Blog News

We’re Moving!

Time for another change here at PSL. We are moving over to Substack. Located at https://prosociallibertarians.substack.com/, we will continue what we’ve been doing here and expect to add more including forming a bit of community by linking to other substacks that prioritize concerns with social justice (especially from a classically liberal perspective) and civil discourse. For example, Lauren Hall has her own excellent substack that we’ll connect to. (Find that here.)

Those who are on our email list here as of now will be brought over automatically. We encourage everyone else to sign up to receive our posts in their mailboxes! You can do so here:

In case you were wondering: we are not planning on charging anyone to read the blog! We want to bring in more readers and hopefully encourage more dialogue!

Remember to follow us over to Substack.

Current Events, Discourse, Ethical Issues, Free Speech, Social Criticism

Polarization

We talk a lot about polarization today, but polarization is not a simple single thing. The term is used in different ways by different people. Most usages are pretty sensible, but I think it would be useful to clarify what is usually meant when we talk of polarization. There are actually (at least) 3 main types of polarization. My aim here is to make the 3 clear and to point out how we are and are not polarized.

Perhaps the most ordinary use of the term polarization is to indicate that there are, in fact, two polar extremes when it comes to political views. Call this empirical polarization (EP). EP exists when there are two camps/sides taking opposing views about some issue or set of issues. That points to one distinction immediately: it could be broad or narrow EP—that is, it could be EP about overall worldviews or EP about specific issues. Presumably, there could be a spectrum. Cutting across this divide, though, we might also be concerned about specific groups—for example, is the EP present in the general population, political office holders, the literati, or some other group? I assume the most ordinary use of the term polarization regards the presence of broad EP in all three of these groups.

The second form of polarization we should note is what has been called affective polarization (AP). AP is present when people in two camps feel like they are seriously opposed to—and by—those in the other camp. Democrats feel like Republicans are evil, anti-democratic, out to destroy the polity. Republicans feel the same way about Democrats.

The interesting thing to note now is that though it seems fairly clear that there are high levels of AP in the US right now, the feelings on both sides don’t well correlate to actual differences of opinion. That is, though AP is high, EP is not. The evidence shows that democrats and republicans do not disagree about all that much. They think they do regardless. To shocking extents. Consider that

only 35 percent of Democrats thought that Republicans would say that “Americans have a responsibility to learn from our past and fix our mistakes.” But 93 percent of Republicans agreed with that statement.

only 45 percent of Republicans thought Democrats would want students to “learn about how the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution advanced freedom and equality.” But 92 percent of Democrats said students should learn this. (Education Week, making use of More in Common)

This is striking.

The third form of polarization that I think we should be aware of is what Bob Talisse calls “belief polarization” but I will call “dynamic polarization” (DP). DP exists when group dynamics take the presence of any EP or AP and push members of each group to more extreme versions of the group’s beliefs. Those on the left who are “woke” associate with others who are “woke” and jointly push each other to be even more woke. Those on the right who are anti-woke associate with others who are anti-woke and jointly push each other to be even more anti-woke. Given this dynamic, each side comes to see the other side more and more as evil (and as more and more evil). Also, though, each side loses patience for those on their own side who have any inkling of genuinely dialoguing with those on the other side. Each side becomes more conformist and purified by ridding itself of those who won’t go to the same extreme as the rest. For more on this, see Talisse.

Again, affective polarization can be high even if empirical polarization is low—even if there is not much in the way of real disagreement. Dynamic polarization tends to go along with affective polarization. It is the fact that our affects are as they are that we are pushed to more extreme versions of our beliefs. The more we feel different from the other—whether or not our beliefs are different from theirs—the more we lose willingness to engage with those who seem willing to consider what the others have to say.

What is the take away here? If you associate only with people that you tend to agree with, you should wonder whether the claimed disagreement with others is real or, if it is real, if it is as significant as those you speak with believe. While it may be, there is a very good chance it’s not. Especially if you are a US Democrat or a US Republican. If more people realize this, perhaps we can stop DP and reduce AP. For 6 steps that might help, see this piece at Discourse Magazine.

Current Events, Discourse, Economics, Ethical Issues, Free Speech, Political Philosophy/Theory, Social Criticism, Toleration

Continue to give the gift of questioning in the New Year! 

I was recently on C-Span discussing civil discourse, was on the Newstalk STL radio show discussing it, and was interviewed for a piece posted at MLive. I thought I’d follow those up with a couple of posts encouraging civil discourse over the holidays. Here’s the second.

The gift giving holiday season is ending.  My hope, though, is that we can nonetheless use the spirit of the holidays to the advantage of the polity by continuing to give each other the gift of questioning in the New Year.  Questioning each other and ourselves is always useful, perhaps especially in politics.  

Fortunately (and despite fears), the midterm elections of 2022 went well.  There were very few worries raised about election integrity and those falsely pressing claims about past problems with election integrity mostly found themselves on the losing end of elections.  While this is great news, we shouldn’t rush to conclude that democracy is now secure.  We need, and should expect, more from ourselves than we’ve been giving.  In particular, we need more from those we disagree with, whether they be family members, friends, neighbors, or people we know in the cyberspace of social media.  And they need more from us.  I hope more people can work on this and begin to satisfy those needs and, in the process, perhaps, give the world the gift ofsecure democracy.

