’s paradox is being shared on my timeline as justification for repressing intolerant speech, like that at the Neo-Nazi and Klan rallies preceding the murder in Charlottesville.  But from my view, there’s very little reason to fear those groups are anywhere near strong enough to seize power or threaten our norms.  Consider: “A recent report by the Anti-Defamation League found a grand total of 42 Klan groups currently active in 33 states, most claiming fewer than 25 members. Even that small remnant is disorganized, squabbling and fractious.” The numbers for Nazi groups are similarly small.  It just doesn’t follow that if we allow these groups to keep speaking and hosting rallies, our “ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed.” Really? With what army?

Not only is censorship unnecessary, it’s also counterproductive.  Ostracized extremist groups recruit off the belief that they are being oppressed for speaking truth to power.  When we jail them for marching, prevent them from speaking or otherwise censor their message, we feed right into that belief and actually make their arguments more plausible/convincing to those on the fence.  At the same time, the act of *attempting” to silence political speech actually does quite the opposite by creating a larger controversy and ensuing media stir, which only amplifies the hate groups’ megaphone and allows them to reach a broader audience.  Publicizing fringe ideologies to the greater public while at the same time lending them just cause for complaint (the infringement of their First Amendment rights) is not a good way to reduce these groups membership or contain the proliferation of their ideas.

It’s much more effective to let them speak (and then explain why they’re full of shit to anyone who will listen!) than it is to banish them underground where their nonsense can proliferate unrebuked. Former hate group members tend to agree with this view.

Finally, for what it’s worth, I think even Popper agreed with it too.  He’s quoted in this article as saying:

“I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise.”

He leaves open the possibility that intolerance can be countered by rational argument and social pressure, and makes clear that this is the preferable solution, when possible.  His paradox only refers to the times when it’s not possible, lest radical Nazi-like groups seize national power. From my view, we remain very far from such times.

Virtue signaling, identity politics, dishonest philosophy and all things bad

I recently came across this video, which is perhaps the video equivalent of the article I responded to a few months back.  The text surrounding it in my Facebook screen read as follows:

Title: Teen Activist OWNS Sen. Jeff Flake At Town Hall

Shared by: NowThis Politics
Caption:  “I’m wondering…why it’s your right to take away my right to choose Planned Parenthood.” – This young woman absolutely schooled her Republican Senator.

This is an astounding video.  Every part of it – from the preparatory caption, to the source and its business model, to the mind-numbingly stupid question she actually asks, to the raucous applause she receives for it, to the blithe “you go girl!” euphoria with which it was shared tens of thousands of times – could stand alone as an ever-more depressing testament to the shitty-ness of our public discourse in this country. To borrow a phrase from the sort of people who shared the video, “let’s unpack this”, shall we?

First, let’s talk about what this “youth activist” actually says. The “schooling” of Senator Flake has two parts: the statement of facts, and then the actual question.  Interestingly, the facts have almost nothing to do with the question, so let’s start with the facts she chooses to state.  You can read them on the video subtitle, but here’s a convenient transcript for anyone who prefers plain sentences to five-word phrases that alternate between yellow and white:

“I just want to state some facts…um…so I’m a young woman, and you’re a middle-aged man; I’m a person of color, and you’re white; um, I come from a background of poverty and I didn’t always have parents to guide me through life.  You come from privilege.”

Leave aside for now that “you come from privilege” is far closer to opinion than anything objectively factual.  Also leave aside the matter of just what color she happens to be, if not white (which remains an eyebrow-raising question from this camera angle, and poses Turing-test questions about how much white privilege she retains herself).

What most warrants ridicule here is telling a United States Senator that you’re going to preface your question with a statement of facts, and then rather than presenting the sort of empirical, evidentiary “facts” that may actually have bearing on the matter at hand, choosing instead to highlight the contrasting physical descriptions of the Senator and yourself.  Yes – the age, gender and skin color of you and Senator Flake are technically “facts.”  But they are also instantly observable facts to anyone with eyes, readily apparent to everyone present, and consequently do not need to be pointed out.  And yet the audience’s cheers and applause make clear that from these “facts” they consider the argument already won.  The entire endeavor of stating those facts is purely performative; no engagement with Flake’s ideas or opinions was even attempted.

But that’s hardly surprising in today’s climate; on its own, it wouldn’t have warranted a rebuttal blog post. What got my blood pressure up was her actual question:

“So, I’m wondering…why it’s your right to take away my right to choose Planned Parenthood and to choose no-copay birth control? So if you could explain that to me, that would be great.”

Marvel at the temerity of that question.  Gawk at the astounding euphemism of “my right to choose no-copay birth control.”  Gape in wide wonder at how the “right to choose _____” became casually interchangeable with the “right to choose free _____” without anyone in the audience so much as blinking an eye.  Because make no mistake, free birth control on demand is precisely what this brat is so indignantly demanding.

No legislator in Arizona – nor anywhere else I know of – has proposed to take away Deja Foxx’s right to call up any insurance company that does business in her state, and purchase from them an insurance plan which includes no-copay coverage for birth control.  By any recognizable meaning of that phrase, her “right to choose no-copay birth control” remains entirely intact and unthreatened (as does her right to choose birth control generally, draconian prescription requirements notwithstanding).  Sadly, this is not what Deja Foxx actually wants.  She wants a “no-copay plan” in the sense that “someone besides me pays for the plan.”

In all likelihood, she doesn’t much care who that someone else is.  She’d probably prefer wealthy taxpayers pay, through Medicare or Medicaid or a directly socialized healthcare system that includes unlimited free birth control on demand.  But short of that, she’s content with her employer paying, or her parents’ employer paying, through force of government dictate.  What has her panties so up in a wad is not that Senator Jeff Flake and his cronies want to take away her right to choose anything; it’s that they want to give other people the right to choose NOT to give her free shit.

