Keith Burgess-Jackson

C. D. Broad (1887-1971) on the Consistency of Ethical Egoism

The doctrine that each of us has a special obligation to benefit himself as such, may be called Ethical Egoism; and the doctrine that each of us has a special obligation to benefit others, as such, may be called Ethical Altruism.

Now a plain consequence of [Henry] Sidgwick's second principle is that both these doctrines are false, and that what may be called Ethical Neutralism is true. Suppose that, on a certain occasion, a person would increase the balance of good over evil in the world more by benefiting another, at the cost of foregoing a benefit or inflicting an injury on himself, than by any other action then open to him. Then it would be his duty to do this. Suppose that, on a certain other occasion, a person could increase that balance more by benefiting himself, at the cost of withholding a benefit from another or inflicting an injury on him, than by any other action then open to him. Then it would be his duty to do that.

I will now consider in some detail these three alternative doctrines about self and others. The first point which I will make is that neither Ethical Egoism nor Ethical Altruism can be rejected in limine as involving an internal inconsistency. Each of these doctrines might be held in milder or more extreme forms. It will suffice if I take the most extreme form of each, and show that it is internally coherent.

The extreme form of Ethical Egoism might be stated as follows. Each person is under a direct obligation to benefit himself as such. He is under no direct obligation to benefit any other person, though he will be under an indirect obligation to do this so far and only so far as that is the most efficient means available to him for benefiting himself. He is forbidden to benefit another person, if doing so will in in the long run be detrimental to himself.

Now suppose that A is an Ethical Egoist of this extreme kind. He can admit that, if a certain experience or a certain disposition of his own would be intrinsically good, a precisely similar experience or disposition of B's would caeteris paribus be also and equally good, i.e. he can admit Sidgwick's first principle. But he will assert that his duty is not to produce good experiences and good dispositions as such, without regard to the question of who will have them. A has an obligation to produce good experiences and good dispositions in A, and no direct obligation to produce them in B or in anyone else. Similarly, B has an obligation to produce good experiences and good dispositions in B, and no direct obligation to produce then in A or anyone else. A can admit this about B, and B can admit it about A. Plainly there is no internal inconsistency in this doctrine. What it is inconsistent with is Sidgwick's principle that each of us has an unqualified obligation to maximize the balance of good over evil in the lives and personalities of all whom he can affect, and to pay no regard to the question which particular individuals or classes of individuals these goods and evils will occur in, except in so far as that may affect the balance.

(C. D. Broad, "Self and Others," Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford University, 1953)

INXS, "What You Need" (1985)

Listen Like Thieves (1985).

Language

This writer needs a course in Critical Thinking. A measure can be a tax for one purpose but not a tax for another purpose. It's scandalous that someone needs to point this out to him.

From Today's New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Justices, by 5-4, Uphold Health Care Law; Roberts in Majority; Victory for Obama” (front page, June 29):

The world must be watching with amazement how slowly, in little increments, America is inching toward universal health care, which Bismarck introduced in Germany in the 1880s.

They must also be amazed reading that some justices even today, in the 21st century, consider medical care to be an optional commodity comparable to consumer goods like shoes or books that people buy depending on their taste and budget.

PAUL SAMAN
Asheville, N.C., June 29, 2012

To the Editor:

While the Supreme Court ruling in the health care case leaves the door open for new attacks on the federal government’s presumed power under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, it is unlikely we will see a federal law with the breadth or as controversial as health care reform any time soon. Until then, the court’s narrow escape from a troubling decision proves that the needs of the nation still trump politics, at least by a hair.

There is a legitimate question as to when government should step in to regulate the economy. But as we have seen several times in our history, capitalist fervor can have devastating consequences. While some prefer to live in a win-lose world, the more rational view is to find win-win solutions to our economic woes.

The court’s holding has, at least, slowed the conservative march backward. At the same time, any further efforts in Congress to force us to eat broccoli should now take pause over the limits of federal power in the era of the Roberts court.

