Ethics In The World
Students in Northeastern’s ethics and policy courses grapple with contemporary issues and problems in theoretically robust and empirically informed ways. In some courses, students are asked to present a succinct statement of a problem, their view on it, and the evidence and reasoning that they believe supports their position in the form of an op-ed. Below are some of the op-eds produced by our students. The view expressed in them, and the arguments in support of their views, are theirs.
Brianna Pereira
Seminar in Religion, Fall 2019
Marianne Williamson shocked the political world by qualifying for the first two Democratic debates. Best known as the spiritual leader of a New Thought megachurch that centers its beliefs in mind-healing, she beat out experienced politicians like U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton. While she has only been polling at 1 percent, her impact on politics and voters is still important to note. As a political science major who works on campaigns, I noticed Williamson targets a demographic that has been rapidly growing – spiritual but not religious Americans – which is likely a large part of her success.
Since I myself identify as spiritual but not religious, I am glad Williamson is paying attention to this often-ignored group and even encouraging us to become politically active. However, as a Hispanic, I find her campaign is not trying enough, if at all, to attract the attention of people of color.
Williamson is primarily hosting grassroots events in white-dominated locations, which prevents people of color like myself from joining her movement.
For instance, last month Williamson hosted a meet and greet at New Haven’s Balanced Yoga Studio. But as she explained how she would implement her $500 billion reparations plan for African Americans, she spoke to a sea of white faces. The photo of the event posted by the Hartford Courant makes this clear.
Although Williamson’s campaign does not hold all of her speaking events in yoga studios, very few are not. In November alone, her campaign scheduled seven events in mindfulness spaces. While she aims to reach the spiritual-not-religious demographic, the spaces she targets signify that she is missing the 35 percent of minorities in that demographic. She is choosing to speak in locations where people of color do not always feel welcomed.
If you think the Balanced Yoga event was just a unique situation, let me assure you it is not. A 2012 Yoga Journal study found that while one in 15 Americans practice yoga, over 80 percent of them are white. Whiteness within the yoga world is studied by many scholars and activists, all of whom find that mindfulness caters mainly to young, white, affluent individuals.
Other campaigns use more accessible and inclusive locations for grassroots events. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s town halls and meet and greets are mostly located in public libraries and high school auditoriums. Sen. Bernie Sanders hosts events at arenas, museums, and community colleges. The bottom line is that Williamson’s campaign events would be more successful if they were held in locations where all voters are welcomed, even if that location is a middle school gym.
Many people are not aware that yoga studios are places where people of color don’t always feel welcome, but it is a topic that is heavily discussed within the yoga community. Williamson has been involved in the mindfulness industry for 35 years and counting. She should know better, which is why it is so disappointing that her campaign has spent the past year ignoring voters of color.
As someone who has worked with both Massachusetts and U.S. legislative campaigns, I hope Williamson will heed this warning about campaign venues. If she wants to catch up with the leading candidates in this presidential race, Williamson must open a dialogue with not just white voters but minority ones as well. A good first step? Holding events in spaces that aren’t predominantly white.
Brianna Pereira is a fourth-year politics, philosophy and economics major.
Catherine Reynolds
Seminar in Religion, Fall 2019
The Kardashian-Jenners are no strangers to appropriating culture for monetary gain, from using images of hip-hop legends on merch to naming a shapewear brand after the Kimono, a traditional Japanese garb. With the release of his latest album, “Jesus is King,” Kanye West has finally joined the family business of exploiting culture for profit.
Like so many televangelists before him, Kanye profits off of his Christianity. He’s taken the parts of Christianity he deems profitable, broken them up into easily consumable pieces and presented them without context, except for how they relate to himself, his image and his politics. Since my first marketing co-op, and current class on “Selling Spirituality” with Professor Liz Bucar, it’s hard to not see his actions as a money grab.
Let’s start with the album itself. Six years after the release of “Yeezus,” which included a track titled “I Am A God,” Kanye has returned to incorporating religious themes into his music. This time, instead of exalting and praising himself, he’s decided to focus his energy toward his love for Christ. Sort of. The opening track features a gospel choir occasionally joined by Kanye, and the lyrics are pretty standard gospel music. But in the second track, “Selah,” he compares himself to biblical figures and justifies screaming at an employee in the name of his faith. If you can hear it over his yelling, he even cheers himself on using his own self-appointed nickname of Yeezus (like Jesus but the Kanye version). It all kind of goes downhill from there.
The fifth track, “On God,” is really where the politics ramp up. The line “he’s the new commander in chief” followed by “that’s on God” could be taken as reverence for Kanye’s recommitment to faith, but given his outspoken support of the current President, this line is probably serving double duty. Later in the song, Kanye blames the IRS, or Internal Revenue Service, for wanting “50 plus our tithe,” implying the government is preventing him from giving to the church.
The album has some songs asking for forgiveness, while others make clear he intends to continue living his life pretty much the same as always, minus some sex, drugs and debauchery. At the end, I’m left wondering, what does any of this have to do with being a Christian? It seems like Kanye is using faith to scam people out of their money and then using that money to maintain his celebrity lifestyle.
Looking at the official merchandise, the first thing you notice is the extreme prices: $60 for a t-shirt and $250 for a sweatshirt. Most of the merch is covered in strangely cropped images of angels, crosses, Jesus and saints. Out of context, the customer doesn’t know anything about their religious meanings. A clear case of Christian aesthetics and appropriated imagery being branded by Kanye West for profit.
To be clear, Kanye has done something different than his Kardashian-Jenner family members. He hasn’t pulled elements from minority groups and turned them into commodities. Instead he’s taken from the dominant religion of the West, something he claims membership to. This does not mean it comes without problems. Where cultural appropriation strips marginalized communities of credit, cultural exploitation removes the context and turns the stolen thing into a commodity.
Just like the 2018 Met Gala exploited the aesthetics of Catholicism for donations, Kanye has taken his own religion and twisted it into a platform for his own agenda. His family profits off the backs of underrepresented communities, but with this album, Kanye has turned Christianity into his own personal piggy bank.
A man who once said he could never be profitable rapping about Jesus has found a way to do so. But this album is not about Jesus. It is about Kanye West. He has pulled the sounds and imagery of Christianity to create a multi-faceted product launch including overpriced merchandise, an IMAX movie experience and a new concert tour presented as a traveling religious service. All of which is sold in the name of his faith with the end goal of making Kanye richer.
Kanye was someone who used to rail against the oppression of capitalism on Black communities that “make us hate ourself and love they wealth.” Since joining with arguably the most commodified family in the world, Kanye has abandoned his roots in favor of monetary gain, even though it means selling his faith to any and all who will buy it.
Catherine Reynolds is a fifth-year politics, philosophy and economics major.
Jamie Spingeld
Ethics and Philanthropy (Honors), Spring 2019
Jamie Spingeld graduated in May 2019 with a B.S. in Criminal Justice and an Ethics minor. She is continuing at Northeastern as a master’s student and is expecting to complete graduate school in December 2019. She wrote this post in Philanthropy and Ethics.