To be fair, what constitutes meaningful “choice” in a world where many people cannot afford everything they’d like to have has long been a matter of philosophical dispute.  Some hold that choice exists so long as it is not constrained by human violence or the threat thereof, whereas others contend it is only possible when coupled with the means to acquire – or “access to” – the desired choice.  But traditionally, responsible leftists have at least distinguished between those two conceptions.  “Pro-choice” people have not typically argued that abortion must be free – only that it must be legal.  When drug war opponents argue that people should be free to choose what to put in their own bodies, they are not arguing that marijuana must also be accessible free of charge.  The popular “woman’s body, woman’s choice” refrain has always been used to agitate for bodily autonomy – not universal healthcare.

The “right to choose X” is one thing, and the “right to free X,” is a step further. Calling for a “right to choose free X,” is a bait and switch deliberately conflating two separate philosophical claims, and deceitfully hijacking the verbiage of the common in service of the much more radical.

***

Now, let’s talk about “rights,” and how completely meaningless the word has become by the end of her sentence.  Even if people did have a right to “choose free” birth control, the question “why is it your right to take away my right to ____” is maddeningly stupid for at least three reasons.

First, it’s stupid because it begs the question.  Rights are exclusive; by definition, they end where another person’s rights begin.  It can never be one person’s right to take away another person’s right by definition, and we all intuitively understand this.  So to frame any question as “why do you have the right to take away my right” is to presuppose one’s own contention that their actions infringe upon one’s rights (and thereby render the entire question deliberately unanswerable – rhetorical and unserious).

Second, it’s stupid because she’s using the word “rights” interchangeably with “my values.” Rights aren’t just things it would be nice if everyone could have; traditionally, they’re things we already have from birth, which can either be protected or taken away.  She’s basically saying “why is it your right to take away this thing I really want,” without any coherent litmus test for determining which wants count as rights and which do not.

Finally, it’s stupid because of the preamble.  By preempting a question on what rights we have with a “statement of facts” regarding what privilege we have, she strongly implies that that’s relevant to the question  – that is, that our rights are dependent or conditional on how much privilege we do or do not have. This runs directly contrary to both the constitution and the egalitarian principle of “equal rights” to which the left typically appeals.

***

The final thing I want to talk about here is NowThis.  We could also talk about AJ+, or Mic.com, or BuzzFeed, or Salon, or any of the equivalent ““““““““““““““news outlets”””””””””””””” that churn out 20-90 second videos designed for social media, because all their videos follow the same predictable formula. 

The first part of the formula is brevity.  The videos must be short enough not to lose the attention of halfhearted social media slacktivists pretending they actually care.

The second part of the formula is subtitles.  The videos are always overlaid in boldfaced white and yellow text, in case the viewer is at work or in class and can’t turn the sound up (for risk they are caught slacking off on whatever they’re supposed to be doing instead).

The third part of the formula is the illusion of news.  The videos always pretend to be “reporting” on an important and developing story, instead of what they’re really doing, which is selling emotions that left-wing people want to feel.  This is crucial because it allows the viewer to believe they are being responsible citizens by educating themselves on worldly issues, instead of just seeking out an echo chamber affirming their own brilliance and empathy.

The fourth part of the formula is a clickbaity title and caption, which is always some variation of the same sentence:

“Watch (*insert figure sympathetic to the left here) SLAY/SCHOOL/OWN (*or equivalent hip verb for “use rhetoric left-wing people find appealing” here) this (*insert demonized right wing archetype here).”

I mourn for the days when this formula would have been called out for the lazy, arrogant, feel-good, remind-me-how-right-I-am bullshit it is, instead of just blending into an ever more cacophonous fake-news background.  A generation of thinkers is being eagerly reassured that these videos constitute responsible social awareness.  A generation of college students consider themselves informed on the issues because they have watched them.  One of them is Deja Foxx, and fake news is as responsible for creating her dumb question as it is for publicizing it.

Are height and whiteness comparable privileges?

A friend of mine recently posted this link on social media, in which an activist politely answers a question about white privilege by comparing it to “height privilege.” Here’s the conversation that ensued:

Me: This fascinates me because I see height and whiteness as fundamentally different.  If you don’t mind, I have some sincere questions for whoever is interested in entertaining them (not rhetorical, I promise, just genuinely interested in people’s perspectives here).

If height is a privilege, is intelligence also a privilege?  If not, what distinguishes them?  If so, are there any differences between people which AREN’T privilege? 

Phrased differently, is there such thing as merit?

Her response:  I'm glad you asked, Andrew! Intelligence is a complicated one to unpack. In most Western societies what is deemed "intelligence" privileges White people. The ways we are taught, the things we are taught, the ways our intelligence is assessed are all part of a larger system that, unfortunately, is based off of the notion that White people and all things they are good at are superior. Example: an SAT question that asks about an equestrian match. Or the cost of ski rentals. Or other things that have been reserved for the wealthy (in American context the wealthy = White). A kid who has never had an interaction with horses, and doesn't know what equestrian means is going to fall short. But that doesn't necessarily mean he is unintelligent.

But anyways. to your larger question. Is there such a thing as merit? YES! Absolutely! No one wants to take away the accomplishments and the excellence that exists in privileged identities. But its a matter of examining and interrogating the "measuring stick". If the measure of accomplishment and achievement is biased to see "height" or Whiteness as the pinnacle of success, then of course those who are not those things are going to seem "less than". Even if that is not actually the case. I.e. why would you judge a fish, a monkey, and an elephant on their ability to climb a tree? They are all skilled, important and useful for different reasons. Height is still a good thing. But we can't have whole societies built to cater to the tall when short people exist! Does that make sense?