BRUCE NEUMAN
Sag Harbor, N.Y., June 29, 2012

To the Editor:

As the author of a leading dictionary of tax definitions, I was astonished to see the word “tax” used to describe what is clearly a civil penalty. Taxes are there to raise revenues. As the renowned tax law professor and practitioner Martin D. Ginsburg (husband of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) once remarked to me, “Every time the Supreme Court touches the tax law, they crumb it up.” So true.

Unfortunately, Congress has also done its part to scramble the meaning of the Internal Revenue Code.

RICHARD A. WESTIN
Lexington, Ky., June 29, 2012

The writer is a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law.

To the Editor:

The claim (or fear) that the Commerce Clause has been gutted by a Supreme Court majority’s rejection of it as a valid basis for Congressional action on the Affordable Care Act neglects a basic rule of judicial precedents. As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. says, the court should look for a way to uphold the action of democratically elected legislatures. He and four others found that basis in the taxing power.

Five of the justices stated that the Commerce Clause could not support the act. But this opinion was “mere dictum.” In other words, the statute survived on other grounds. There was no need to reach the Commerce Clause argument.

Judges, including the five who opined that the Commerce Clause was inadequate, are not bound by that conclusion. They were in effect judicially musing aloud. They can change their minds without violating precedent. They may be unlikely to do so, and their view is likely to prevail, but that does not make the undoing of the Commerce Clause a foregone conclusion.

NANCY BROCKWAY
Boston, June 29, 2012 

The writer is a lawyer.

Note from KBJ: The final letter writer is too clever by half. Five of the nine justices said that the Commerce Clause does not empower Congress to mandate activity that is not otherwise being regulated. Of course these five justices can change their minds. Supreme Court justices can always change their minds. What she would not want to do is make the same losing argument to the present court.

Surgery

The surgery on my left collarbone went well. The operation took two and a half hours. It was supposed to take one and a half hours, but the surgeon discovered four pieces, one of which couldn't be attached to the plate and had, therefore, to be sutured to it. Recovery went well. I'm taking pain pills for the discomfort. The doctor says I must stay off the bike for eight weeks, though I can ride a stationary bike in the gym before then. I should be able to do the Hotter 'n Hell Hundred in Wichita Falls on 25 August. I haven't missed that rally since 1990.

Dilbert

Here.

Surgery

On the way to the hospital for surgery on my shattered collarbone. A plate will be inserted.

Starz, "Detroit Girls" (1976)

Starz (1976).

Owen J. Flanagan Jr on Sociobiology

E. O. Wilson behaves like Nietzsche's peacock who hides his true colors and calls them his pride when he speaks of the moral sphere. Wilson insists that human sociobiology has a lasting and revolutionary contribution to make to our understanding of ethics. Other than through the sporadic hints served up by the polemic which splotches his work, however, Wilson conceals any coherent account of what this contribution might be. The colorful, ephemeral splotches, the sort of intellectual flashing which Wilson excels in are informative, however, for they paint, when brought together, a picture of a theoretician committed to the naive view that sociobiology can largely explain human morality and immorality.

Wilson sees traditional modes of moral criticism and moral evaluation as "enabling devices" for the perpetuation of genes. He depicts particular moral beliefs, even whole normative ethical theories, as expressions of emotive preferences located in the hypothalamic-limbic system; and he characterizes the citation of "reasons," "motives," and "preferences" which are part and parcel of standard moral, causal, and justificatory discourse as sincere, but mistaken, citations of the real "causes" and the "reasons" for our actions which lie in the molecular world of our "selfish genes."

Wilson, in fact, denies that talk of "reasons," "principles," values," and the like could possibly provide genuine justifications for actions in the moral world because that world itself is not, on his analysis, genuine. Wilson is committed to the epiphenomenality of the moral world, and this in turn is because he is committed to the epiphenomenality of moral agents, of persons. A person he says "is just DNA's way of making more DNA" (1975, p.3). The human mind is just "an epiphenomenon of the neuronal machinery of the brain" (1978, p.195).