People are empathetic. We want to help others for a variety of reasons: it makes us happy; we get help in return when we need it; there is mutual benefit; or simply because it is the right thing to do. Many affluent people give some of what they can spare to help other people. However, some individuals, as much as they want to give to others, have concerns that stop them. What if it doesn’t do any good? What if I need the money for myself or my family down the line? What if I give so much that I end up being the one who needs help?
For these people, giving while alive may not always be the best option. But that doesn’t mean they can’t donate to those in need at all. While it may not always be clear during the average lifetime that one has any excess money to spare for others, deciding what happens to everything we own upon death (estate planning) can be a far simpler and less worrying way to give. After all, we don’t have to worry about “what-ifs” in our futures if we’re dead. It also allows for more time to research the causes where our money can do the most good. For the average person, who is neither particularly rich nor particularly poor, if your motivation for giving is ethically justifiable from a utilitarian perspective, then it is permissible, and even morally better in certain ways, to bequeath money to those who need it most rather than donating excess during life.
Although this line of reasoning is utilitarian, the thesis is not inconsistent with other normative ethical theories. Charity remains a virtue and ensuring that money is given to a good cause remains charity, regardless of whether the transaction is completed during your lifetime or not. Deontologists are more concerned with motivations for giving than I am, but those reasons they would consider ethically pure can justify giving after death as easily as giving while alive.
There are benefits to donating during life, but they do not outweigh the benefits of charitable bequests. They also tend to apply more to an extremely wealthy donor than the average person who has to decide whether to give now or later. Giving while alive makes one more accountable to the public and those who receive the money, since the donor can respond to pressures and requests as they are made instead of trying to anticipate them. While certainly important, the public and recipient are unlikely to have many opinions on the donations of the average person. There are some causes that have a time limit, such as preventing the extinction of an animal species, for which it may be too late to donate if one chose to wait until death to give. This, too, is a valid reason to give as soon as possible, but unless the average person has the money to fully solve the problem, their donation is, regrettably, unlikely to make much of a difference. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter if they wait until death to donate to a cause for which they can make a difference. Finally, there is the ability to repair direct harms one has caused that can be solved with money, such as through civil lawsuits or other reparative justice scenarios. This is a valid reason to give as soon as possible, since I consider the recipient as someone to whom money is already directly owed, and earlier I pointed out that all previous obligations should be filled before donations are made from any excess.
From a utilitarian perspective, however, the goal is to give the most money possible to a good cause. This is best accomplished by giving later, and this ability outweighs the benefits of giving while living. The process by which this occurs is simple: rather than donating it directly, a certain percentage of income (whatever is excess) should be invested in long-term stocks, where the money is highly likely to grow, until it is donated at death according to the terms in a will. Investments should be chosen carefully to avoid companies that cause harm by, for example, contributing to violence, climate change, or human rights violations. There is the option to invest in companies that are likely to make the most money, or to practice social enterprise investing to grow your money and have it do good while you’re still alive. Either is acceptable in this framework.
In addition to growing your money, there are other benefits to this type of giving. A major one is the ability to feel secure in how much you have during life if something goes wrong. Having savings you can pull emergency funds from stops you from being the one who ends up in debt. Additionally, as one approaches death, having this money means that care and/or funeral costs aren’t forced on relatives, which would cause them harm. Another consideration is that there will always be problems in this world, and some solutions will be more cost effective in the future than they are now. For example, there are new medical discoveries all the time, and innovative technologies take time to develop. In the future, we might know more about the root causes of currently unsolvable problems, and solutions may be more effective and less expensive the longer you wait. Consider how long it took to figure out to use mosquito nets or vaccines, and how many lives just a few dollars can save now because of them.
Finally, in addition to being able to give more money due to the nature of long-term investments, there are a couple of other ways in which leaving money in a will is actually better than giving while alive. Although bequeathing money is less accountable to the desires of the public, by the same logic is holds less influence over foundation or governmental decision-making. Therefore, it is less likely to undermine democracy or result in a single donor making decisions for the public. Another major benefit is the time estate planning leaves for research and consideration of relevant factors like charity effectiveness and most worthy causes. Those who leave money in their will have sufficient time to make less rushed decisions or be influenced by proximate stimuli like advertising or pulled heartstrings. With the ability to change where you want to bestow your money right up until you die (or lose power of attorney), you don’t have to regret making a choice to donate on a whim.
Donating money to those who need it most is a morally good decision, regardless of when you choose to give. Poor individuals are not, and indeed cannot be, obligated to give. As for other groups, in many circumstances it is better for the average individual to wait to give until after they are dead so they have savings for unanticipated problems, the time to research a charity and wait for costs to go down, are less likely to undermine democracy, and, of course, so they can give the most money possible to those who need it. The uber-wealthy should give while alive if they are targeting problems they can stop or prevent completely. If they are planning to donate to other types of problems (such as persistent ones like hunger), a lump sum can be equally effective, and timing matters less overall.
In summary, this recommends that the average individual donate their money to effective charities by bequeathing it in their wills, rather than giving while living. Why put off for tomorrow what you can do today? Because if you can do it better tomorrow, if you can make more of a difference in the lives of the people who need it most while being better off yourself, then it absolutely makes sense to wait.
Christian “Mish” Culbert
Social and Political Philosophy, Fall 2018
Everyone’s talking about refugees. As conflict in the middle east rages on, a small subset of refugees has captured the attention of western media. “While we in the West debate whether we should resettle 1% or .5% of refugees,” most of them are left without a place to resettle (Parekh, 49). Displaced from their homes, but unable to find new ones, these people live within the borders of a different state. “Close to 30 million people, are considered to be in need of and dependent upon international protection [and not just] food or temporary shelter as you would after a natural disaster, but for a home and membership in another political community” (Parekh 24). I believe that this system is problematic in execution and principle. Using Aristotle’s conception of life outside the “city,” I argue that refugees in camps are denied an essential part of the human experience.
Most refugee camps provide the bare minimum; makeshift shelters, scarce food, and limited resources. Education is lacking, if present. Sexual violence is rampant. Refugees are expected to sit idly, unable to leave, relying solely on the support from the international community. People cry out about the obvious human rights violations occurring in these camps. The conditions are awful, and those seeking refuge are often treated more like beasts than humans. Many demand reforms for refugee camps, so policies are made but little actually changes. The focus is always on fixing the camps. But if “man is by nature a political animal” then camps are unfixable (Aristotle 1253a). The current system deprives the refugees of something essential to being human: being a part of a state.
Aristotle, in his Politics, argues “that the city is both by nature and prior to each individual” (Aristotle 1253a). His conception of a city is that of a unified political community. Though our modern states are a far cry from what he ever imagined, they provide opportunities (for the most part) of political participation. This is a fundamental part of the human experience, according to Aristotle. Humans alone are political creatures. Bees and other animals may work together, but only humans have language. It is natural for humans to form political bonds to one another. Such a “city” of interconnected people is ontologically prior to the people themselves, for they have meaning only as part of a whole. People band together in nature for the sake of survival, but they form cities for the sake of the good life. Anyone outside the political group is “no part of a city, and so is either a beast or a god” (Aristotle 1253a).