And finally. There are DEFINITELY advantage-creating differences between people who are not privileged. I am privileged because I grew up middle class, I am college educated, I am able bodied, I am heterosexual and I am employed. Some of these are earned, some of these were mere luck of the draw. But these are all privileges that I must use for good. I can't pretend that my ability to walk in to a building and not worry about there being an elevator or a wheelchair ramp isn't a privilege just because I am Black. I have to own and use my privilege to listen to those who are speaking up about their oppression and then help them make changes to make a more just & fair society.

Me: Thanks for the thoughtful and cheerful reply!  It seems like you’re saying *the way we measure intelligence* is flawed in ways which benefit white people, which seems likely to me.  But just to clarify, that’s still a subcomponent of white privilege, right?  And noting that white privilege extends to the ways we measure intelligence, or to types of intelligence we value, is still different from alleging an entirely separate, racially-independent axis of experience (like sex) along which some people have socially conferred privilege over others, right?

Basically I’m asking whether “smart privilege” is a thing for you (perhaps related to “neurotypical privilege,” which I’ve seen discussed a lot).  Suppose we found ways to measure intelligence in fairer, more nuanced ways that level out the racial disparities in measured intelligence levels.  Surely, some people would still be smarter than others, right?  At least in certain ways?  And surely those smarter people would have an easier time with wide variety of tasks, which would better position them to succeed in a wide variety of endeavors?  If you agree with that, I’m asking whether the resulting inequality of outcomes is unjust and oppressive *in the same way* racial inequality is.

And if you don’t - if you think intelligence is purely an arbitrary social construct, such that no mental traits or ways of thinking are innately advantageous or objectively superior to any other and everyone’s equally smart (only in different ways) – I’m asking are there any other distinguishing traits among persons which ARE innately advantageous or preferable?  Is it ever just BETTER to be one way than the other, and if so, could you give an example?

Her: ahh. okay interesting question. I don't think that it is inherently advantageous to be one way versus another along any particular axis of identity. I honestly and truly believe that all ranges of [insert identity marker] are necessary and important to have a vibrant and functioning society. I believe that is why animals tend to not be solitary beings. Cunning in one, strength in another, skill in x, talent in y. They all come together to build a society or pack that's sum is better than the individual parts.

I believe that my position is grounded in a world where the society I live in has tackled some important issues--i.e. the eradication of fatal diseases, the creation of safe housing, etc. And although one might say "these things were achieved through the privileging of specific types of intelligence/grooming of scientists and architects and mathematicians of the *typical* variety" but I don't believe that we wouldn't be at this very point in achievement or advancement if we had a society that (from the beginning) had welcomed and appreciated ALL types of intelligence or strength or cunning etc.

The reality is that none of these identity markers in the American context (and arguably the post-colonial world at large) are free from the influence of white supremacy. Identity is intersectional. Meaning that we cannot observe and measure components of one's identity independently from one another. Even subjects like science have historically been used to privilege white supremacist values and world views (re: eugenics). Its hard to argue that our understanding of anything is *not* in one way or another a social construct.

I guess my main point is that we don't have to look at things through a capitalist framing. It doesn't have to be a measurement of the winners/losers or the best/worst. I think that people are too complex for us to have a standard set of markers that we look for every individual to have. I think this is where our society gets it wrong and this is where the conversation gets complicated. Then, how do we tap in to the full potential of individuals if we do not have a standard set of questions/guidelines? What does that society look like? How does it function? I'm not sure I have the answers. But I'm sure there's someone out there who's brain can conceptualize the solutions. They just have to have the opportunity to be asked.

I get what you're saying. And I hope I am making myself clear in my responses lol.

Her friend: I was going to say although its nice to think about things in theoretical vacuums, the reality is (as you said Ty) identity is not singular. There are many parts to each persons identity, and each one's pertinence is shaped by their experiences, upbringing, subculture, society, and other "levels of privilege" the other aspects of their identity have (i.e., black men not seeing the male privilege they have because things are seen through a racial lens). I think its similar to the way Aristotle tried to define the archetype of a perfect form of man but it was based on his perception of what perfect is. Our need to rank things as better/worse, greater/lesser, etc etc, prevents us from seeing (and valuing) things as they actually are. As to your point Andrew, about whether there are some privileges that are maybe "less privileged" than others (is this what you were going for?), because you can't untie race from gender from ability from SES from sex (etc, etc), its impossible (and inappropriate I would think) to try to look at things or compare systems of oppression like that.

Me: Great responses, both of you.  More often than not, I think the general message you’re sending is exactly what society needs to hear.  Too often we derive our personal pride through distinction, as if validating our own self-worth requires denigrating those unlike us.  It shouldn’t!  Most of us have something valuable to contribute, and a more tolerant and open society would not be so quick to label certain traits as undesirable.  If we could all just appreciate that everyone is different, without those differences necessarily making anyone better or worse than another on net, the world could make more productive use of the tremendous diversity in human interests and abilities and just be a happier place in general. So, agreed there.  I also totally get how different axes of privilege can intersect, to the compounded advantage of those with multiple privileged traits and exacerbated disadvantage of those lacking multiple privileged traits.

I still think that’s a separate question than how many axes of privilege exist, though, and the answer I’m gleaning from your responses on that is essentially “infinite” – that there are at least as many types of privilege as there are advantage-creating differences between human beings, which is as many chromosomes as there are in our DNA.  This is where our views part, and unfortunately where I’m reluctant to join in activism alongside people I typically agree with. To me, using privilege as an umbrella term for any trait which makes some people’s lives easier than others conflates very different sorts of social advantages, which are not equally problematic, and which we as social reformers should afford different levels of concern.