Wilson insists that "Morality has no other demonstrable function" than to promote actions which help protect and perpetuate human genetic material (1975, p. 167). He calls, therefore, for "ethics to be removed temporarily from the hands of the philosophers and biologized" (1975, p. 562), and he says that "we must explain ethics and ethical philosophers if not epistemology and epistemologists at all depths" (1975, p. 3). Wilson warns that while ethical theorists like Rawls and Nozick seem to offer rational arguments from principle they are actually just reporting private consultations with "the emotive centers of their own hypothalamic-limbic systems" (1975, p.7).

In what follows I try to show that the latter constellation of sociobiological claims, motivated as they are by a casual dismissal of the ontology which supports ethical discourse, an insensitivity to the needs of human communication and the actual causal and justificatory efficacy of such communication, and an embarrassing inability on Wilson's part to comprehend the logical implications of his own theory, are not worth taking seriously. I intend to make my case from inside ethics, by visiting the moral world, a visit which, I admit, cannot be made without making what seems to be a question begging assumption about the reality of moral discourse. But the reality of moral discourse, the mere fact that it occurs, is not in question even on Wilson's account. What Wilson denies is the actuality of the world to which we normally think that moral discourse refers, the world of responsibility, love, principle, value, anger, caring, anxiety, and reason. This "seeming" world, according to Wilson, is not a real and emergent property of our humanness, not a useful way of actually locating ourselves in the universe, but a chimera, a stand in for inclusive genetic fitness in the same way phlogiston was for oxygen. It is this belief of Wilson's which is naive, and possibly dangerous.

(Owen J. Flanagan Jr, "Is Morality Epiphenomenal? The Failure of the Sociobiological Reduction of Ethics," The Philosophical Forum 13 [winter-spring 1981-82]: 207-25, at 207-8 [italics in original])

From Today's Wall Street Journal

Bravo for Bjorn Lomborg's plea for Western elites to put their pet environmental concerns in proper context. As he notes, today's most lethal pollutants aren't industrial greenhouse gases but rather preindustrial dangers still prominent in developing countries, like "inhaling smoke from inefficient and dirty fuels such as dried animal dung, crop residues and wood." We in the developed world have cleansed our environment of these most-lethal pollutants by relying on the very "non-green" technologies that chic environmentalists, ignorant of history, portray as unprecedentedly horrific sources of pollution.

Industrial capitalism is history's greatest antipollutant. Asphalt and automobiles, for example, combine to cleanse our cities and towns of the bacteria and insects (and stench) that are inseparable from animal-powered transportation. The petroleum used to make asphalt and to power automobiles is also used to make plastic wrap that keeps our foods unpolluted and to produce pharmaceuticals that keep our bodies cleaner and healthier.

We need only look around our homes for compelling evidence—evidence in the form of the solid (i.e., non-thatched) roofs above our heads and solid (i.e., non-dirt) floors beneath our feet, potable water running from faucets, indoor plumbing, antibacterial ointments and antibiotics, refrigerators and freezers, laundry detergents and automatic washing machines, vacuum cleaners, light bulbs, gas cooktops and electric heat-pumps. The list of ways in which the developed world has been cleaned by capitalism is practically endless.

Prof. Donald J. Boudreaux

George Mason University

Fairfax, Va.

Dilbert

Here.

Law

The ObamaCare ruling should be announced in minutes. Here is my main prediction: The United States Supreme Court will either (1) strike down the individual mandate by a vote of 5 to 4 or (2) uphold the mandate by a vote of 6 to 3. The great unknown is how Anthony Kennedy will vote. Either way, John Roberts writes the majority opinion. I have no prediction about the other issues involved in the case, such as severability and Medicaid funding. Here are some subsidiary predictions: (1) At least seven of the nine justices will write opinions. This is an important case about the scope and limits of the Commerce Power. Each justice will want to address those limits by setting forth a coherent theory. (2) The opinions, in total, will reach 300 pages.