Consider the sort of vehement disagreements we often hear about (or take part in) about who the best candidate is for any particular post.  These are not new.  We’ve always had them and likely always will.  What matters is that we not devolve into thinking that the candidate we favor is ideal, completely above partisanship, ideology, and plain self-interestedness, while the candidate we oppose is partisan, ideological, self-interested, and out to destroy our lives.  To pretend that “our candidate” is as kind as Ol’ St. Nick or that “their candidate” is as terrible as Scrooge himself would not be in the spirit of the holidays.  

Those seeking our votes for political office usually have their own interests in mind.  As economist James Buchanan pointed out, there is a symmetry of motivations between politicians and those in business (or any other area).  Recognizing this is important.  It means, for example, that a politician that promises something that seems to be against her own interests is deserving of our skepticism.  Admitting that skepticism to each other—both to those who vote like us and those who do not—might be the single most important gift citizens in a democracy can give one another.  This questioning—especially of own political parties—would reduce political rancor and polarization, promote more informed voting, and perhaps get us better political leaders.

Given the symmetry of motivations between business people and politicians, we should consider a standard sort of constraint we impose on business people: the expectation of honesty.  It must apply to politicians as well as anyone.  At a minimum, after all, we want our elected officials to be honest.

We have to expect that those seeking office will work to get votes and we have to realize this incentive might discourage honesty.  We should, nonetheless, expect candidates for office to be honest in the process of campaigning and, if they win, while in office.  We should expect them not to intentionally seek to deceive. We should expect them to answer any questions put to them forthrightly.  (At least with regard to any questions relevant to the post to which they seek election.)  If they are caught failing in this regard, they should lose our support.  We should not vote for them, even if they are members of the party to which we claim some form of allegiance.  Voting for the polity, rather than voting for your party, is another gift of and to our democratic polity.

That we should not vote for a member of the party to which we claim some allegiance requires that we reject identifying ourselves as member of that party.  As soon as a member of “our” party (or other group) shows that he or she is not worthy of our trust, we ought not support them.  We ought to care more about the values of honesty and trustworthiness—as well as the polity as a whole—than we do about party affiliation.  

Consider committing to this as a New Year’s Resolution: I will question my own party as much as the other party and vote for polity over party.  There will be times, of course, that voting for the polity will be voting for your party.  At times, your party will have the better candidate.  To think it always has the better candidate, however, would stretch credulity as much as thinking Santa lives in a Chanukah menorah under the sea.  

I realize that putting honesty, trustworthiness, and the polity above party affiliation is a hard sell in our current political climate.  To see that it is not unreasonable, consider two intraparty conflicts.  

Reagan Republicans would likely endorse the recently proposed Federal American Dream Downpayment Act, which would allow people to start savings accounts with tax exempt funds to be used for a down payment on a home (similar to 529 accounts for college savings).  Many Republicans, however, seem to talk about this as a socialist give away rather than a reduction in taxes to incentivize home buying.  This is an intraparty conflict; the two groups can’t fully identify as the same.

On the other side of the aisle, it is very hard to imagine a Clinton Democrat endorsing anything like the populist economic policies of Bernie Sanders or the economic policies supported by those like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, rooted as they are in “Modern Monetary Theory.”  The details of those views do not matter here.  What matters is that this is another intraparty conflict; the two groups can’t fully identify as the same.

Given those intra-party debates, its clearly possible to cleave space for individuals to accept parts of a party’s platform while questioning and even rejecting other parts.  Doing that is part and parcel of the openness to discourse—disagreement!—that I seek to encourage.  We can encourage this by being willing to question each other, the candidates we are considering, and the platforms of the parties, especially our own.  If we can do this, we can more honestly evaluate candidates and policies from all parties.  That would help reduce polarization.  We would no longer adhere to a party line, endorsing a candidate merely so that “our party”—our team—can be in control.  We would be looking instead for what is the best way forward. There is no better gift to give each other in these polarized times.

I urge everyone to make a New Year’s Resolution to question their party as much as the other party and vote for polity over party.

Current Events, Discourse, Free Speech, Misc Academic Issues, Social Criticism, Toleration

Gifts of Discomfort for the Holidays

1 Comment

I was recently on C-Span discussing civil discourse and today a piece I was interviewed for was posted at MLive. I thought I’d follow those up with a couple of posts encouraging civil discourse over the holidays. Here’s the first.

Years ago, the parents of my college girlfriend gave me a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People as a Christmas present.  They clearly thought (probably correctly) that I was not very good at talking with people.  That was a long time ago, but it was important.  I think my girlfriend thought (probably correctly) that I was insulted.  In giving me that book as a gift, they made me uncomfortable, making me think more about some of my shortcomings.  The thing is, it helped me.  So, thanks to them. 

In being willing to give me such a gift—a gift of discomfort—they helped me become a better person, one (somewhat) better at engaging with others than I had been.  For me, for what it’s worth, this is a continual process and my wife now gives me that gift from time to time as well, helping me see where I can improve when engaging with others.  So, thanks to her.  

Very often, the way we improve is by being uncomfortable.  A second example from my life: in the last year or so, I’ve lost almost 100 pounds.  Why did I work to lose that weight?  Because I was uncomfortable with the increased health risks of being overweight and with and the thought of leaving this world early.

Being uncomfortable can spur us to be better.  Making each other uncomfortable is thus often a gift.

Perhaps what I’ve said so far will sound entirely reasonable.  But the idea that we grow from discomfort is far more important than it leading to better interpersonal engagement or improved health for a few.