Some examples to illustrate…men have the privilege of going about their daily lives without worrying very much about rape or sexual assault. This privilege originates from the fact that men systematically rape women and get away with it, which in turn originates from patriarchal mindsets and toxic masculinity.  In other words, the privilege is created when some people treat others in cruel, illogical and unfair ways.  That’s unjust.  That’s oppressive.

But other alleged “privilege” seems to originate not from how we treat one another so much as from random assignment in the lottery of birth, prior to and independent of any interaction with other human beings.  Some people have good eyesight, others need glasses.  Some are born with no legs.  Some are more genetically prone to certain diseases.  Some are athletic and coordinated, others are clumsy.  Some are found sexually attractive by the opposite sex, others not as much.  And yes, I’d argue some people are smarter than others, or at least more inclined to certain types of mental tasks.  Many of these traits are influenced by social constructs, sure.  But it’s still clear to me that even if there ever comes a day when everyone treats one another with equal dignity and respect and open-mindedness, some people will still be naturally better equipped for success at certain endeavors than others.

(Of course, success can still be defined in many ways, so people will be better suited for *different types* of success.  Some may have an easier time succeeding in school, others in sports, others with making friends, others with finding a boyfriend/girlfriend, others with making money, others with attaining power, etc.  But at least within each of these pursuits, some will succeed more than others no matter how society is constructed around them.  You can conceive of that as “winners and losers” if you like, but to me it doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. Anyway…)

To me, that’s not oppression!  If some people are underprivileged because other people are mistreating them, whereas other people are underprivileged because the lottery of birth dealt them a rotten hand, those two situations provoke different responses in me.  If an innocent person is struck by lightning and dies, that’s a tragedy that makes me sad; but if an innocent person is murdered, that’s an injustice that makes me MAD!  Likewise, when I see a mentally disabled person struggling to find a job due to their disability, I feel sympathy because they’re unlucky; but, when I see a black person struggling to find a job due to prejudice, I feel indignant because they’ve been wronged.  We may still want to help the suffering regardless of how they came to suffer, but systematic oppression demands fixing in a more morally imperative way to me because mistreatment at the hands of other humans is clearly the culprit.

That’s what fascinated me about comparing whiteness to height.  Yes, both create advantages for some people over others.  But whereas whiteness is clearly an arbitrary and undeserved privilege resulting from the unfair treatment of black people, from my view, the advantages (and disadvantages!) of being tall are basically innate, and aren’t really imposed on you by the behaviors of other people in society.  Tall people had an easier time reaching high things long before civilization even developed!  Is it really oppression for storeowners with limited floorspace to stack items atop one another, at heights above whatever the shortest in society can reach?  To me, making that comparison almost downplays the injustice of racial oppression by making it seem no different than everyday problems faced by everyone everywhere.  As a person of average height, it’s perfectly okay to me that I will never be a starting center on the basketball team, and I think it would be silly to go around campaigning for change there.  Some people get luckier genes - ce la vie! That’s not the attitude we want to encourage for racial oppression.

I’m sort of rambling and don’t have a neat way to tie this up, so I guess I’ll try one last time with a question.  What about the identity marker of character?  Some people are more generous, others more selfish.  Some are vain, others humble. Some are diligent, others lazy. Some are more “woke” and empathetic, while others are ignorant and indifferent to the plight of the suffering.  I’ll ask again: it ever BETTER to be one than the other?  Is there such thing as virtue?  Is it okay to have “whole societies built to cater to the selfless and diligent” despite the fact that selfish and lazy people exist?  Or are all of those differences also just neurodiversity, arising from different cultural inputs, with our personal moral preferences as arbitrary as our preferred hair color?

And, the follow up…if it’s still the latter, how can there be such thing as merit? If the work of pursuing a more just society is essentially akin to stripping anyone’s ability to succeed (or “win”) where others fail (or “lose”), what successes remain for anyone to take pride in? Isn’t that essentially telling everyone who gets good grades that they’re merely lucky society is oriented to favor people who think like them? and every basketball star that they’re merely lucky society created sports that were easier for tall or fast people? and every charity worker they are lucky their society values generosity over selfishness? and every social justice activist that the violent racists marching through the streets of Charlottesville are really no objectively worse than the peaceful counter-protestors? Taken to this extreme, doesn’t this vision of equality actually deprive our shared commitment to anti-racism of any objective moral authority?

Her friend: the issue isnt that people are born tall, the issue is that stores put all the good ish on the top shelf. As Tyler said in her first comment, its not about individuals benefiting, that's not oppression, its the system as a whole that we should push back against, in all possible ways, to change and see difference as simply a difference not a way to rank/judge/qualify people. also, in your example, a disabled person not being able to find a job is not just about them being "unlucky" (and I would bet a lot of disabled people would bristle at that description), but also very much about the fact that we as a society see contributions and worth in only one way. We choose not to be accommodating at all, we choose to not consider those unlike ourselves when we build schools and businesses and institutions. Its not about campaigning for allowing everyone to do things they are unable to, or not considering advantages like height, etc, its about being more inclusive and understanding and accepting as a whole society. IMO, morality is a totally different subject. I think there are too many contingencies and complexities to life, society, experiences, and humans to ever look at these sorts of things as finite or separate.

The missing ingredient to robust progressive analysis of police abuse is libertarianism

(This has been in my In Progress folder for a while but I didn’t get around to finishing it until now.  My apologies for the outdated subject matter from about one year ago.)

In response to the Korryn Gaines shooting, the far-left Crunk Feminist Collective wonders “why don’t we know how to talk about this?”  They then proceed to justify the assumption inherent in their question, by demonstrating just how ill-equipped to talk about it they really are.