Addendum: Conservatives won the battle but lost the war. The Court ruled, 5-4, that the individual mandate violates the Commerce Clause. That is an important victory. Unfortunately, Chief Justice John Roberts found another basis—the taxing power—on which to uphold the mandate. There were four opinions rather than the seven or more I predicted: by Justices Roberts, Ginsburg, Scalia, and Thomas. Roberts did indeed write the majority opinion. The opinions totaled 193 pages, not the 300 I predicted.

Addendum 2: I thought of a more perspicuous way to put it. The Court ruled, 5-4, that the individual mandate, construed as a mandate, is unconstitutional (under the Commerce Clause), but that, construed as a tax, it is constitutional (under the Tax Clause). My prediction that the mandate would be struck down was, in retrospect, ambiguous. Was I predicting that the mandate would be struck down simpliciter, or only that it would be struck down as a mandate under the Commerce Clause? The answer is that I didn't envisage any other basis on which to strike it down. It was either strike it down as a violation of the Commerce Clause or don't strike it down at all. Bottom line: The ruling pleases me as a jurisprudential matter, since it sets clear limits to Congress's Commerce Power. It disappoints me as a political matter, since it allows the "mandate," and therefore the bill as a whole, to stand. I take heart from the fact that the matter hasn't been disposed of. Americans very much dislike ObamaCare, according to surveys. Today's ruling may motivate them to throw Democrats out of office. If we conservatives get a Republican White House and Congress this fall, we'll get a repeal of ObamaCare and a clean slate on which to write health reform. If this happens, then we conservatives will have won the battle and the war.

Addendum 3: Many people are confused by Chief Justice John Roberts's ruling. "I thought he was a conservative!" Actually, the confusion reflects an inability to distinguish between different types of conservatism. Roberts is a judicial conservative. Today's ruling, which found constitutional grounds to uphold an act of Congress, reflects that philosophy. Roberts is not (or not necessarily) a political conservative. In other words, today's ruling by Roberts is conservative in one sense (judicial) but not in another (political). If we fail to distinguish these two senses, we are bound to confuse ourselves.

Music

The 15 greatest showmen/frontmen in rock history (in no particular order):

• Alice Cooper
• Robert Plant
• Freddie Mercury
• David Bowie
• Peter Gabriel
• Paul Stanley
• David Lee Roth
• Iggy Pop
• Stephen Tyler
• Roger Daltrey
• Alex Harvey
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Ian Anderson
• Bon Scott
• Jon Anderson

What say you?

Law, Part 2

Yuval Levin comments on the arrogance of progressives.

Journalism

I'm glad to see that CNN's ratings are plummeting. The network is biased in favor of progressivism and against conservatism. The bias isn't obvious, as it is with MSNBC, but it's there. Anderson Cooper's show should be renamed "All Gay, All the Time," or perhaps "I'm Gay, and I'm Not Going to Let You Forget It." Why do homosexuals think the rest of us care about what they do in their bedrooms? Keep your sexuality and sexual proclivities to yourself!

Law

Here is a New York Times article about the United States Supreme Court, some of whose members are quite old.

Cycling

This past Saturday, in Waxahachie, Texas, I did my 12th bike rally of the year and my 528th overall. The rally, known as the Cow Creek Country Classic, is in its 26th year. This was my 20th of the past 23. Several of my friends showed up (click the image to enlarge) and everyone was in a good mood at the start. I vacillated between riding 101 miles and riding 78 miles. I knew it would be brutally hot at the finish, but I also knew that if I slowed my pace to about 16 miles per hour, I could complete the long course, which would make me feel good afterward. None of my friends was game for 101, but that was okay, because I wanted to be out by myself, riding at my own pace.