Consider what we might call “epistemic discomfort”—the lack of comfort in one’s beliefs.  Epistemic discomfort is often caused by being faced with opposition to one’s beliefs.  When someone goes away to college, for example, they might for the first time meet people from a big city, or from a farming community, or from a different religious or cultural group, or even from a different country.  When you meet people like that you find out that there are a huge number of beliefs that are different from yours—sometimes radically opposed to yours.  When you learn of those beliefs, especially when it’s the first time, it has a way of challenging you and putting you in a position of epistemic discomfort.

Many seem to hate epistemic discomfort and seek to avoid it when possible.  This is true of many college students—who often refuse to disagree with their peers or their professors, choosing instead to self-censor.  This is true in our broader culture as well.  Indeed, many believe it is simply rude to disagree with others.  All of this, I believe, is a mistake.  We should be willing—indeed eager—to express our disagreement with others.  Sometimes we ought even be willing—indeed eager—to express some imagined disagreement with others.  

Providing others disagreement is giving them the gift of discomfort.  It is a way of encouraging them to think more seriously about what they believe.  Often, they will do so and remain committed to what they already believed, finding flaws in the opposing ideas or ways to bolster the ideas they already had.  Often, though, they will realize it was their own ideas that were flawed.  Either way, they will be better off—either having better reason for, and perhaps more of a commitment to, what they already believed or discarding unsupportable beliefs for more supportable beliefs.  

Importantly, the gift of discomfort that we can give to one another is not just a gift for the individuals receiving it.  It is also a gift for the entire polity.  A culture that takes seriously opposition beliefs—a culture that encourages people to express their disagreements—is a culture wherein people do not easily take offense by what others say.  A culture that takes seriously opposition beliefs is a culture of individuals that can argue civilly, without rancor.  It is a culture that can seek and reach political compromise.  It is a culture wherein polarization has no place.  It is a culture where liberal democracy can thrive.

This holiday season, consider giving the gift of discomfort.

Externalities, Political Philosophy/Theory, Toleration, Uncategorized

Two Syllogisms about Government Action

50 Comments

This post began with an idea of a simple syllogism (A) and possible objections to that syllogism. Ultimately, I came to see that the objections (likely) succeed but that made me realize my core idea was really my standard anti-paternalist view.

(A) The syllogism

1. Government actions entail coercion.

2. Coercion entails that someone is made worse off.

3. A move is Pareto optimal if someone is made better off and no one is made worse off.

4. Government actions cannot be Pareto optimal.

(B) Discussion

I wanted the argument in (A) to be sound. I think it’s not, because premise 2 is (likely) false. Someone might be coerced and yet be better off. How might someone be coerced and yet better off? The intuition behind premise 2 is, after all, straightforward: if you have to coerce me to X its because I didn’t want to X, so when I do X, I am worse off. (I don’t think this entails a completely subjective conception of the good; more on that below.) Put another way, X is against my interests. We might add that most of us have an interest in choosing on our own regardless of what we choose and that interest itself is set back when we are coerced. Nonetheless, it’s a common idea amongst political theorists that one can be coerced and better off.

One standard reason it is suggested that people can be coerced and yet better off is that we (at least some of us) actually want to be coerced, via taxation, to pay to help others and so when we are coerced it is really only superficially coercion. In fact, though, it’s really consensual (or something we would consent to if we thought about it). Those that make such claims add that most of us want to be charitable, but realize that we may fail to be if left to our own devices, so we should be coerced into giving “charity.” (Scare quotes as this is unlike genuine charity, which entails that one gives of one’s own accord to help another.) Typically, the claim is not that we merely want to be coerced individually, but that we want everyone (or everyone who can afford it) to be coerced in the specified way, so as to solve a collective action problem—we want ourselves and others to contribute to the solution to that problem but worry we won’t when given the option. Whether that addition is included or not, the point is that then when we are coerced to provide aid to others, we actually get what we want and so are better off, not worse off. We are better off because we want to live in a world where people are taken care of—where people do not starve, die of easily treated illnesses, are educated, treated justly, etc. I don’t find this persuasive. It would only hold, I assume, for those that have a particular psychological makeup.

A second possibility is that one can be better off even though coerced if compensated. The idea here is that while one is made worse off by the coercion—at least because one is prevented from doing what one would choose (our interest in doing what we wish is thwarted)—but is somehow compensated for the worsening enough to make one better off. There are two general ways this can happen. First, though being taxed would set back one’s interests, the government could provide you a direct benefit that (more than) compensates for the loss. This seems unlikely since the direct benefit provided would require further resources, meaning the government would have to coerce still more people in order to provide the benefit. The problem would thus simply be pushed back a step—are the people coerced to pay for the new benefit also better off even though coerced?

A final (third) possibility is that we can be better off even though coerced, because of (a) the objective component of well-being and (b) indirect benefits. This is plausible: one might be better off because although one was not allowed to choose how to spend one’s money, one received membership in a better, more educated and more just society than one would have otherwise been in. The indirect benefit here is not, at least initially, monetary. There is simply great satisfaction in living in a more educated and just society and though such benefits are not easily quantified, they surely matter. And, we can add, it is likely that a more educated and more just society would be more economically advanced, so the indirect material benefit—measurable—might be quite significant. (Those advocating the first idea above might treat these as things rational agents know and accept, so consent to.) Indeed, we should recognize that people often have subjective interests in things that are bad for them and it’s not unreasonable to think that there are objective interests that matter more. I don’t allow my child to eat only ice cream and cookies even though that may well be what he prefers, for example. Letting him indulge his subjective interests would leave him leading a worse life than he could—as an objective matter.