For example, their next question is “why do SWAT Teams serve traffic warrants?” They eventually deduce that it’s because of white supremacy’s intersection with the patriarchy. 

Maybe…

……

…but maybe it has to do with how sometimes, the person being served the warrant is waiting on the other side of the door with a shotgun?

This is the problem with getting too reflexive with a single ideological analysis.  When your only tool is a hammer, everything is a nail.  And when you’re a member of the far-left blogosphere, the only way you’re allowed to analyze events is by layering new axes of privilege on top of the old.  OF COURSE the “Crunk Feminist Collective” thinks Korryn Gaines death was caused by white supremacy’s intersection with the patriarchy.  What else do they know how to say?

The tragic part of their insistence on cramming everything into a gender dichotomy is that I AGREE with them on the issue of militarized police.  It’s a real problem!  They’re right to identify it.  It’s just that whenever the problem isn’t racism or sexism or some other form of institutional bigotry, or is more complicated than merely “some combination of those things”, they lack the tools through which to fix it. 

In this case, without any real familiarity with libertarian theory, the left is completely blind to how this particular case cuts the other way on militarized police.  Korryn Gaines is the exact person for whom SWAT teams were invented, not because she was a black female, but because she was willing to shoot policemen before she was willing to submit to arrest.  In fact, there’s no evidence the Baltimore police were decked out in SWAT gear at all until they found themselves on the wrong end of her barrel!  To insinuate that bullet-proof clothing and helmets (really the only thing separating SWAT officers from regular officers) were deemed necessary not because she had a gun, but because she was a black female, is exactly the sort of unfounded and counter-evidentiary claim that makes the right wing so fed up with the race card: after a certain point, it becomes a bit of a stretch.

A more robust progressive analysis might point out that civilians wouldn’t face nearly so many SWAT teams if there weren’t nearly so many warrants to serve.  It would point out that in a world containing many people who are willing to die before they submit to police, we should be mighty selective about which offenses are dire enough to justify calling their bluff.  It would argue passionately that things like unorthodox driver’s licenses, or smoking pot, or evading cigarette taxes, or even evading most other kinds of taxes are not so morally outrageous that they justify violent force, much less lethal force on those who resist violence.  And it would carry that argument to its logical implication: that things like driving without state permission and smoking pot should be legal; that we ought not enforce taxes on cigarettes or most other things, and should not enact taxes we ought not enforce.

But progressives don’t make that analysis.  Rand Paul makes that analysis, and progressives mocked him for it.

CFC continues: “Apparently, the only armed Black folks we can be outraged for are men like Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.  But isn’t the logic the same though?  Submit or die…The state kills Black women and all Black people who don’t submit.” Meanwhile, Black Girl Dangerous argues that “Non-compliance is not an unreasonable response to oppression.  Murder is an unreasonable response to non-compliance.”

….Well I hate to say I told you so!

I can’t begin to describe how long I’ve been waiting to hear progressives say that sentence, because it’s the first step to enlightenment.  It’s particularly refreshing because ordinarily, when libertarians lament how all government amounts to “submit or die,” we are laughed out of the room. 

There is an elephant in the room here, and it isn’t misogynoir.  They aren’t acknowledging it, but white men who resist traffic laws with guns are also told to submit or die just the same, because THAT’S WHAT GOVERNMENT IS!  Government is a collection of laws, enforced by “law enforcement” agents, who are instructed to induce submission and kill anyone who resists that submission for long enough.  That’s literally their job description.

But to most people, and especially most progressives, it still all appears so benign.  “Support funding for reproductive justice!” they say of Planned Parenthood.  They don’t ask the follow up questions.  With what resources? “Tax dollars!” What if I won’t pay?  “They’ll just deduct it from your bank account.” What if I’m paid under the table, or empty my bank account and put it all under my bed? “Then they’ll just come take it there.”  And what if I lock my door?  “They’ll kick it down.”  And so on, until:

“And what if I put up a sign that says “Trespassers Will Be Shot!”, and defend my property from any armed invaders who I believe have no right to be there, to include people in funny hats who dare call themselves ‘the police’ without even showing me any “Delegation of Authority Orders”?

Eventually, the statist becomes so frustrated at my stubbornly principled noncompliance that they admit the heart of it: “Well…then they’ll probably kill you.” Submit or die.

If you are okay with laws saying vehicles have to be registered, that means you are okay with killing people who resist arrest for not registering their vehicles.  If you are okay with cigarette taxes, that means you’re okay with killing people like Eric Garner, who refuse to be punished for circumventing those taxes.  That’s the definition of a law:  a thing law enforcement will make you do at implied gunpoint, until you call their bluff, at which point it becomes literal gunpoint.  The list of things I find so morally imperative as to justify that threat is extremely small – which is why I’m a minarchist.  To argue that “murder is an unreasonable response to non-compliance” across the board is to lay the groundwork for anarchy.

The reason people on the left “don’t know how to talk about this” is that people on the left don’t get that yet.  BLM activists are happy to talk about dismantling patriarchy because they GET how it intersects with racism.  Feminists are happy to talk about dismantling white privilege because they understand how it intersects with sexism.  Both are happy to talk about dismantling homophobia or transphobia, because they see how that can overlap as well.  And they’re all eager to talk about dismantling capitalism, because it comports with this same leftist identity-politics thought pattern: just another layer of oppression people must navigate.  But the moment I start talking about dismantling the state, the entire progressive community exiles me to the far-right hate-group loony bin.  They’re so deeply invested in statism as the quickest perceived solution to those other problems that they cannot identify the largest, most deeply rooted, and most consistently oppressive force of all human history.