I doubt anyone would argue these refugees are akin to gods. And comparing them to beasts is dehumanizing. Yet they are part of no state. They reside in a strange limbo within the borders of their host state. What whole do they belong to that gives them meaning? Aristotle would label this the life of beasts. Limited bathing, bland food, lack of luxury goods, and no autonomy all sound like the conditions of animals, not people. Aristotle observes that humans alone have language. We use it to express not only pleasure and pain, but also what is just and unjust. Our forum is the “city.” By calling those without a city beast or god-like, Aristotle identifies political participation as an essential part of being human.
I agree with Aristotle. I believe that participation in something larger than oneself is essential to the human experience. This extends beyond survival and productivity. In refugee camps, theoretically, resources are not a problem. Everything is provided by aid groups. The city (or in today’s case, the state) allows for discourse about the best kind of life and regime.
“Of course, though refugees in camps are supposed to be idle, not work, and passively sit back and wait for the UNHCR, this is not what many refugee camps are actually like” (Parekh 51). It is so natural for humans to form community, that even when displaced miles from home in makeshift shafts with minimal supplies, people will make their own cities. Camps “contain thriving black markets where many things can be bought and sold, both licit and illicit, and complex social networks have developed” (Parekh 51). This was not intended. Refugee camps were not designed to create micro-societies. Yet the humanity of their residents is so strong that it partially usurps the flawed design of “temporary” refugee housing.
Refugees in camps are certainly not beasts, yet they are treated like them. It is all too common for “women and children [to] experience sexual violence in refugee camps at the hands of other refugees, members of the local population, as well as NGO and other aid workers” (Parekh 54). This is precisely because, despite all their unofficial bonds, none of the refugees are part of a real state. They lack the protection from and responsibility to a city. Aristotle foresaw this violence. He expected that those outside the city would be “the most unholy and the most savage animals, and the worst with regards to sex and food” or in many of today’s case, refugees are treated like the most savage animals with regards to sex and food. Having autonomy and decision making in a state is essential for maintaining justice, since “justice is a thing belonging to the city, for adjudication is an arrangement of the political community” (Aristotle 1253a). Trying to reduce violence in refugee camps is only a bandage. The root of the problem is the idea of camps in the first place. With no city or state to establish a sense of justice, injustice will thrive.
Today’s refugee crisis is unprecedented in scale. The solution for over 30 million refugees is the camp system within the borders but without the membership of another country. This is a deeply flawed system. In practice, it violates fundamental human rights and even in theory it undermines refugees’ humanity. Refugee camps undermine the very nature of humankind to join together and establish a political rule. This wouldn’t be so bad if it were merely a temporary state of living. But these camps are more than just a transition stage, “the average length of time you can expect to live in one in the 21st century is 17 years; for those fleeing conflict zones, the average is 25 years” (Parekh 49). Entire generations are born and raised in camps with no political community to participate in. Not only are they unable to achieve the good and virtuous life that Aristotle stresses, but their conditions fall short of what is naturally human.
And yet everyone talks about the 1% of refugees entering western countries. So many are left at the whims of the international community, but with no voice. Until we are able to incorporate these people into the political community they cannot be fully human in the Aristotelian sense. If “every community is constituted for the sake of some good,” then it is wrong for us to deny so many people that good (Aristotle 1252a).
Bibliography:
Aristotle, and Carnes Lord. Aristotle’s Politics. The University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Parekh, Serena. No Refuge for Refugees: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis. Draft ed., 2018.
Myrna Cox and Alastair Pike
Global Justice, Fall 2018
Alastair Pike is a fourth-year student studying journalism with a minor in photojournalism.
Australia is the newest nation to join the club of countries to lift taxes on tampons. Included in this club of tax-free female sanitary are Canada, India, and Kenya leaving many to wonder when, if ever, the United States, which still has 36 states with taxes on such products, will join the movement.
The movement for lifting taxes on menstruation products, such as tampons, pads and diva cups stems from the idea that access to menstruation products, a public health issue, is a human right. The argument for this comes from two places.
First, a lack of female sanitary products create a substantial health risk. Poor menstruation hygiene poses serious, and even fatal health infections such as Hepatitis B, various bacterial infections, and toxic shock syndrome. Persistently poor menstrual hygiene can also lead to infertility. In the absence of menstruation products, many women use rags, old socks, even sticks, increasing substantially their risk for infections.
Access to healthcare is a human right. The World Health Organization’s constitution signed back in 1946 envisages “the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being” and states that a rights-based approach must focus on disadvantaged populations, in this case women, and must prioritize the needs of “those furthest behind first” which was echoed in the recent 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Universal Health Coverage.
Second, access to menstruation products is a human right due to the domino effects concerning rights to education and dignity that follow a lack of access.
To begin, many women who do not have access to menstruation products will avoid going to school due to social stigma. While missing school may be due to the period itself, many women also skip school after their period is over because they are embarrassed by the blood stains their clothes received due to not having access to any products or enough money to replace their stained clothes. In some instances, women will not go to school even if they do have access as a period itself is so socially stigmatized due to various cultural and religious beliefs and practices.
Valarie, a 13-year-old girl who goes to school in Papua New Guinea, spoke with World Vision International in 2017 about how she was scared and stayed home when she had her first period. She also recalled when one of her classmates had her period at school. “All the students, especially the boys, were pointing at her and laughing,” she told World Vision. “At that time, I didn’t have my period yet, so I didn’t think much of it. But when I had it, it frightened me.”
The lack of access to sanitary products and social stigma results in many women not having an equal access of education. Many then argue that this lack of equal access is another human rights violation.
A 2016 UN report explored the correlations between poor sanitation and hygiene to academic performance in school. The report noted that school facilities and hygiene education are important for changing harmful perspectives, behaviors and expectations. Surveys in Kenya, Cameroon and Senegal found that between 10 percent and 47 percent of the girls interviewed said that they missed school for at least one day a month because of menstrual pain and inability to change at school.
Even with cleaner facilities and access, menstrual hygiene is related to power and dignity. In the U.S., in July 2017, Senators Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren introduced the Dignity for Incarcerated Woman Act that banned shackling pregnant women or placing them in solitary confinement, as well as a directive to distribute quality pads and tampons to inmates for free. Even with access, the issue, as pointed out in a New York Times piece following the legislation, had “everything to do with power.”
Restricting or preventing the access to sanitary menstruation products are used as manipulative tool to control women. Last year a defendant in a court in Kentucky appeared before a judge wearing no pants and while menstruating. She said correctional officers had, despite multiple requests, refused to give her sanitary products or a change of clothes when she told them she was having her period. It’s clear it’s isn’t just a basic public health issue, it is also a basic human rights issue that ensures rights to education and rights to dignity.
Because of the human rights violations of health and education, public sanitation, and equality, it is clear that access to sanitary menstruation products or methods are morally imperative. What this access means though is controversial. At a high level, it appears pretty clear that at the very least, any taxation on sanitary products is wrong. Because taxation makes products more expensive, it affects all women but disproportionately affects lower income or homeless women.