I tend to think an adequate account of the good must have an objective component like that just roughly articulated. That there is an objective element of well-being and that such an element may be better achieved with coercion than without, however, does not settle the issue. At least, it doesn’t for anyone that rejects paternalism. The core issue, after all, is not whether it is permissible to coerce children (to eat well, rest, attend to their hygiene, do their school work, etc). We are concerned about government coercion of rational adults.

As frequent readers likely realize, I reject paternalism. For a great recent work explaining that rejection, see William Glod’s excellent book Why Its OK To Make Bad Choices. Rejecting paternalism does not entail rejecting the claim that there are objective facts about what makes people better off. It entails only rejecting the use of such facts as a reason to coerce people. Put this to the side.

Given that there is an objective component of well-being and that it is at least possible that government can know what will make people better off (not a small assumption), we should admit that premise 2 is false—coercion can make people better off. This is both because their subjective desires may, if satisfied, make them worse off regardless of anything else and because of indirect benefits that result from the coercion (especially if it solves collective action problems).

Where are we left? Premise 2 is likely false. The syllogism is unsound. Nonetheless, I oppose government paternalism. So…

(C) Another syllogism

1. Government actions entail coercion.

2. If coercion makes the coerced better off, it is permissible

3. Government coercion makes the coerced better off.

4. Government action is permissible.

(D) Discussion

Here, I think, we need to explicitly recognize that one may be better off in one way while being worse off in another—and whether one is better or worse off overall would then be an open question. (This is implicit in both the second and third paths discussed in (C) above.)

When government uses coercion to improve society in the way that the third path in (B) assumes, those coerced are treated disrespectfully. I think that weighs extremely heavily in the final calculus determining permissibility.

The situation is analogous to a parent offering a child a delicious chocolate shake to which they surreptitiously added a vegetable (or medicine) the child hates. If successful, this may well make the child better off, but it does so by treating the child as… a child. This is, we assume, ok when dealing with children, but is not OK—or at least may not be—when dealing with an adult. Not letting an adult make the choice to eat (or not) the vegetable is disrespectful. It treats the adult as a child. In that regard—which I take to be of significant importance—the adult is made worse off.

In a fashion similar to that of tricking the adult to take their medicine, coercing adults to pay for things they do not want to, is disrespectful to the coerced. That the coercion would be in the service of making the world better for them, as well as those directly aided, does not change that. That disrespect weighs so heavy that I am doubtful we can say those coerced are overall better off. We might say that some of them are—presumably those who upon learning of how they and others benefit are comfortable with having been coerced (to whom the first justification in (B) above would appeal). I suspect, however, that some will not be so sanguine. They may well be worse off overall. Government coercion would be impermissible on these grounds.

The second syllogism (C) is, it seems, as unsound (because premise 3 is at least sometimes false) as the first (A). A government action may be Pareto optimal; it may also be unacceptably paternalist and impermissible for that reason.

(E) A final note

Nothing said here, of course, entails a claim that we shouldn’t try to solve collection action problems or try to make people better off. Probably we should. But we should do so by trying to persuade them, rationally, to make choices that will lead them to be better off and, where appropriate, solve the collection action problems that contribute to that.

Discourse

How To Talk Politics at Thanksgiving Without Causing a Family Feud: The key is humility and a genuine willingness to learn

This piece was written for, and appeared earlier this week in, Discourse Magazine. See it there at https://www.discoursemagazine.com/ideas/2022/11/14/how-to-talk-politics-at-thanksgiving-without-causing-a-family-feud/.

As you pack your bags for your Thanksgiving trip, you may be starting to worry about that “crazy” uncle, extreme aunt, or other sour relative whose political views are so different from your own that anxiety turns expectations of what should be a happy family gathering into the grim anticipation of impending doom.

Many people resort to telling their children, siblings, and spouses not to discuss certain topics at the family gathering for fear of setting off those relatives—or just giving them an excuse to rant about whatever their cockamamie view is that day. Total avoidance is the only way they can see to keep the peace and prevent the polarization that exists across the country from leading to acrimony at their own feast.

The suggestion that we should not discuss the controversial topic du jour is now often defended with claims about how it is uncivil or disrespectful to disagree with anyone or to bring up controversial issues that are sure to encourage disagreement. Despite the popularity of this view, it is a mistake.

Not only is the avoidance policy a fool’s game, destined to fail regardless, but it is also misguided from the outset. There will always be disagreements. If we don’t disagree about defunding the police, Black Lives Matter, this president’s immorality, that president’s idiocy, or the government handling of COVID-19, we’ll find something else to disagree about. Trying to suppress disagreement simply causes festering animosity.

The reason the animosity festers is that if you refuse to allow yourself to disagree with someone, you’re essentially accepting that they are not capable or worthy of honest discourse. You might think Uncle Dan can’t be reasoned with; he’s an imbecile, so why even try? Thinking in those terms leads not to acceptance or love of the other, but to disgust, and that disgust is often hard to shake. So disagreement will emerge one way or another, and trying to prevent it is likely to make the disagreement that finally erupts more acrimonious and less civil.