I understand the historical reasons why they react this way – libertarianism has been a deceitful hiding place for too many closeted racists in the past – but those reasons don’t make the reaction any more productive or any less stupid.  The state is  the  primary  instrument  of human oppression.  It is not some neutral body which could be used for good if only it were captured by the right people, any more than patriarchy is a neutral institution which could be salvaged if we’d only work out the kinks. The state is the most deeply entrenched of all oppressive structures, and libertarianism is its antidote. Consistently applied political liberty is the most potent force for anti-racism we can possibly unleash. At the very least, it deserves a seat at the table in these conversations.

The CFC concludes: “when we pursue a social analysis that fails to robustly consider patriarchy alongside challenges to white supremacy and capitalism, we’ll miss the convergence of violent logics.”  They got two of three!  But, unfortunately for them, when we pursue a social analysis that fails to robustly consider statism alongside challenges to patriarchy and white supremacy, we miss the most violent logic of them all.

State capitalism, anarcho-communism and the appeal of incrementalism

A few weeks ago I had the rare opportunity to try North Korean beer.  To my great surprise, it was excellent, and certainly far better than any South Korean beer I’ve ever had.  This paradox amused me enough that I made a lighthearted Facebook post pretending my tasting experience had shaken my capitalist convictions to their core.  The post received dozens of likes, approving comments and “Haha” reactions, thus validating my quick wit and clever commentary on global affairs and making me very pleased with myself.

It also received a comment from a friend of mine who describes himself as anarcho-communist.  This friend reassured me (playfully) that I needn’t question my beliefs after all, because North Korea was in fact a “state capitalist” regime.  When a second, staunchly capitalist friend took issue with this, the first friend distinguished between “real” communism in which ““the public truly shares in common the means of production and directs their use through direct democracy” and what he calls state capitalism, in which the state “maintains (and exacerbates) the existence of an exploiting class and an exploited class.”  He continued:

“A communist society is based on federalized, directly democratic control of economic and social decisions. There is no exploiting or exploited class, no vertical authority or stratification…

I also don't believe any state will *ever* dissolve itself. That's where Bakunin and Marx, Makhno and Lenin, the CNT-FAI and the USSR, etc differed in their analysis. The anarchists argued (correctly, history would show) that a revolution must be prefigurative because no state would dissolve itself, as states inherently amass power and entrench themselves. Coupling the state so closely to the economy just exacerbates the issue and, in turn, exploitation.”

My response is reproduced below.

“Just got time to chime in here – sincere thanks for the clarification, [communist friend].  I have two follow-up questions, if you’re interested: one abstract and one pragmatic.

First, what happens in a stateless, federalized direct democracy when some people inevitably refuse to abide by the vote of the local majority?  Are the decisions of the majority enforced on them against their will?  If not, how is it a democracy?  If so, isn’t that a state?  Are you assuming universal consent among the governed, such that enforcement won’t be necessary?  If so, for how many generations do you expect that to last?  And for so long as there is universal consent, isn’t that fully compatible with libertarian-style anarcho-capitalism?

Second, pragmatically speaking, what does it say about the wisdom of attempting communism that it is necessarily an all-or-nothing proposition?  If “revolution is prefigurative” and “you can’t have communism with a state,” then the only way to get to communism is to BOTH overthrow the existing state AND prevent any other state (either internal or external to the revolutionaries) from replacing it.  By your own confession, nobody has ever successfully done this for long.

Furthermore, the consequences of falling short of this “real” communism have repeatedly proven tragic: famine, Gulag, killing fields, etc.  So now we have a high risk of failure + severely negative consequences for that failure.  In order for attempting communist revolution to be rational, the potential marginal improvement in quality of life for humankind must be so large as to outweigh a cataclysmically high risk of dystopia; literally “give me the complete dissolution of class inequality, or give me millions of deaths.” Is that a noble gamble?

From my view, libertarians (and most other enemies of the existing political order, for that matter) can offer a much more appealing sales pitch, because our ideology is compatible with incrementalism.  I’m anarchist too, in a sense – but for the time being, I’ll settle for ending the drug war and isolated deregulation of some economic sectors.  Liberty exists on a spectrum, and we can make things better in our lifetime by gradually nudging in that direction.  If our kids and grandkids can keep doing that, great: the final transition to anarchy will go almost unnoticed.  But if they fall short somewhere along the line, and the state proves too stubborn to dissolve entirely, we’ll at least have made things better for the effort.  We can erode and contain the state by stages without resorting to bloody revolution; and, if we erode it far enough, there’s nothing stopping *truly voluntary* communist societies from forming anyway.  Isn’t that a more promising model for enacting social change?

Minimum wage alternatives for helping low-wage earners

In a recent conversation about the minimum wage (revolving around this groundbreaking new study) an acquaintance who agreed with me that the minimum wage is ineffective and undesirable asked "what [do] you think would be better economic policy to help low-wage earners?"  I'm glad she asked!

The line between what counts as “economic” policy and what counts as some other sort of policy is sort of blurry, because obviously all policy reforms have economic implications. Personally, I think the best way to help the economic condition of low-wage earners is to focus on removing the structural barriers which have impeded them from achieving high-wage employment first. This starts with market-oriented education reform, which starts with K-12 school choice. It continues with choice in higher education, achieved first by undoing the cost death-spiral created by federal aid, and then by scaling back the Department of Education’s role in accreditation so as to allow radically customizable and specialized degrees (likely with a heavy dosage of online classes).