Thus, perhaps abolishing taxation is the first step. The second step is to ensure equal access to these products and also consider those of lower income who cannot afford products. We should consider these lower income groups as they are forced to make unethical decisions with unethical results. Women on food stamps often must decide between eating or buying proper menstruation products. Female prisoners must decide between menstrual products or other basic necessities. For example, Chandra Bozelko, a former female prisoner in Connecticut and prison reform advocate, explained to WomensHealthMag.com in 2016 that pads are “a quarter of your weekly paycheck, keeping in mind that you’d also have to buy soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and all the other hygiene items that are basic to human existence.” In prisons especially, the prices of tampons are marked up to be as high $5 a pack and many women do not have prison jobs in the first place. While they are some women who can rely on outside funds the bureaucracy of the commissary-ordering process is so bad that, “even a millionaire might not be able to buy a pack of maxi-pads for months.” Women in lower income families are often not even granted a decision as the little income their family has is controlled by the man of the household who often decides for her that funds for menstruation products are not necessary or as necessary as other family needs.
The American women’s magazine Bustle reported in 2017 that worldwide only 12 percent of young women with periods have access to the products they need. Out of those who have access, 100 million women worldwide cannot afford the products they have access to. In the U.S. alone, there are 24.6 million women who cannot afford adequate menstruation products. While there are no statistics on the global effect this has on women’s school attendance, in the U.K., 137,700 women skipped school on their period meaning that on average these women were 145 days behind their male counterparts, according to a 2018 survey by OnePoll.com. One can only imagine the global impacts on school attendance, considering that the U.K. is a developed country and most countries are not.
Thus, there should be more of an effort to provide free sanitary products in sanitary private locations in all public spaces such as schools, prisons, and government buildings.
Furthermore, our various poverty programs should include incorporating sanitary menstruation products.
Lastly, it is important to note that access is not the only part to eliminating this human rights violation–addressing and eliminating the stigma around menstruation is very important too. As a basic biological process, women should not be subject to myths or taboos that ultimately affect their self-esteem and dignity.
There have been some notable attempts to eliminate stigma in the United States. For example, actress Bella Thorne announced on Instagram recently that her dog’s name is Tampon. To the instant backlash to the name, Bella responded, “When did tampon become a bad thing?
When did someone buy a tampon and it didn’t come in handy” where a discussion of period positive briefly followed in the internet and media.
Other celebrity stunts have occurred too, such as Amy Schumer at the Emmys who listed the brand of her tampon when asked who she was wearing on the red carpet. While these celebrity stunts are honorable, it is to say that much more is needed.
There needs to be more conversation and institutional change. Perhaps it is to say as we wait for the remaining US states to join the club of no taxation on menstruation, each and every one of us should can keep this human rights conversation alive.
Myrna Cox
Global Justice, Fall 2018
As Black Friday and Cyber Monday loom in our future, we are warned; Consumerism is bad. Consumerism is especially bad after Thanksgiving. We should boycott consumerism. We should especially boycott Black Friday and Cyber Monday. People die in Walmart raids. It’s embarrassing for our country’s image. We hear the same warning over and over. I’m not here to give you the same warning again.
Because you understand and you still shop and I understand that. I shop too. Especially online and especially on Cyber Monday. And it’s not because I’m evil or misguided by thinking the more shoes I buy the happier I’ll be. Last year I just needed black flats. I wore my black flats almost every day for over 5 years. Until last November, when I accidentally stepped in one of Boston’s salty after-snow-storm puddles and ruined them. We all have our stories have your story. I believe a lot of us of shop because we need things.
But here’s the thing, last Cyber Monday I realized I did something pretty bad. It started when ordered 12 pairs of black flats with the intent of just keeping one. I didn’t know how different brands would fit or whether they would fit I would fit different brands. I didn’t know which pair looked best. I had my reasons.
In the next two days, I received each pair of shoes in its own box. In each box, there was another box surrounded by plastic air packs. And in each of those boxes there was loads of tissue paper. And under the tissue paper were my shoes. But in each shoe, there was plastic that needed to be taken out to try them on.
When I finally unpacked all my shoes there was a mountain of trash. I knew this wasn’t environmentally great. In the end, I decided that I didn’t like any of the shoes I ordered. So, I got in my gas guzzling car and returned all my shoes to the stores. If I had shopped at brick and mortar stores, I could have avoided the amount of garbage I made. Yet I didn’t. And at these stores, I cringed when I realized that they were going to use yet more boxes and packaging to send my shoes back to. I did something bad— I create a lot of garbage for no reason. I was bad.
Online shopping in general creates a lot of garbage. We buy a lot of stuff. There will be 800 million deliveries between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Which means there will soon be 800 million cardboard boxes. That’s a lot. In the past decade, waste management companies have seen a 20% increase in cardboard boxes alone.
And then there’s the packaging in those boxes. We want our things to arrive in perfect condition. Companies don’t want to lose money over damaged items. The average box gets dropped 17 times. Therefore, to prevent damage, companies over compensate and stuff each box with an excessive amount of packaging.
Fuel is then burnt to deliver all our boxes. There’s some salvation here. Before, we all drove back and forth to the mall, which used ton a fuel. But now delivery trucks find the most efficient route to reach all of us. This means there’s a lot less driving and fuel burnt. And if we order more than one thing from the same store, companies will wait to put all your items into 1 box instead several. In these ways, online shopping is greener.
There is salvation unless we order something to be delivered quickly. All environmentally friendly measures are thrown right out the door to make fast delivery possible. Your items will be shipped separately and even driven separately. But worst of all, your items are likely to be put on a jet. Jet fuel is incredibly worse for the environment. Our carbon footprint would be better if we just went back to driving back and forth to the mall again.
Creating a larger carbon footprint so we can have our goods quicker is also unfair. People think that because global warming is a global phenomenon that we are all equally effected by climate change. Unfortunately, though climate change effects the global poor more than anyone else. Therefore, it’s unfair because we benefit from having our goods quickly, while the poor suffer the consequences more than we do.
The same unfairness applies to our garbage from all our packaging too. While we have the benefit of our goods, we don’t deal with the negative consequences of our waste. Once again, the poor disproportionality take on these negative costs. And if you think you’re better because you recycle your boxes, sorry you’re not. Due to lack of domestic infrastructure, most of our recycled boxes still end up in a landfill.
So, while we enjoy the benefit of getting stuff quickly and conveniently, the poor suffer from our garbage and our contribution to climate change. This is bad. We can do better. Here’s some simple things you can do to be a better person this Cyber Monday:
- Be patient. If it’s not absolutely vital you have your order quickly, choose standard delivery.
- Buy all at once. Don’t make a bunch of separate orders from the same place.
- Don’t buy things with the idea of returning them. Don’t be like me last year.
- Recycle if you live in a location that has the infrastructure.
- Reuse your boxes when possible.
Simple. You can do those things. But it’s also not just up to you. Companies have a part in this too. In their efforts to save money, a lot of companies have come up with some creative solutions that just so happens to help the environment. Broadly they have been able to cut back on the number of boxes they use, the amount of packaging, and the amount of time people are driving. But companies need to step up from just considering ways that cut cost and actually focus on the environmental impact they’re creating. In fact, the UN and its guiding principles for business and human rights demand this very notion.
At the very least, companies need to stop incentivizing you to do things that are unjust and bad for the environment. They should never make 2-day delivery free and standard shipping more expensive. They should not be tempting us with cheap quick delivery. Consumers should always have to pay a steeper price on quick deliveries. Companies should have zero tolerance of customers who buy and return constantly. Companies should not allow us to make many small separate orders in the same day or at least they should always consolidate your orders if we do. Companies should also have their sales earlier so we don’t feel like we need to rush packages to be on time for the holidays.
