The Myth of Ethical Socialism

“The trouble with the social-democratic state is that, when government does too much, nobody else does much of anything.”

–Mark Steyn, America Alone (126)

Sometimes arguing against left-wingers gets really frustrating. Take Jack Layton for example; he sounds really good explaining what he’s going to do for the little guy: less taxes, better childcare, more social programs, more foreign aid, more money for healthcare, responsible pollution management, more of pretty much everything. And when one of the other parties has a good idea? Oh well, he’ll just have to do that too. Who’s going to pay for it all? It’s no biggie; he’ll just deal out his special punishment to those evil large corporations. Too bad they won’t stand still and take it. But who votes for him? Are they all just shortsighted? Nope. Not really. They’re usually just nice people trying to help everybody out. Maybe they felt a twinge of guilt as they walked by some homeless fellow shivering on the street corner, and figured “hey, I can’t do anything about it without going hungry myself, but those evil corporations and rich people… would it really be such a hardship if they had trouble making their next Ferrari payment? Maybe they should switch to the bargain caviar.”

But there’s really kind’ve a significant assumption here isn’t there? Something like: “hey, it’s hard for me to do much; so I’ll make a difference by forcing those who can…”, and “good for me! I might not have much cash, but I can be a good person by making sure the government takes care of things.” But I’m not sure this is really very impressive at all. Do people really deserve moral credit for the good perpetrated by the government? When Canada sends aid packages to Afghanistan, should I pat myself on the back? Well, maybe a little. If you pay your taxes, then I suppose you are somewhat responsible for the good things your country does. You elected them too, so there’s another point in your favor. But is paying taxes which are eventually used to set up a soup kitchen as good as volunteering to help run it?

What about those evil conservatives. They don’t seem to want to reallocate the wealth at all. They’re content with the barest minimum of publicly funded social programs. Why, I bet they’d prefer not to be responsible for charity at all. Where does the little guy figure into all of this? Are poor people supposed to be the stepping stones across the muddy path to individual wealth? Are we just going to let the rich squander their resources on fast cars, big houses and whatever ephemeral pleasures should catch their eyes?

With these concerns in mind, it seems like anyone not hoping on the socialist bandwagon is just an irresponsible prick who doesn’t care about anyone but themselves. So what happens in conservative countries? Is everyone hierarchically divided into haves and have not’s?
I think we should take the US as our case in point. Of the advanced democracies, it is clearly the most conservative. Curiously though, without any of the elaborate social programs hogging the tax funds, it also seems to enjoy one of the very highest qualities of life –though most socialists will argue this point on the grounds that it doesn’t have things like public health care (never mind that in countries like Canada that do, we often can’t get access to it (remember the Albertan woman who had to be flown to Montana to give birth because there were no beds?...even in SK or BC!)). However, upon initial consideration it might seem to be a great example of capitalist greed, since, per capita, the US gives way less money to foreign aid than anyone else in the G8. However, this objection quickly flips the other way once you consider that the contributions by private US citizens are (much) larger than anybody else’s. It seems like we have some contradictory evidence going on here. In a country where capitalism runs rampant, and social programs are minimal, we have an example of extremely charitable populace. It almost seems like those evil conservative bastards make charitable contributions all on their own with hardly any government prodding at all. But those Americans… maybe they’re just confused. Once they wake up and realize that the proper thing to do is to hand over their cash to the government, who can handle things properly and establish a proper socialist state, well then they would have a truly enviable system. As it is, they must just be lucky.

In Alberta, we have much the same thing going on. We have lots of cash due to an oil boom, so it’s despite our conservatism that we have developed such a name for charity (take the privately funded homeless shelter in downtown Calgary). So clearly we’re a bad example too, a victim of fortuitous circumstances.

But wait a minute. Just how much moral credit do we get from participating in a socialist state? If it’s the government that redistributes money to the poor, aren’t the tax payer removed from the action? In fact, isn’t it the case that most people kind’ve resent taxation? It doesn’t seem particularly moral if the cash has to be pried out of people’s hands. If anything, if the donation isn’t autonomous and voluntary, then their contribution should be viewed as amoral. This seems much like a vandal doing community service as punishment. We don’t pat him on the back and tell him what nice person he is for cleaning up the graffiti on a bus stop. Since he isn’t there by choice, no merit is associated with his actions even though they seem beneficial. Much the same seems to be the case here.

If we truly want to be good guys, then what we need is a government which encourages moral activity. Not one that does it for us. I don’t care if charitable donations are rewarded by a “FREE! Magazine subscription”, as long as they remain the autonomous choice of private individual they still deserve some moral credit. It doesn’t seem reasonable to expect to establish an environment of morality when every charitable activity is associated with forced taxation.