Importantly, though, honest disagreement is not uncivil or disrespectful in the first place. Indeed, it’s a sign of respect. If my 3-year-old told me that I was wrong to think a particular politician is terrible because that politician is actually quite wonderful, I would not argue with him. Why? Because as a 3-year-old, he is simply not in a position to have a reasonably well-thought-out view of the matter. 3-year-olds deserve respect, but not for their political views.

Uncle Dan, I assume, is not a toddler, but if I refuse to argue with him about a politician, I am treating him as I would my 3-year-old. This is the opposite of respect! To show respect for Dan, I must be willing to engage with him. I must recognize that he, like me, is a person with his own views and his own reasons for those views, and that he is also capable of changing his mind, like any rational being. Yes, disagreement is a sign of respect.

This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to treat those family members with whom you disagree with respect. Engage them, not with vitriol, but with curiosity and an eagerness to learn—if not to learn how you’re mistaken, at least to learn why they think differently from you. Assume they have reasons because they probably do. If they don’t, perhaps you can uncover the etiology of their belief instead. In discussion, maybe they can also come to understand why you think the way you do. Indeed, you might both learn something about yourselves and each other.

I can’t say this is an easy task. It can be difficult—in part because of the anxiety we often manufacture around such discussions and in part because it requires allowing ourselves to be intellectually and emotionally vulnerable. You cannot go into a discussion like this holding steadfast to your own beliefs about the topic at hand. If you think they are wrong, remember that they are also thinking you are wrong. In fact, maybe you’re both wrong. You won’t know unless you are willing to take them seriously, treating them as a reasonable person who can be corrected—and recognizing that you also may need correction.

When you approach a discussion this way—recognizing that you and Uncle Dan are both due the respect of disagreement and are both capable of being wrong as well as capable of being corrected—you can learn more about the world, as well as more about each other. Admittedly, you may not change each other’s minds; perhaps after extensive discussion you each understand where the other is coming from but still think the other is clearly wrong. Yet even if neither of you changes your beliefs about the topic, you will have learned more about each other!

Increased mutual understanding through discourse is extremely helpful—and exactly what we need in these polarized times. The same model of respectful disagreement that works among individuals can work for society as a whole. It can lead to more compassion for each other and a happier Thanksgiving feast with love and fellow-feeling—something to be truly thankful for.

Watch me discussing these ideas on C-Span Sunday morning: https://www.c-span.org/video/?524342-5/washington-journal-andrew-jason-cohen-discusses-politics-civil-discourse.

Uncategorized

An Irony of Identity Politics

There is a rich irony brewing in our culture. On the one hand, people often feel uncomfortable weighing in on issues involving groups to which they do not belong. For example, a man might feel uncomfortable expressing his opinions about abortion, particularly while in groups populated by many women. On the other hand, people are often content to point out when members of groups to which they do not belong express treacherous opinions. It is not uncommon, for instance, for a man to reprimand a pro-life woman for setting back the interests of women by defending her pro-life views. The cultural uptake of these two impulses is, I think, both contradictory and immoral.

Legal scholar Mari Matsuda wrote that “[t]hose who are oppressed in the present world can speak most eloquently of a better one” (346). I think it is because our culture has bought into this line of thought that we have succumbed to the first impulse. A man might think to himself that he should not voice his opinions about abortion, especially among women, because women possess authority to discuss the issue that men lack. The oppression women have faced as women places them in a better position than men to speak of a better world when it comes to abortion politics.

The second impulse, that of rebuking ideological dissidents in oppressed groups, is rationalized in different ways. Some think that a pro-life woman deserves censure when she expresses her views because she has a duty to be a good role model for other women; others think it is because she has a duty to show gratitude to feminists who have made her current way of life possible by continuing their activism; still others think it is because she must be in solidarity with other women by expressing views most other women subscribe to rather than the ones she does express.

Whatever the merits of the rationales for these impulses, they contradict one another. The first impulse cautions against participating in debates one is not qualified to participate in. The second impulse recommends that we participate in those debates. The man who tells a woman she harms other women by expressing her pro-life views has taken a stand on the issue of abortion, since he thinks the pro-life position is harmful to women. When asked moments later about his own views on abortion, he may insist that “it’s not his place to discuss issues that primarily concern women.” But he’s already taken a stand.

These impulses not only contradict one another, but are also each immoral. The strongest case for the immorality of the second impulse finds itself in the vulnerability of oppressed people. Women are already oppressed, so why should we go out of our way to make the lives of pro-life women harder than they already are by treating them as defectors? There is a line between criticizing the arguments advanced by a pro-life woman and criticizing the pro-life woman herself on the grounds that she does not live up to some ideal that women should live up to. While the former is always permissible, I think the latter rarely is. Isn’t feminism, at its core, about liberating women from the oppressive expectations of others after all?

The first impulse, by contrast, is immoral because by censoring your own views about certain matters, you make it harder for others to get to the truth of the matters in question. Making the world a better place is a collective effort, and we need to pool together the best intellectual resources at our disposal to enable us to make it better. Sometimes, the best intellectual resources when it comes to reasoning about the abortion issue will include the ideas of men.

But what of the thought that men are unqualified to reason about the abortion issue because they have not been subject to the oppressions women face? Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy once observed that the views of outsiders have historically been crucial to helping insiders make sense of their circumstances. Take, for instance, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. As a Frenchman, Tocqueville produced valuable insights about American society and the relationship between industrialization and democracy––insights that are studied to this day in the academy. Why couldn’t it, therefore, be the case that men could produce valuable insights about the abortion controversy as outsiders of womanhood?