Companies should also be held responsible for their garbage. They should be designing and using eco-friendlier boxes and packaging. They should be paying for the infrastructure needed to make recycling possible in your neighborhood. They should be paying for programs to help the poor effected by their climate change contribution and their garbage.
Daniel O’Leary
Global Justice, Fall 2018
When President Trump spoke to the United Nations General Assembly this September he articulated a nationalistic view of the world. Each country will stand on its own, because they invest in themselves they will succeed. This reasoning is unique to the political right but they conclusion certainly isn’t. The idea that we should look inward and invest in our own people at the expense of investing in others is also shared on the left. These critiques go beyond criticism of United States military adventurism. They critique the entire global order as a manifestation of US hegemony. That’s a mistake. Whatever the problems of US foreign policy the US abandoning its role directing the global future will cause a worse future. A future worse for the US. And importantly a future worse for people globally.
The US has spent vast resources promoting democracy globally since WWII. In 2016 alone, the United States spent $49 Billion on foreign aid. Whether it’s investment into postwar Europe via the Marshall Plan or its the development of the Peace Corps and USAID. The US has put significant time and money into promoting and supporting democracy globally.
If you want a peaceful world you want a world of liberal democracies. The last 70 years has been the most peaceful in world history. The rate of global armed conflict is at the lowest point in history. It is no accident that this peace has coincided with the number of democracies in the world. Just as Immanuel Kant argued in the 18th Century democracies are less likely to go to war with one another.
Even if, the research turns out to be false and democracy doesn’t lead to peace between states it will protect human rights within states. Democratic countries have far more checks against abuses by the government than non-democratic ones. Not only is there direct democratic accountability, but strong liberal democracies are also more likely to have strong institutions which can check abuses of power.
If none of that is persuasive, then just consider that that self determination is a human right worth protecting in and of itself. Article 21 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights enshrines a right for everyone to participate in their own government.
Often this conflicts with strong standards of sovereignty within the international system. When we allow the US government to respect states as they come to the negotiating table and not try and change them, we let the rights of their citizens go by the wayside. Just look at the human rights record of Saudi Arabia for an example of what can happen when the US supports a global system that lets you come to the table as you are without trying to change each state for the better.
The left is certainly fair to claim that US intervention promoting democracy has gone too far. History is rife with examples of the US making the wrong choices when intervening in elections. But, if the US chooses to abdicate all of its role in democracy promotion it risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The government can do this well, just look to the efforts of USAID.
Abdication of this job is a choice to ced the ground to other actors. Are China or Russia more likely to push countries towards an equitable world? The Uyghur people and the people of Chechnya would say that those countries won’t.
Unfortunately a long and unjust history has foreclosed the option of allowing countries to fend for themselves. The spectre of colonialism spreads over many countries where the US has spent time and money trying to promote democracy. Yet if you care about the injustices the system has brought about the US engaging with the world is a step towards solving those injustices.
Maybe the US is not perfect but neither is democracy. For the good of the world’s people the US should remain strong in its commitment to promote and support liberal democracy globally.
John Hughes
Global Justice, Fall 2018
John Hughes graduated from Northeastern in 2018, majoring in Philosophy and Mathematics. He interested in finding applications for both those fields, specifically in data analytics, all while traveling as much as possible.
Last week, the United States Border Control agents fired tear gas at migrants trying to cross into the country. This is just the latest episode in a worldwide debate about immigration policy, and is sure to draw strong opinions from both sides. It’s increasingly clear that closed borders are not good policy, and states should recognize that restrictions on immigration have the potential to harm economies and impact diversity. However, while much of the political left might argue otherwise, states are under no moral obligation to allow immigration, even with restrictions.
The utilitarian view is that immigration increases an overall measure of utility—usually happiness of some sort. Supporters of immigration point to ample evidence that immigrants moving from developing countries to developed countries see significant income gain. This is great for those immigrants of course, but it doesn’t necessarily satisfy the utilitarian requirements. Wealth or income are not guarantors of happiness, or any utilitarian values for that matter. In fact, research at Princeton has shown that the link between income and happiness is mostly an illusion. Even if it does increase happiness for the immigrants themselves, that’s not the only relevant factor.
We also need to take into account the effect of immigration on the destination country. Many people are quite unhappy with the idea of foreigners coming into their countries. In Europe, where immigration laws are extremely relaxed, there has been a significant backlash. Anti-immigrant sentiment is increasing and nativist political leaders are gaining support. Whether or not the anti-immigrant sentiment is justified is beside the point—if it makes residents of a country unhappy, that must be factored into the moral calculation. Utilitarianism is useless as a measure of morality if there is some other moral justification needed for one’s happiness to “count”.
In some cases, though, there is a significant positive economic impact on the destination state. In the United States, this fact is often used as justification for reducing barriers to immigration. However, our moral scheme shouldn’t exclusively rely on the improvements to one country. There can be detrimental economic impact to immigrants’ home countries that are not insignificant. Developing countries suffer “brain-drain”—where the best and brightest emigrate—leaving the unhealthy, the uneducated, and the poor behind. Does this really increase a global measure of happiness, or does it just increase happiness in the developed counties which profit?
Similarly, many people argue that distributive justice requires developed countries to allow immigrants from developing countries. This is compelling but misleading. Distributive justice is a strong moral theory which requires fair outcomes and a diminution of inequality. It does not, however, prescribe specific methods to achieve justice. Even if it did, immigration would not be on the list. The inequalities of birthplace luck should be remedied, but international movement doesn’t do anything to help. Imagine a hospital with low standards of care: we could move every infant born there to a new hospital immediately after birth, or we could improve the hospital itself. The best way in the long term to satisfy the requirements of distributive justice is not to move people away from bad conditions, but to fix the conditions themselves.
The last moral argument for immigration rests on the foundational right to individual autonomy. The right to autonomous movement is important on some scale, but it’s clearly not a universal moral imperative. I can’t freely move into my neighbor’s house, but no moral values are compromised with that restriction. As a matter of fact, I have no moral right to go onto any property which is not my own. There is a very strong analogy here to international movement. One is entitled to move freely within the public space of the country to which they belong—space which is essentially theirs. However, the right to freedom of movement does not allow them to move to another country, to which they have no claim.
Utilitarian arguments for immigration do not accurately take into account all sides of the calculation, and arguments of justice and autonomy do not actually require any kind of open borders. While prudent policymakers should look for ways to increase immigration, to make it more appealing to all parties, and to address global inequality, there is no moral obligation for them to open state borders.