By the time I reached the rest stop at 34 miles, where Julius and Joe were waiting, I was feeling good and had decided to ride 101 miles. I told Joe to go ahead of me, as Julius had, but he insisted on riding with me. Phil eventually caught up as well. Then Phil got dropped again as Joe and I fought a headwind near Milford. A man we didn't know sat on our wheel for a few miles as we took turns pulling. Once, when Joe went to the front, the man went with him, settling in between us. I got on his wheel. Almost immediately, he hit Joe's rear wheel, which threw his (the stranger's) bike to the left. This caused the stranger's rear wheel to hit my front wheel, which in turn threw me to the ground. All of this happened at over 20 miles per hour.

The crash, if I may say so, was horrific. I knew I was going down as soon as I saw his wheel jink to the left, but could do nothing to stop it or steel myself for it. My left shoulder and head hit the pavement at high speed. (Someone told me that my helmet, which was left at the scene, is cracked.) I could feel my body sliding on the rough road. (That explains the road rash on my left wrist, shoulder, chest, hip, and leg.) Finally, I came to a stop. I couldn't breathe. I moaned loadly, bordering, I suppose, on screaming. Joe and the stranger came to my assistance. They got me to the side of the road, in a sitting position, with my feet in the grass. Soon, as I tried to (1) keep from passing out and (2) get my breathing under control, I heard other voices. One of them, apparently, was that of a medical technician. I used Joe's cellphone to call Katherine, who didn't answer. (Joe later got through to her.) For some reason, perhaps the brightness of the sun (or dripping perspiration), I couldn't open my eyes. My glasses fell off. People kept talking to me as I tried to stay conscious.

You get the picture. It was awful. Eventually, I was helped to my feet. Someone put me into a truck with air conditioning, which made things better. I could open my eyes. I felt my collarbone, which was obviously broken. A sharp point of the broken bone threatened to break through the skin. Someone put a sling on my arm. Joe and Phil did all they could do for me. The stranger, they said, left shortly after the accident. I don't blame him; there was nothing else for him to do once the experts arrived. I do find it ironic that, even though the accident was his fault, his life didn't miss a beat, while I, who was faultless, have my life disrupted.

I'm still in pain, more than four days later. I go in for surgery Friday morning to have a plate inserted in my shoulder. It will connect the broken parts of my collarbone so that it heals properly. I've been taking pain pills since visiting the emergency room in Waxahachie. The emergency-room doctor told me that "they don't set broken collarbones anymore," which I knew was false. Certainly my broken bone wasn't going to heal on its own. The two parts aren't even touching! I should sue the bastard. If I have any complications, I will.

Thus ended a promising bike rally. Since I can't ride for eight weeks, according to my orthopedist, I will have to miss several other rallies as well (not to mention refrain from running, which will drive me crazy). I ended up with 54.43 miles at an average speed of 16.31 miles per hour. (Elapsed time = 3:20:13.) Joe and Phil went on to complete the 78-mile course. Later, they met Katherine and me in the emergency room as I was being released. The four of us went to Taco Bell, since I was starving. The official high temperature for the day was 97º. The average wind speed was 6.1 miles per hour, with gusts to 14. My average heart rate was 119 and my maximum 154. I burned 3,115 calories. My top speed for the ride was 32.7 miles per hour.

To add insult to injury, I, a young buck of 55, was described by the medical technician on the scene of the accident as "an elderly gentleman." Unfortunately, Joe heard this. I will never hear the end of it.

Addendum: Sad to say, but there was another serious accident during the rally. When I arrived at a bridge at about 35 miles, I found at least two emergency vehicles in the road, with their lights flashing. A rider was immobilized on a stretcher. He looked unconscious. We had to dismount our bikes and walk past, since the road was narrow. I later learned that this rider went to the same emergency room as I did, only earlier. He had a broken collarbone, a broken arm, and facial injuries. Apparently, he blew a tire at high speed.

Addendum 2: There was a third accident, this one involving our friend Mike, who was doing a short course. Joe tells me that Mike hit a curb at a rest stop and went head over heels. I hope you're doing well, Mike!

Tejas

Garry Wills hates Texas because it's a manly state and he's effeminate.

Cycling

Johnny Hoogerland can't get no satisfaction.

Baseball

Disrespecting the game.