When our contributions to public discourse could move us closer to a better world, we should contribute. This requires that we overcome our impulse to bite our tongues when we have that nagging feeling that it is not our place to share our views about certain matters. Men who have thought carefully about abortion should feel free to express their views; whites who have thought carefully about affirmative action should feel free to express theirs; and so on. As I said before, making our world a better place is a collective effort. And the efforts of all those who have thought carefully about these issues are needed to make our world better––not just the efforts of those whom you would expect to have vested interests in these issues.

We need also to ignore the impulse to reprimand those in oppressed groups who deign to flout the ideological lines their groups seem committed to. This is in part because we need people to feel comfortable volunteering their perspectives so we may make our world better, and in part because it is wrong to place expectations on vulnerable people to behave a certain way when it is expectations of this very kind that lead to their vulnerability in the first place.

It is tempting to succumb to these impulses, especially when we live in a culture that ceaselessly seeks to rationalize them. But acting on both impulses pulls us in opposite directions. We pride ourselves on staying in our lanes when we remain silent as debates concerning people unlike us rage on yet take it upon ourselves to identify and reprimand treasonous behavior by those unlike us. And acting on both impulses impoverishes us with respect to our goal of collaborating with one another to make our world better than it is. It seems we have some unlearning to do. But until we have done it, we will remain suspended in the irony that is modern identity politics.

Thanks to Andrew Jason Cohen for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this post.

Current Events, Ethical Issues, immigration, Political Philosophy/Theory, Toleration

On immigration

I was recently part of a discussion about immigration that prompted some thoughts. I thought I’d share them.

First, I’ll note that too many people think about immigration as an issue about immigrants alone. That is a mistake. See Chandran Kukathas’s new book, Immigration and Freedom, for a very well worked out argument, but here just note that limits on immigration are essentially limits on us—those of us in the country to whom a potential immigrant wants to come. If you are a US citizen and want to marry someone from outside the US, you’ll have to deal with the government to see about the possibility of that person coming here. You may want to live in the US with this person, but whether you will have the freedom to do so depends on immigration law. Similarly, of course, if you want to form a business partnership with someone from abroad. Or if you want to hire someone from abroad. Your freedom to marry or work with non-citizens is limited by immigration law. That’s really just scratching the surface of the issue, but its enough to show that limits to liberty caused by immigration restrictions can affect any of us.

Some will say that the loss of freedom is a price worth paying—it is, after all, a freedom to do something many will not want to do. (Perhaps failing to fully grasp the truth that a government empowered to stop others from doing what they want is a government empowered to stop you from doing what you want.) It’s true that if we allow too many immigrants to enter a country, they can dramatically alter our lives. (Of course, if this is true of countries, it’s also true of local jurisdictions, but I’ll leave that aside.) If 50 million immigrants from a country with an authoritarian government and an “authoritarian culture” (where everyone prefers living under an authoritarian government) came en masse to a country of 300 million, no matter how liberal the latter country was until then, their arrival may will lead to a change in the culture. (I take the basic idea for this argument from Hrishikesh Joshi’s excellent “For (Some) Immigration Restrictions“—the only thing I remember reading in the last few years that seriously made me doubt my pro-immigration stance.)

This worry about an immigrant group altering a country’s culture rather than being assimilated into it doesn’t seem very powerful in the normal course of American politics—a large enough group (50 million, eg) is unlikely to come in a short enough time span to have the effect. If that is wrong, though, we should ask whether such a group would want to alter their new home. It seems more likely that most people who move to a new place move there thinking it—as it is—has something worth moving for and so would not want to change it.

Some may think that these things are not matters of choice, that people from other cultures are simply different from Americans (or Americans and Europeans, from whom so much of our political culture is derived) and so can’t help themselves. The idea would be that if they were raised in an authoritarian or socialist regime, they can’t stop being authoritarian or socialist at heart. This idea, though, requires an unsubstantiated essentialism: Americans (and perhaps Europeans) are essentially freedom-lovers, individuals willing to do whatever is necessary to get ahead in liberal marketplaces and everyone else is … not. They are essentially authoritarian, socialist, or whatever is the dominant way of living in their culture of origin. Again, though, this claim is unsubstantiated. Indeed, it is contradicted by the millions of immigrants already present in the US (and Europe) who come to adopt the culture of their new homes.

Perhaps a more plausible view is that while culture does not make individual essences, it does causally affect people as a contingent but important matter with lasting effects. The thought would be that though they can adapt, people from other cultures are statistically unlikely to be suited for liberal markets and countries as they are and would likely take too long to change, if they change at all. There may be some truth to this claim, but without further investigation, it seems incomplete. There are, after all, historical and international events that affect people in many ways. Ignoring the history of imperialism and colonialism, for example, is likely to leave a lot out of the discussion. Ignoring these sort of world altering events and processes would basically be to essentialize cultures—failing to recognize that they are what they are due to causal factors and they can also change . Like the essentializing of individuals, this essentializing of cultures is unsubstantiated.

The fact is cultures change. I’d go further and say they either change or they die. They may die slow deaths, but stagnation is death nonetheless. Once this is recognized, much of the rest becomes less significant. We should embrace change and hope it will lead to growth. Indeed, with more people with different backgrounds, skill sets, and beliefs, our markets grow and make us all better off. As our markets grow, so does our culture.

Embrace change.  Embrace pro-immigration policies.

