Today I’d like to consider an argument briefly referenced by David Benatar in a book of his I have been reading on a different, tangentially-related subject. It is an argument made by some disability rights advocates. They maintain that efforts to eliminate genetic handicaps and birth defects are discriminatory and unethical on the grounds that disability is a social construct. I’d like to investigate this argument and see if it holds water.
Author: Benjamin Studebaker
Citizens Using State Programs Unaware that they Use State Programs
One of the things I’m fond of doing on this blog is chronicling just how much the general public doesn’t know about statecraft and speculating how that public ignorance might debilitate the quality of our governance. Today, I ran across a study from Cornell’s Suzanne Mettler detailing a curious phenomenon–many (and in some cases, most) of the beneficiaries of government programs are completely unaware that they themselves benefit from government programs.
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Good Guys Shouldn’t Finish Last
Today I’d like to raise an objection to a broad spectrum of moral theories of whom we ought to deem morally significant. I call this objection “good guys shouldn’t finish last”. There is a tendency in our moral theory to argue that doing the right thing often entails indiscriminate niceness. Moral theories frequently demand that we be universally benevolent to all beings with certain biological characteristics such as being human, feeling pain, having complex thought, or some such thing. The trouble with all moral theories of this kind is that they result in the moral practitioner, the being trying to do good, being harmed. I argue not only that this harm occurs, but that it is a knockdown objection to any moral theory if the beings it deems morally good have worse lives than the beings it deems morally bad–i.e., if the good guys finish last. I will illustrate each point in sequence.
How Food Subsidies Make You Poorer and Kill African Babies
Recently in the United States, congress has been fighting with the president about food subsidies. The bill for renewing food subsidies also renews the food stamp program, which helps very poor individuals purchase food. Congressional republicans are seeking to make cuts to the food stamp program, denying food stamps to those who are not in part-time employment or in job training. They seek to pass a version of the farm bill that permits state governments to deny food stamps to the unemployed. The president threatens to veto the farm bill if it includes language of this kind, preventing a renewal of the subsidies. There has been no resolution to the dispute as of yet. Today I wish to argue that congressional republicans are attempting to kill the wrong part of the farm bill–they should be targeting the farm subsidies rather than food stamps for the unemployed.
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Macklemore and Philosophy
I’ve been hearing the song “Same Love” by Macklemore for a while now. I agree with the song’s central message–that gay people should be afforded equal treatment by the state and in society. I also quite like the song, in no small part because unlike most songs, it’s very direct with the point it intends to make. The lyrics make clear arguments without hiding their messages in metaphors and other methods of obscurantism. There are entire websites devoted to helping music fans come to understand the veiled messages in their favorite artists’ songs, and it’s nice to not have to have inside knowledge to get the point being made. That said, it also illustrates one of this blog’s running themes–lay people lack expertise. While Macklemore makes a point I firmly agree with, the argument he uses to reach our shared conclusion is not very good.
Benjamin Studebaker 