A few weeks ago, President Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address, in which he urged Congress to raise the national minimum wage to $10.10. This proposal was quickly derided by the American right as another socialist attempt to redistribute wealth.
Practically speaking, I understand the liberal desire to shy away from the use of un-American phrases such as “wealth redistribution.” But despite the rhetorical drawback of this characterization, this position is easily morally defensible.
One hundred dollars in the hands of a homeless man certainly generates more happiness than it would in the hands of Bill Gates. If we believe a happier society to be a “better” society, then it’s an empirical matter to determine the optimal amount of wealth redistribution. Contrastingly, politically conservative individuals claim the non-negotiable right to the fruits of one’s labor.
The current controversy surrounding President Obama’s proposal has merely highlighted an underlying ongoing problem.
In the context of American politics, nearly all arguments are grounded in two attractive but often conflicting, moral systems: the preservation of rights and the maximization of the social good. It shouldn’t surprise us when we encounter intractable political disagreement. We can justify our views through these two contradictory principles, and nearly all individuals will invoke each of them at least once in the justification of their political positions.
This country was founded on primarily libertarian principles in line with John Locke’s work on the voluntary nature of social contract theory. In Locke’s work, government existed only through the continual consent of the governed, and laws were passed with the express purpose of preserving minimalist natural rights. Apart from the massively unequal distribution of rights away from minorities and women, late eighteenth-century America is probably the closest any society has ever come to the idealized society mentioned in Robert Nozick’s book, “Anarchy, State and Utopia.” The philosopher and political theorist antithetically paralleled the Marxist theory of justice, writing, “From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen.”
For better or for worse, this is not the America of today. What were once considered to be unalienable personal liberties have been eroded in the name of the social good. This utilitarian principle of maximizing the welfare of our society is used to justify countless government invasions of personal liberty, from NSA spying to stop-and-frisk to socialized medicine.
Political parties appeal to each principle when it suits them. Republicans defend the right to one’s own money while allowing torture in the name of national security. Democrats defend a woman’s right to choose while arguing that the poor would benefit if given the wealth of others. Of course, politicians attempt to phrase their position in terms of both principles in order to attract more voters. The purported social benefits of trickle-down economics as well as the right of the poor to a certain standard of living are both relevant examples. Rarely do these secondary arguments contribute to the motivating force of the position. Their sole purpose is to make it more palatable to the opposition.
Americans disagree not only on the means by which their government should achieve its ends but also on the ends themselves. Unless they’ve thought seriously about ethics and philosophy, most individuals’ intuitions regarding morality are at this superficial level. This is natural, as our emotions regarding issues like gun rights, drug prohibition, and same-sex marriage are much more tangible than those regarding abstract ethical principles.
It’s not possible to resolve a conflict of principles by debating the specific issues to which they apply. These debates will always be unproductive, because they will not address the underlying conflict of principles that is responsible for the apparent political disagreement. This is a common case of individuals unintentionally — and unknowingly — talking past one another rather than engaging with the actual issue.
Most people have no system for determining when each principle applies, and in what way. If an individual attempted to retroactively create a system using these two principles that would fit all of his intuitions regarding specific issues, he would certainly run into logical inconsistency. Further, this process would be entirely ad hoc. When we solve math problems we don’t find intuitive answers and then make up arbitrary steps to justify them. Rather, we make an intuitive set of simple rules first and examine the consequences that follow. Our treatment of ethics should work similarly.
We shouldn’t simply ask, “which policies are moral?” so much as, “what principles make a policy moral?” Obtaining a satisfactory answer to the former won’t be possible without first coming to terms with the latter. Americans should consider these fundamental principles when deciding their stances on political issues. For instance, under what circumstances should government restrict individuals’ autonomy over their own actions? Do people have control over and bear responsibility for their own well-being? What about the well-being of the other conscious entities around them or the potentially conscious entities within them?
If the history of the study of ethics is at all indicative of future progress, then these disagreements of principle will likely be just as stubborn as those of specific policies. But if we’re going to rely solely on our intuitions to try to effectuate important social, political and economic decisions, let’s at least do it in a logical manner.
Andrew Powers ’15 can be reached at andrew_powers@brown.edu.
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