Current Events, Discourse, Ethical Issues, Free Speech, Social Criticism, Toleration

Solidarity and the Speech Rights of the Marginalized

Those sympathetic to libertarianism and classical liberalism tend to take free speech seriously. Beyond opposing the state regulation of speech, those sympathetic to libertarianism and classical liberalism also tend to favor social norms that are more, rather than less, permissive of different kinds of speech. Recently, however, members of the popular culture have expressed support for social norms that are less permissive of different kinds of speech, specifically for members of marginalized groups. This is evidenced by the growing number of people who are content to deride Black opponents of race-based affirmative action policies as “Uncle Toms” and “Aunt Jemimahs,” as well as by those who are content to lambast pro-life women for being traitors who’ve been brainwashed by the patriarchy to hold the views they hold. For the remainder of this post, I will show the problems with a line of argument someone could take to defend these liberty-constraining norms. By doing so, I hope to provide those sympathetic to libertarianism and classical liberalism something in the way of a response to those who favor social norms that are punishing toward those members of marginalized groups who express certain controversial views. 

Someone might argue that people, and especially members of the Black community, are permitted to meet the criticisms of race-based affirmative action policies made by a Black conservative with racially charged epithets, threats of ostracism, and ostracism by appealing to the value of solidarity. They might say that in order to overcome the threats of anti-Black racism in liberal society, Black people ought to show a united front. A single Black person alone cannot significantly change how racist their society is, but perhaps all or most Black people can. So all or most Black people should express support for policies and norms that are likely to significantly change how racist their society is. A Black person’s failure to support such policies and norms might be claimed to set back the interests of other Black people, since all or most Black people must show a united front to confront anti-Black racism in society. Alternatively, a Black person’s failure to support such policies and norms might be claimed to be unfair, since other Black people have burdened themselves to the benefit of the Black person in question by engaging in certain kinds of activism but the Black person in question does not likewise burden herself to the benefit of other Black people who have arguably benefited her. 

I draw issue, however, with the claim that members of a marginalized group such as the Black community must show a united front to overcome the oppression they face as group members. It seems that dissident members of marginalized groups have been positively instrumental to the end of overcoming the oppressions that members of these groups face. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois were engaged in debates about what was necessary for Black liberation to be brought about in America. Dubois strongly disagreed with Washington’s views about how Black people bear the brunt of the responsibility for making something of themselves in American society, and wrote in The Souls of Black Folk that “Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,––criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led,––this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society” (36). As Dubois says, it appears that dissent within marginalized groups about matters that affect group members is crucial to these group members identifying viable means through which to resist the oppression they face. 

We can see this insight at work especially when we consider the cases of Andrew Sullivan and Camille Paglia as dissenting members of the LGBT+ community. In 1989, Andrew Sullivan (a gay, conservative political commentator) published the first national cover story in defense of same-sex marriage legalization in The New Republic. The principles he appealed to in this piece, however, were not those that were embraced by all, or even most, gay people. And in 1990, Camille Paglia (a lesbian academic) published Sexual Personae, a work in which she offers a compelling defense of androgynous gender presentation, albeit by predicating her view on traditionalistic understandings of gender of which members of the LGBT+ community are skeptical. The contributions that both of these thinkers made to public discourse on the matters they wrote about were profound. And if we were content to enact social sanctions against them for being heterodox members of the LGBT+ community, we might find ourselves deprived of the social progress they may have in part been responsible for since they would be deterred from speaking their minds. This, I think, speaks in favor of norms that are more, rather than less, permissive of members of marginalized groups speaking their minds when their views stand in tension with the “consensus” views of their communities. 

Even if it were true that liberation for marginalized people is possible only by getting all or most members of each respective group on the same ideological page, it would not follow that dissenters in these groups do anything wrong by dissenting. Consider a parallel context in which a problem of collective action does not generate obligations for individuals to resolve the problem. It might be true that one of the only ways to put a stop to the atrocities that take place on factory farms, for example, is by getting everyone to adhere to a vegan lifestyle. Still, it would be inappropriate to claim that individuals are obligated to adhere to a vegan lifestyle on these grounds, because any individual’s adherence to a vegan lifestyle will not make a difference to the number of animals being brutally slaughtered on factory farms. Likewise, it would be inappropriate to claim that dissident members of marginalized groups are obligated to suppress their views, because any individual’s choice to suppress their views, at least in the vast majority of cases, will not make a difference for how oppressed other members of their groups are. And if dissident members of marginalized groups have no obligation to suppress their views, the strongest basis for justifying social sanctions against them is unavailable to those who wish to belittle or ostracize these members for expressing their views.
 
There is obviously much more to be said about these issues. There might, for example, be other lines of argument one could take to justify the claim that members of marginalized groups are obligated to suppress their dissident views. Or, one might be concerned with justifying the claim that dissident members of marginalized groups have moral reasons, rather than a moral obligation, to abstain from expressing their views. I do not have enough space to address these arguments in this post, though I hope to take them up in future posts. Still, I think it is useful and important to know that at least one of the arguments that could be offered to justify less permissive speech norms for members of marginalized groups is unsuccessful.

Thanks to Andrew Jason Cohen for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this post.

Current Events, Ethical Issues, Free Speech, Law & Legal Philosophy, Political Philosophy/Theory, Toleration

About Service To All

2 Comments

Political polarization is a now common phenomenon. Whereas people in the past believed their children should not marry someone of a different race or religion, it now seems that a growing number of people believe their children should not marry someone of a different political party. (See this.) Perhaps this switch is understandable.