Maxwell Huber
Social and Political Philosophy, Fall 2018
As a man in America, I rarely think about sexual assault. When I walk around in public, I don’t worry that a stranger might catcall, grope, or kidnap me. Not only don’t I worry about sexual assault, until recently I was unaware that most women in America live with constant anxiety of sexual assault and harassment. As a result, I never considered how my actions and words could affect women by contributing to that anxiety. The #MeToo movement began to change this. For a society that values free speech, we continue to suppress women’s ability to speak out and share their perspectives on the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment in our culture. Even as the #MeToo movement draws out women’s perspectives and experiences, it does so against persecution and a social tyranny attempting to suppress it. Men occupy the position of power in this tyranny which means that if we want to learn from female perspectives, we need to dismantle this tyranny to institute proper freedom of speech for women talking about sexual assault and harassment. Before dismantling women’s barriers to free speech, we have to understand the value of free speech as well as barriers to it. In “On Liberty”, J.S. Mill argues that while humans often make errors and misjudgments, humankind’s great virtue is that “He is capable of rectifying his mistakes by discussion and experience”. Our ability to correct our judgment in this way 1 therefore necessitates freedom of speech in order to make those corrections and progress as a society. Along with the value of free speech, Mill also reveals how persecution and social tyranny undermine free speech. Regarding persecution, Mill claims “the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes”. In short, 2 persecuting new opinions will suppress people from speaking out no matter the value of that opinion. Even in the absence of persecution, Mill describes how social pressures create a tyranny that discourages people from expressing opinions that challenge the orthodoxy. Essentially, free speech can’t exists if there are social costs to expressing an opinion. Addressing social tyranny leads Mill to propose that “If either of two opinions has a better claim than the other… to be encouraged and countenanced, it is the one which happens at the particular time and place to be in a minority”. Encouraging minority opinions counters social tyranny, thus making it vital to 3 free speech. Taking Mill’s ideas on barriers to free speech into account, it’s apparent that we have denied women the ability to freely speak about their perspectives and experiences with sexual assault and harassment. Foremost, we persecute women who come forward with experiences of sexual assault from powerful men. In high profile cases like Christine Blasey-Ford’s, the media
1 John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty,” in Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts , ed. Steven M. Cahn. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 757. 2 Ibid, 761. 3 Ibid, 771.
scours her personal life and broadcasts the most personal details of her worst experience while (male) trolls on Twitter torment and threaten her mercilessly. Beyond persecution, we maintain a social tyranny that discourages women from voicing their experience. Everytime we refuse to listen, claim she’s lying, or focus on how allegations affect the men, we signal to women that they are not welcome to freely speak about their experiences with sexual assault. With the threat of persecution and the power of social tyranny, it’s astounding and a testament to the courage of women that we’ve been able to hear these perspectives. The #MeToo movement will likely fail to teach men to correct our errors if we continue to withhold free speech from women trying to speak about sexual assault. In order to have the opportunity to hear women’s perspectives in a free discussion, men must challenge the social tyranny suppressing free speech for women. Regarding the persecution, we must stop participating ourselves and condemn those who do. On the other side, we need to enact Mill’s idea of encouraging minority opinions. This means treating allegations as serious and credible rather than denouncing them. Furthermore, men need to let the conversation stay focused on the women’s perspectives and experiences rather than on the how and why of an offender’s redemption. As a man, I know that the last one can be difficult. It’s easier for us to imagine ourselves in the positions of other men which means we often want to give them the benefit of the doubt. There are reasons to be hopeful even though women lack the ability to speak freely about sexual assault. That the #MeToo movement could happen at all indicates that the tyranny against women speaking out is weakening. Some people might object to the notion that we have to have this conversation between men and women before our culture can start treating women appropriately. To them, women’s perspectives and the way men should view their actions towards women is obvious. They expect that men already know how their actions affect women and simply ignore that knowledge. While this it likely true in extreme cases like rape, it skips a critical step in more common cases like inappropriate comments or coerced sex. In these cases, it’s not that men are acting in ways they know are wrong, but that they are acting in ways that they don’t know are wrong. And the reason they don’t realize what they’re doing is wrong is because they’ve never heard a woman’s perspective explain why it’s wrong. And that right there is precisely why we, especially men who want to change, need to give women the freedom to speak when it comes to sexual assault and harassment as part of the #MeToo movement.
Bibliography Mill, John Stuart. “On Liberty.” In Political Philosophy: The Essential Texts, edited by Steven M. Cahn, 747-807. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Justin Rohan
Social and Political Philosophy, Fall 2018
How do we measure the health of the US economy? While there are hundreds of varied and nuanced ways to answer this question, I will focus on three of the most common measures: GDP per capita[1], the unemployment rate[2], and the performance of the stock market[3]. These indicators cannot consider ever single element of the economy, rather they can only can paint a broad picture of the economic prospects for an average person. This fact raises the question of whether these indicators fail to account for any important aspects of the economy. I argue the answer to this question is yes. All of these measures fail to account for the differences in economic opportunity for different individuals. When considering the health of the economy, we have a responsibility to consider the economic prospects of all types of people and not just the prospects of an “average” person.
To form a philosophical basis for this argument, I will discuss Elizabeth Anderson’s essay, What’s the Point of Equality. In this essay, Anderson critiques liberalism’s current approach to egalitarianism and puts forth a new approach called democratic equality. Anderson states “[the] proper positive aim [of democratic equality] is not to ensure that everyone gets what they morally deserve, but to create a community in which people stand in relations of equality to others.[4]” Anderson’s main critique of egalitarianism is that it focuses too much on starting line equality and ignores the issues of inequality that arise throughout life. Democratic equality on the other hand stresses that all people should “stand in relations of equality” regardless of whether inequalities arise because of poor decisions or luck.
Anderson believes democratic equality can only be achieved if people are able to truly function as individuals. She defines three aspects to individual functioning: “as a human being, as a participant in a system of cooperative production, and as a citizen of a democratic state[5].” The ability to act as a “participant in a system of cooperative production” implies that people have the ability to participate in the economy unencumbered by external factors and receive a fair wage for their work. Anderson justifies the idea of equal participation with the previous assumption that all individuals have equal worth and thus have the ability to contribute to society. Her rationale for fair wages comes from her conception of the division of labor in the economy. Anderson explains how “each worker is as an agent for the people who consume their products and for the other workers who, in being thereby relieved from performing that role, become free to devote their talents to more productive activities[6].” Workers deserve to be fairly compensated for their work not simply because of the idea of fairness, but because the entire economy relies on their labor and benefits from their productivity.
Using Anderson’s concept of democratic equality we can better answer the question of why our current indicators—GPD per capita, unemployment, and the performance of the stock market—fail to accurately describe the health of the economy. Democratic equality stresses that all people should have economic opportunity; however, our current measures of economic success do not consider such notions of equality. Rather they report on the opportunity of an “average” individual. This approach to measuring the health of the economy fails to account for wealth disparities and disparities in economic opportunity between people of different races, genders, sexualities, and levels of physical/mental ability. Take for example the performance of the stock market. A 2016 Gallup survey found that only 23% of people making less than $30,000 a year owned stock, compared to 79% of people making about $75,000. Moreover, only 52% of all Americans were shown to own stock at all[7]. How can the stock market represent everyone’s economic prospects when only half of Americans own stock and there is such a strong correlation between income and stock ownership? Additionally, studies show income remains highly correlated with both gender[8] and race[9] in the US. Therefore reporting on an indicator that is only relevant to the wealthiest Americans means it is irrelevant to entire races/genders of people. In order for an economy to truly be healthy, it must meet Anderson’s idea of equal opportunity and not just provide opportunities to the “average” individual.