Next up is comprehensive criminal justice reform. This starts with ending the war on drugs. Legalize pot and regulate it the same as alcohol. Decriminalize all other drugs, focusing on treatment instead of punishment. While you’re at it, legalize all other victimless crimes too – gambling, loitering, firearm possession, public drunkenness, prostitution, vaping, etc. – with the effect of reducing police interaction with civilians altogether (and thereby reducing police violence and incarceration rates). For those things which remain crimes, radically reform the criminal justice system, to include the repeal of all mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

At the state and local/city government level, we need to end eminent domain abuse (which, from my view, is really any use of eminent domain at all). We also need to the reduce local property taxes, which are contributing to gentrification and the rising cost of living in big cities across the country. We need to remove occupational licensure requirements for as many professions as possible, starting with taxi driving, cosmetology, hair and nail artistry, fashion advisory(!), funerary services and midwifery. An amazing 1 in 3 professions currently require some form of expensive/time-intensive state license for permission to legally operate, which falls hardest on the poor and low-wage earners.

Finally, once all these impediments (and any I forgot) are removed – once the state is well and truly “out of the way” – we should consolidate all current entitlement programs (welfare, food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare and other federal subsidies, etc.) into one lump-sum cash payment with no strings attached. Call it a negative income tax, call it a guaranteed minimum income, whatever you want but the basic premise is “trust people to manage their own budgets and lives to their own maximum benefit” without micromanaging what those funds must be spent towards. Those programs combined currently amount to so many trillions of dollars that the take-home sum of our poorest Americans would likely dwarf whatever hotly-debated marginal increase in income the minimum wage was supposed to provide them. And, importantly, it would provide that income to all Americans, *whether or not they happen to be employed*, which is philosophically more consistent with BOTH the liberal values of universal empathy for the poor AND the conservative realization that your employers should have no larger a responsibility to guarantee your quality of life than anyone else in society.

TL;DR – The minimum wage doesn’t help poor people – but even if it did, there are dozens of much better ways to help poor people.

Debate with a Utilitarian, revived again!

Sean:  Disclaimer - this was written at 3am, so coherency is not guaranteed.

Well, then, we've reached an impasse.  I hold morality to be constructed, not discovered, and only useful when applied as a strict system.  You seem to believe it to be something external to the human which our systems attempt to describe.

To which I ask again: show me an atom of justice; a molecule of mercy. 

There is no moral fabric to the universe.  This "fundamental, deeply embedded sense of right and wrong which for most people serves as the litmus test for resolving ethical questions" you describe is biochemistry.  It's emotions by another name. Human intuition evolved to help us survive in small hunter-gatherer groups in Africa, not pierce some hidden ethical truth of the universe.  Under your belief "this is wrong" and "this feels bad" are the same statement.

Debate with your system is reduced mere emotional manipulation.  Fragments of logic and cherry-picked empirical evidence are used to justify a pre-established emotion-fueled position.  This is why study after study shows people rarely change their minds when presented with new facts - facts were never the key driver in the first place.  To convince you of a position I must make you feel good about it. 

Ethical systems are frames which shape our understanding of the world.  They help sort information and direct our efforts towards a clear goal.  They allow us to escape the prison of emotional bias.

The scientific equivalent is the frame "The universe is governed by cause and effect, and all phenomena can be explained as arising from consistent laws".  All scientific theories are subservient to this system and must be consistent with its implications.  Competing systems like, say, divine intervention, are incompatible and cannot be used simultaneously to frame our thought.  I cannot believe in a causal universe but also believe Poseidon's wrath sank my boat.  Can one create an internally consistent system in which the God(s) cause all phenomena?  Of course: the enlightenment philosophy of Occasionalism holds God is the source of all causal relationships - that when I strike a billiard ball, God intervenes to impart motion to the ball.  It is absurd, however, to say "well, some events are caused by God, and some are caused by physical laws, and humans have a deep intuitive understanding of which is which."  The frames are incompatible.  There can be disagreements within a frame (quantum physics and general relativity), but those disagreements must adhere to the axioms of the frame.  And, debate between theories of two different systems is impossible - what empirical evidence can I provide to disprove Poseidon's wrath?

Or, to get more abstract, picking and choosing which parts of each ethical system is like picking and choosing bits of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry to solve single problem.  The two systems are fundamentally incompatible - they rely on different axioms.

Look, without a consistent ethical frame all we're doing is talking about our feelings.  I feel good about X, you feel bad about X, and we discuss emotions until we both have the same feelings about X.  And in a different context I'm all for that.  But it's not a debate - it's mutual emotional manipulation.  It's storytelling, and the winner is the one with the most emotionally compelling narrative.

After all, how can two umpires decide if the runner is safe if they're not using the same rulebook?  Give inspiring speeches to the crowd?  Logos, ethos, and pathos them for 10 minutes apiece?  No.  Pick a consistent rulebook and operate within its bounds.  The rulebook itself doesn't reveal any deeper meaning, and combing elements of baseball, soccer, basketball, and football doesn't produce some superior sport.  The rules do is help us define and interpret what is happening on the field.  Anything else is a variation on "Well, who do you feel should win?"

Unless you can demonstrate how morality/ethics are real.  That they are something other than a human invention to organize information in a coherent manner.

 ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 Me:  The BLUF of my response here is “yes, all morality originates with how human beings feel – including strictly applied utilitarianism.”

You write: “I hold morality to be constructed, not discovered, and only useful when applied as a strict system.  You seem to believe it to be something external to the human which our systems attempt to describe.”

Not quite; I think it’s both internal to the human AND something our systems attempt to describe.  We agree that morality has no material existence outside the human body, but that doesn’t mean it is solely a construction of the rational brain that can be modified on a whim.   “It comes from our biochemistry” is more or less true, but this suggests a degree of permanence which our rational brains cannot really construct, and might well need to “discover” about ourselves.