A Quick Intro to Applied Moral Reasoning

I was thinking about the way I’ve been examining moral issues and decided it looked an awful lot like the approaches advocated by Hare and Rawls. The main idea is to give radically divergent moralities equal consideration in an attempt to resolve moral dilemmas; essentially dissolving the rift between utilitarian and categorical moralities. What follows is an attempted introduction to their theories.
There are two major categories in ethical reasoning into which all rational ethical theories belong, namely categorical morality (most religions, Kantians, emotivists, moral realists etc.) and utilitarian varieties (good of the many outweighs the good of the few). Some, like Hare’s rational approach to ethics, have their foot in both camps, but no theory fails to belong to one or the other. The process of applied ethics, however, really doesn’t subscribe to any particular meta-ethical framework. An ethicist solving actual moral dilemmas might use one theory to justify her decision, but the justification is insufficient if the evidence is only of one type. For example, an ethicist espousing a utilitarian ethical theory might argue that torture should be allowed in cases where the majority stands to benefit. Maybe in the case where a terrorist who is suspected of involvement in an impending WMD plot is arrested and through torture we can hope to acquire information which could save the lives of thousands of people. However, merely arguing the pragmatic consequences of this action does not justify its implementation, because competing categorical moral theories –such as the notion of human rights—do not view consequences as legitimate moral indicators.
This raises the question “what counts as universal justification?” If operating from within an ethical framework is insufficient to insure adequate security for a particular view, then can there be any consensus? Obviously there is no theory which explains . But one of the fundamental ways in which we can measure agreement, is by checking to see if an action proscribed by a moral theory is in reflective equilibrium with our moral intuitions. We could at once be convinced that torture is horrible, yet somewhat convinced that its use is justified in situations such as the one above, so we might examine a particular case and see if our moral theory and our intuitions are in agreement. This, or course, can quickly digress into an emotivist (the technical term for “emotional”) approach to ethics, because if we practice this case by case, then our emotions become the only really important moral indicators and morality thinking becomes a fly by night affair. This need for continuity is why, despite initial impressions, meta-ethics does actually play a role in everyday moral thinking.
There are two modern theories of ethics which I think work particularly well for generating valid moral considerations. The first is Rawls’ theory of justice. The basic operating principle of this theory is the proposed “original position”. Instead of the classical social contract of Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke, Rawls advocated a hypothetical situation in which everybody is involved in picking a theory of social interaction from behind a “veil of ignorance”; i.e. without knowing what position in society in which they will find themselves. Since nobody knows whether he or she is a millionaire or a handicapped, mentally retarded single mother of three, each has a reason to ensure the wellbeing of all members of society.
While initially intended as a guide to the construction of a just society, it has become a popular tool in other moral considerations as well. Rawls personally didn’t like it to be used in international contexts, but it is easy to see how it could be used in this way. Instead of not knowing what position one might find oneself within society, one could consider not know what society to which one might belong. Certainly this does not generate moral obligations (Rawls’ contention) because members of other societies are not expected to reciprocate. We can, however, generate a certain amount of human obligations, but these will not be as involved as the duties owned to members of the same society. Personally, I like Rawls approach to moral thinking, because it emphasizes consideration of other viewpoints. There have been objections, however, on the grounds that picking moral obligations based on personal interest in the original position is not really moral and that ignorance of actual circumstance does not generate binding obligations in the actual world… which leads into the other moral theory.
Hare’s “rational approach to ethics” compares desires in terms of intensity to determine moral obligations. Therefore, it is wrong to kill someone because (chances are) their desire to live is stronger than your desire to kill. This part of his moral theory isn’t really developmental, since it relies on the feelings, desires and intuitions we already have, but it does generate a method to rationally consider morally relevant facts. Just like Rawls, Hare intends to emphasize consideration of other viewpoints, and it is this feature which I think indicates universally relevant moral factors, which, in turn can generate universal justification for a particular moral conviction.
Both theories evolved out of utilitarianism, but I think this is trivial since the important factor is not ‘the good’ itself, but what people perceive as the good. Therefore, although someone’s reason for objecting to abortion might have categorical moral justification, this plays no part in forming society’s ethical rule; rather it is the strength of their conviction which is the important factor. This can claim universality because the origins and justification of a person’s moral judgment becomes trivial. In this way, it avoids some of the inherent difficulties of any attempt at a “principled” examination of other views. Consensus (or compromise) in these conditions is perhaps not ultimately moral, but should at least be a best case alternative. Curiously, when expressed as a moral maxim, it sounds exactly like the Golden Rule.