There are many other ways in which these indicators fail to accurately measure the country’s economic health. For instance, while Anderson believes that all individuals have an inherent worth to society, this hardly appears the case based on these economic indicators. Take for example, GDP per capita. While childcare services are counted in GDP, the work of stay-at-home-parents (SAHPs) is not included in GDP. This seems crazy considering the two groups do the same work. Moreover, as previously discussed, Anderson views the economy as a system of join production where an individual’s contribution to the economy is thought of as raising the productivity of everyone around them. Thus, the partners of SAHPs are not working in isolation, and benefit directly from the work of their stay-at-home partners. Similarly, SAHPs are considered to be “outside” the labor force and thus they are not included in unemployment figures.
The ability of an economy to incorporate disabled workers is another important aspect of its overall health. Consider the following three employment possibilities for disabled workers: they are able to successfully perform the job they want, their disability prevents them from performing their preferred profession, or they are unable to perform any job because of their disability. The unemployment rate considers workers in the first and second categories as being equally employed, while the third category is not considered as unemployed at all (these workers are “outside” the labor force). This approach ignores the loss of productivity caused by the lack of accessibility in the economy forcing disabled workers to take less productive jobs or to exit the labor force. For a measure to truly measure the health of the economy it must consider this loss of productivity due to unequal economic opportunities.
An easy criticism of my argument is to say that measures of equality do not equal measures of overall economic health. I would contend that it is incorrect to consider the health and equality of an economy as separate from one another. In ignoring equality of opportunity, economists ignore the disparities that exist among different groups in the economy, and fail to realize the economic worth of all citizens. Moreover, how society measures and discusses the health of the economy guides public discourse and helps shape policy. Thus it is logical for us to reevaluate which metrics we use to measure the health of the economy and embrace metrics that considers the economic reality not simply for the “average” person, but for a greater diversity of individuals.
Works Cited:
Anderson, Elizabeth S. “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics, vol. 109, no. 2, Jan. 1999, pp. 287-337., doi:10.1086/233897.
Graf, Nikki, et al. “Gender Pay Gap Has Narrowed, but Changed Little in Past Decade.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 9 Apr. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/09/gender-pay-gap-facts/.
Kochhar, Rakesh, and Anthony Cilluffo. “Racial and Ethnic Income Inequality in America: 5 Key Findings.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 12 July 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/12/key-findings-on-the-rise-in-income-inequality-within-americas-racial-and-ethnic-groups/.
McCarthy, Justin. “Just Over Half of Americans Own Stocks, Matching Record Low.” Gallup.com, 20 Apr. 2016, news.gallup.com/poll/190883/half-americans-own-stocks-matching-record-low.aspx.
[1] GDP per capita measures the total dollar value of goods produced in a country per person in that country
[2] The unemployment rate measures the percent of the labor force who are not currently working but are actively looking for a job.
[3]There are many different indices which track the performance of various US stock markers. When using the term in this paper, it is meant to refer to the most common indices such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500.
[4] Anderson, Elizabeth S. “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics, vol. 109, no. 2, Jan. 1999, pp. 289., doi:10.1086/233897.
[5] Ibid, 317.
[6] Ibid, 322.
[7]McCarthy, Justin. “Just Over Half of Americans Own Stocks, Matching Record Low.” Gallup.com, 20 Apr. 2016, news.gallup.com/poll/190883/half-americans-own-stocks-matching-record-low.aspx.
[8]Graf, Nikki, et al. “Gender Pay Gap Has Narrowed, but Changed Little in Past Decade.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 9 Apr. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/09/gender-pay-gap-facts/.
[9] Kochhar, Rakesh, and Anthony Cilluffo. “Racial and Ethnic Income Inequality in America: 5 Key Findings.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 12 July 2018, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/07/12/key-findings-on-the-rise-in-income-inequality-within-americas-racial-and-ethnic-groups/.
Sawyer Hammond
Social and Political Philosophy, Fall 2018
On November 6th, 2018, a huge victory was won. Not only was it a victory over the prison industrial complex but more importantly over white supremacy in our democracy. With the passing of Amendment 4 in Florida, a voting ban on released felons who had served their sentences was knocked down, paving the way for an estimated 1.2 million to regain their voting rights as soon as early 2019. While the restoration of felon’s voting rights is something to be celebrated all around, it’s particularly worth celebrating for the Black Floridians that are disproportionately imprisoned and stripped of their rights. Voter suppression is just one way that Black felons are mistreated, and just one way that Black Americans are discriminated against on a daily basis. This racist oppression is just one contemporary manifestation of the Racial Contract, the contract which relies on white supremacy that “underwrites the modern social contract and is continually being rewritten” (Mills, 1997, pg. 62).
The Racial Contract is the brain child of Jamaican philosopher Charles Mills. It serves as “a bridge between two areas now largely segregated from each other: on the one hand, the world of mainstream (i.e., white) ethics and political philosophy, preoccupied with discussions of justice and rights in the abstract, on the other hand, the world of Native American, African American, and Third and Fourth World political thought, historically focused on issues of conquest, imperialism, colonialism, white settlement, land rights, race and racism, slavery, Jim Crow, reparations…” (Mills, 1997, pg. 4) and more. Mills developed the Racial Contract while thinking about the biases that philosophers such as Kant and Hobbes carried with them in their work, and in turn their thinking on social contracts. Mills writes that “the ideal ‘social contract’ has been a central concept of Western political theory for understanding and evaluating the social world” (Mills, 1997, pg. 6) but the concept itself is built on a racial contract, which supposes that social contracts are only discussing white folks. He continues that “the most important political system of recent global history – the system of domination by which white people have historically ruled over, and in certain important ways, continue to rule over nonwhite people – is not seen as a political system at all” (Mills, 1997, pg. 2). The fact that it is unnamed is problematic to Mills because something unnamed is something unchecked, and white supremacy unnamed and unacknowledged allows for it to actively operate in the fabrics of society.
Florida’s ban on felons voting was an example of disguised white supremacy at work. With the passing of Amendment 4, it’s been eradicated, and an estimated 1.2 million voters are in the process of being added back onto the registry, 43% of whom are Black. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done for many. The Palm Beach Post published a report that outlined Florida’s racist treatment of voters and felons, particularly the recent treatment under current governor, Rick Scott. The Post alleged that Rick Scott grants clemency to white felons twice as often as Black felons (Ramadan, et. Al, 2018). That number is three times as often when comparing granting clemency for white men in comparison to Black men (Ramadan, et. Al, 2018). Additionally, Rick Scott has only granted clemency to a total of 412 felons since 2011. This stands in stark contrast to his predecessor, Charlie Crist, who granted clemency to 38,808 felons during his four-year tenure as governor of the Sunshine State. While even former republican governors have had clemency statistics that match the general prison population, Scott racist policies falls short of matching up to any population metrics. While 43% of the prison population released in Florida is Black, only 27% of those with voting rights restored by Scott are Black., While 38% of the prison population released are Black men, only 16% of those with their voting rights restored were Black men.