Humans tend to be tribal (see Greene) and as the tribal connections based on race, religion, and even ethnicity, have grown weaker, it may be that bonds based on political affiliation have become more important. In any case, we have seen instances where store owners want to refuse service to those who reject their ideological commitments—perhaps only one (mask wearing requirements vs mask wearing prohibitions) and we may see more (Democrat vs Republican). Should store owners be legally permitted to refuse service to those they disagree with on some ideological ground? This is not a new question; it’s an old question simply focused on a new sort of difference.

In the past, we’ve asked whether white store owners should be able to refuse service to people of color, whether heterosexual store owners should be able to refuse service to homosexuals, whether Christian store owners should be able to refuse service to non-Christians. My answer here is the same as my answer to all of those: yes, with a caveat. (NOTE: I am not asking if someone from one group should refuse service to anyone outside their group; I am asking if they should be legally allowed to. In my view, it is frequently the case that people ought to be legally allowed to do things they ought not do.)

My basic view is that in denying a person service, the store owner is not essentially doing anything to the individual and so cannot be said to be harming them. I won’t press that point though. It is sufficient that if it is harming them, it does so without violating their rights or otherwise wronging them (it may be stupid or misguided; I suspect that for many refusing service to someone of a particular group, it is less about those others and more about their desire to live their own life as they think they should).

Absent wrongful harm I do not think interference—e.g., to require the store owner provide the service—is permissible. Putting this differently, my basic view is that one needs an argument to show that a business-owner’s refusing to serve a particular customer wrongfully harms that customer if one wants to override the presumption of liberty that the store owner has to run her store as she wishes. While I suspect such weighty arguments are rare, I do think they can be made in certain instances. For example, if all of the grocery stores in a given area refused to sell to someone, it would likely be a clear and wrongful harm to that individual (especially if, as in the relevant historical case, those being denied service had no recourse). A single store doing so, by contrast, is unlikely to hurt the person (or at least not in anything but a de minimis way).

I imagine that some would suggest that there is always a wrongful harm here in the form of a dignatarian harm—i.e., a harm to the individual’s dignity—perhaps especially if the refusal is based on the individual’s race, religion, or ideology. Pointing to a dignatarian harm, of course, does not suggest there are no other harms (causing someone to starve by refusing them service, for example, is an obvious harm; plausibly causing them to have to travel a great distance for service would as well). Here, though, I am assuming there are no other harms at issue—if there are (and they are not de minimis), interference may well be warranted. I am skeptical, though, of the likelihood of dignatarian harms being caused by a store owner refusing service to someone—at least absent structural issues. If 99 of 100 stores of the relevant type are willing to serve the individual, why would a single outlier cause a harm to the person’s dignity? Where I live, there are (I think) six chain grocery stores. It’s hard to believe that the owners or employees of the four I never enter have their dignity harmed by my withholding my utilizing of their businesses. If you think this is only because they are corporate owned, I will add that a bit further away there are several family owned grocery stores and none of them seem to have their dignity harmed by my choice either.

Some might suggest there is a difference between store owners and customers that is somehow relevant. Perhaps so. The only difference I can think of (actually, I didn’t think of it myself!) is that the customer is (or might be) engaging in the transaction to get something needed, while the storeowner is only getting money. The customer is thus supposedly at the mercy of the storeowner in a way that the reverse is not true. I do not think this difference is real. After all, the store owner is looking to get money from the transaction so that they can pay for the things they need. If all stores refuse to serve a particular person, that person will suffer; if everyone refuses to buy from a particular store, that store owner will suffer. Again, so long as the customer can go elsewhere for what they need, I think there is little cause for concern. (Again, if there are no competing storeowners willing or able to do business with the customer, the situation may be different.)

I am not sure what other relevant difference there might be between store owners and customers. Surely, if I intentionally and loudly boycott a particular store, broadcasting my complaints about the store—perhaps truthfully talking about the incompetent owner and workers—the store owner could plausibly have their dignity harmed. If, though, I merely refuse to buy from them without broadcasting my claims (perhaps add that my claims would be neither defamatory nor otherwise tortious), it is hard to believe my refusal to buy from them wrongly causes them a harm. (Indeed, it’s hard to take seriously the claim that I have done anything to them at all.). Merely refusing to sell to someone seems to be the same. No harm to dignity seems plausible. (Again, mass or universal refusal or legal inability to sell to members of a group—and mass or universal refusal or legal inability to buy from members of a group—may be different.)

I’ll end by being clear that I do not see any reason to deny that there are real dignatarian harms. In a theocratic society where women are denied the rights to vote, to own property, to work outside the home, etc, it seems entirely reasonable to think there is a wrongful setback to their interest in their own personal dignity. Such harms would plausibly be independent of physical, financial, or even psychological harms. These would be harms even to women who were happy in the society, well treated, and financially, physically, and psychologically secure. Similarly, as already indicated, if all storeowners were united—or forced—to withhold service to some group of individuals there would be plausible dignatarian harm. But if we are talking of an individual store owner refusing service to such a group, it seems implausible.

Thanks to Payden Alder for getting me thinking about this stuff again and to Jim Taggart, Connor Kianpour, and Andrew I. Cohen for comments on a draft. (Connor gave the possible objection about a difference between storeowners and customers.)

Owning Civil Discourse and Social Justice