I like your analogy about sports rules, so let’s continue it.  In baseball, it is against the rules to rub tar on the baseball before it’s pitched.  In wrestling, it is illegal to gouge the eyes.  These rules were constructed rationally, and may be applied strictly and objectively: either the tar was applied, or it was not.  Cameras can confirm this and no passionate speeches to the crowd are required.  BUT, the reason these rules must exist in the first place is not objective at all!  They were created based on feelings: because they reflect some innate sense of fair play and sportsmanship shared by almost everyone who plays these two sports.  And if we were to create a new sport, and set about the task of devising a set of rules that would guarantee fair play, we would again have to consult these inner feelings to determine which rules were and were not fair.

So it is with morality.  You say morality is “constructed,” not “discovered,” but the above analogy shows it’s a little of both.  The term I’d use is “logically expressed.”  Morality is articulated.  It is biochemical convictions, translated into rational rules.

You ask, “After all, how can two umpires decide if the runner is safe if they're not using the same rulebook?  Give inspiring speeches to the crowd?  Logos, ethos, and pathos them for 10 minutes apiece?  No.  Pick a consistent rulebook and operate within its bounds.”

But we have not yet arrived at the business of calling the runner safe or out; we are still at the business of writing the rule book.  Once we settle on a consistent rulebook (which we won’t agree on, but supposing we did) I’d be happy to rigidly operate within its bounds.  But there are no bounds yet, and until there are, we might well settle the matter of what the rules of our sport *ought* to be via inspiring speeches to a crowd!  How different combinations of rules would make us FEEL as human beings, and how they would jive with such amorphous human emotions as fairness and sportsmanship, would be highly germane to that discussion.

Inversely, there is no way to scientifically prove what the rules of a sport SHOULD be.  If Roger Goodell is deciding which endzone celebrations are or are not appropriate, science has no place in that discussion – irrespective of its ability to technically describe the mechanics which cause spiked footballs to bounce.  Yes, those mechanics are objectively true; and yes, no opinion on what endzone celebrations are/are not acceptable can claim such demonstrable truth.  But it doesn’t matter.  Physics still misses the bigger picture entirely.

You lament that “under your belief ‘this is wrong’ and ‘this feels bad’ are the same statement.” This is true to an extent, but only for the most fundamental moral precepts, which are then the building blocks from which we can rationally construct more complex philosophical systems.  Like the rules of baseball, morality is rooted in shared feelings, but not adjudicated by emotion. Emotions are complex, and we often mischaracterize just what it is exactly that makes us feel a certain way.  Consequently, our moral feelings warrant rational scrutiny, especially when it comes to testy subjects.

For example, sweatshops make people feel badly: we can tell something immoral is going on when we see people trapped in them.  But in my opinion, when you ask enough questions, and drill it down to the core thing which people find so offensive about them, what we’re really objecting to is poverty, suffering, hardship, etc.  We are outraged not by the offer of strenuous employment itself, but by the circumstances which make it possible: that anyone on earth can live in such squalor as to deem those dismal working conditions their best option.  Rectifying that moral outrage can only be achieved by improving the quality of life for those poor workers, not by banning sweatshop labor outright.  Our feelings about how to apply moral codes in practice are more fickle and alterable than the universal intuitions I’m relying on to build the foundation.

That said, I grant that universal human feelings are foundational to my moral system.  They are also, most assuredly and without question, foundational to your system. That’s what morality is.  You’re fooling yourself to think otherwise.

You challenged me to show you an atom of justice; I can’t.  My challenge to you is this: show me an objective moral starting point.  Show me an ethical frame which is not, at its root belief, dependent on a feeling.

Which moral fact is empirically demonstrable in the same way gravity or friction are demonstrable?  “Utility is good?” “Death is bad?” “Happiness is good?” “We ought to minimize suffering?” “We ought to maximize human flourishing?” Pick your poison, and I will just keep asking “why?” until eventually you resort to emotional appeal.  The mass extinction of the human species would bring the universe no tears.  It would violate no scientific laws. It’s only bad because you feel it’s bad.

Maybe there’s a provable moral truth out there I haven’t considered, and if so I’d be fascinated to hear it.  But if you cannot think of one either, how can you pontificate that YOUR sort ethical systems “allow us to escape the prison of emotional bias?”  No they don’t!  They may well “organize human action towards a clear goal,” but that goal is chosen based on how it makes somebody feel.  You are no less driven by emotion than I am.

The sentence “this is right” and “this is wrong” are inherently subjective.  They defy empiricism by definition.  We can debate morality logically within the context of a given prompt, but only after certain shared starting points or tenets are established (each of which are necessarily based on value judgments).

This does not make philosophy base.  It does not reduce it to a lower, less dignified source of knowledge than science or math.  It does not reduce all philosophical dispute to “emotional manipulation” or “storytelling,” nor render it impossible for us to change our minds about moral questions.  You patronize all of biochemsitry as “emotions by another name.”  Emotions are certainly biochemistry – but so is logic!  So is the sum of all human thought. Everything we’ve written here is the product of human brain cells doing their thing.  Embrace it!

Your moral starting points are no less rooted in feeling/emotion than mine, so let’s get on with the necessary task of devising systems of rules for human conduct that best represent those core feelings we share.  I’ve laid out the rules I prefer: my three criteria for when actions which fundamentally strike most people as wrong in the abstract may be justified by circumstance.  They are internally consistent.  To be sure, they are open for different interpretations in application; but, so are yours, and so are the rules of many sports for that matter.  I am still proposing “a consistent ethical frame” and I’ve spelled it out quite clearly, it’s just not one of the two options you’ve pidgeon-holed me into.

Or, if you’re tired of going in circles on this, I’ll become consequentialist for a week and we can move on with the discussion.