It’s no secret what Rick Scott is trying to accomplish here: his goal is to suppress black voters and carry Republicans through state-wide elections like the mayoral race we just witnessed. Scott is disproportionately dismissing the voting rights of black felons and under-delivering on his numbers because Black voters often vote Democrat. With an estimated 9% of Florida’s population being former felons, that’s a huge demographic that is out of the voter registry. On top of that, 43% of those released are Black. The numbers don’t lie, there is a large Democratic base locked up in Florida’s prisons or floating in a limbo, released from prison but without the civic right to cast votes for representatives in the government. Scott’s actions put him in a long line of government employees, choosing to focus on suppression and dismissal rather than developing policies that fit his agenda while serving the best interests of a majority of his statewide constituents.
No matter how despicable Scott’s actions and the felon ban on voting are, it should come as no surprise. Mills states that, “the Racial Contract is continually being rewritten to create different forms of the racial polity” (Mills, 1997, pg. 72). In order to maintain control, power has to shift forms. Racial minorities aren’t blind to the ways that these systems operate, so as certain discriminatory laws and practices are rolled back or outlawed once identified as perpetuating white supremacy, others are silently folded in as replacements. Whether admitted or not, the goal of such policy is exactly as Mills claims with the Racial Contract: for whites to stay on top of the social pyramid (Mills, 1997, pg. 30). This includes the use of “exclusionary juridical mechanisms” that go unchecked and continue to perpetuate racial inequality in the United States. Mills breaks down various contracts that make up the Racial Contract, including the Slavery Contract and the Jim Crow contract, but they aren’t limited to America. He argues that the Racial Contract began in Europe and spread through the colonization of the Americas as well as through occupation in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Today, we are tied up in more contracts than ever before. As climate change becomes increasingly violent, the climate change contract is going to prove to be monumental in generating Western accountability for the effects of climate violence. The contract that operates on the exploitation of cheap labor is only going to come under more scrutiny as developing nations grow and become independent. Domestically, we are on the precipice of shattering the Gerrymandering Contract which disenfranchises minority voters across the nation. Flint, Michigan is still without clean drinking water. Children are making the clothes we wear on our backs in America, earning mere pennies. We can bask in the victories like the passing of Amendment 4 in Florida, however we can’t lose sight of the larger, global workings of the racial contract that is actively and increasingly harming billions of nonwhite folks on a daily basis.
Works Cited
Mills, C. W. (1997). The racial contract. Cornell University Press.
Ramadan, L., Stucka, M., & Washington, W. (2018, October 26). Florida felon voting rights: Who got theirs back under Scott? Retrieved December 6, 2018, from https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20181025/florida-felon-voting-rights-who-got-theirs-back-under-scott
Alexandra Eby
Social and Political Philosophy, Fall 2018
On August 2nd of this year, the Trump administration successfully repealed the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Measure, which would have required states to track and reduce carbon emissions on the national highway system. On March 27, 2017, President Trump signed a resolution that repealed a regulation that would improve federal contractor compliance with labor laws. On February 3rd, 2017, Trump issued a memo that called for a review of a regulation that would require financial advisors who work with retirement assets to act in the best interest of their clients, and a little over a year later this fiduciary rule would be rendered null and void on appeal.
Many, and I mean many, more deregulatory measures by the Trump administration could be listed here, in arenas such as financial, environmental, educational, technological, pharmaceutical, etc. And even more arguments for the dangers they pose to everyday people could be listed as well. To take one niche yet illuminating example is the current push from republicans and lobbyists to deregulate the speed of poultry assembly lines previously set by the Obama administration. Their goal is to increase production beyond the current 140 birds per minute limit in order to increase profit. However, poultry assembly line employees work with dangerous tools and chemicals in handling the poultry and are already six times as likely to sustain a workplace injury than workers in other private sectors. According to NBC news, “Two poultry and meat processing plants, Tyson Foods and JBS/Pilgrim’s Pride, are among the 10 companies with the highest number of work-related amputations and hospitalizations, out of more than 14,000 companies reporting to the federal government.” Any increase in production rates would jeopardize these employee’s safety even more.
But taking a break from the overwhelming evidence of corporate unaccountability and the statistically known harms of deregulation, let us instead approach the topic from a new perspective. Economists and politicians have always been in tension over the laissez-faire vs. regulated market, but now I ask: how can ancient philosophy weigh in?
Though our modern, centralized economy was not exactly on Plato’s radar, what Plato spoke in no uncertain terms of was justice. More specifically, how it could exist in the individual, emphasizing that the polis must be just for the individual living in it to be. In The Republic, Plato writes through the character of Socrates and outlines this ideal, just polis: in charge are the rulers, who are the wisest of the citizens, in the military are the guardians, who are the most courageous, and in the general population is everyone else, who are to be temperate, docile, and graciously ruled over. Why does Plato argue for this strict aristocracy, that is the exact opposite of the idea of freedom we’ve been peddled by most of the “important” philosophers after? Because, he says, what justice requires of us is regulating ourselves, and letting the wisest part of us control the basest part- our desires. For example, in myself this plays out when instead of watching Netflix in my bed all day (my desire), I instead go for a run, do homework, and run errands (my reason). Plato also argues that in regulating yourself, you actually are more free, because you are not a slave to your worst self. And his point is deeply felt when my to-do list is empty rather than my Netflix queue at the end of an day, and I feel a sense of fulfillment and control over my life. Plato puts forth that this is true on the big stage, the polis, as well. In having the wisest individuals be rulers and regulate the military and the general populous, we all end up satisfied, safe, and ultimately free. And for him, that is justice.
While I would not argue for a full meritocracy in the same way, and there is a strong case that Plato was wrong in saying the majority of people in the polis are comparable to our basest desires, I believe his general principle that appetites should be regulated holds true and is especially applicable when you look at our current capitalist economy. Capitalism is a system that encourages constant growth and constant competition. If you are not gaining, you’re losing. This description is exactly what Plato meant when he spoke of how appetites operate: they are never satisfied, never self-regulating. However, he acknowledged it is an unalienable part that exists within us and within the polis. He writes in the Republic, “There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.” Likewise, our economy is at this point essential and deep-rooted in our country’s functioning. Therefore, Plato’s idea of how to keep that in check is especially relevant. Plato would say we must regulate the growth of our corporations, protect our consumers, and create accountability to operate according to the overall good. According to his philosophy, and as we’ve seen in our history, our appetites (capitalism) does not regulate itself. And unregulated, we are consumed by an economic system that overtakes our reason and enslaves us to the idea of satisfaction, putting aside all other values.
“Excess of liberty, whether it lies in state or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.” Plato’s words on liberty is a picture of our desires running unchecked, leading us to be slaves to them. A modern equivalent easy to compare to his words is unregulated capitalism, which knows no boundaries in growing, producing more, and always getting a better bottom line. Plato’s philosophy of regulating, both the soul and the polis, is a concept to keep in mind as we watch President Trump dismantle many regulations on the market and introduce further leniencies for corporations that have a history of harming the greater good.
Bibliography
“Brookings Deregulatory Tracker.” Brookings, Brookings, 18 Oct. 2018, www.brookings.edu/interactives/brookings-deregulatory-tracker/.
Khimm, Suzy. “Another Obama Decision Reversed? Now It’s about Food Safety.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group
Plato, et al. Republic. Harvard University Press, 2013.
Rothbard, Murray (2006). “It all began, as usual, with the Greeks”. Mises Institute. Retrieved 2006-06-22.