Today, a German judge effectively outlawed the circumcision of german minors, ruling that the procedure amounted to "bodily harm" and "contravenes the right to choose religion later in life". The judge and his ruling are wrong on both accounts.
There are a variety of possible positions that a state might assume on this issue: ban the procedure outright, require parents to opt-in, require parents to opt-out, or to mandate the procedure. As A. M. Viens argues, generally but not always, it is appropriate to defer to parents on the issue of the well-being of their children. One notable exception is the issue of vaccination; the choice by a few parents to forgo their children's vaccination endagers the surrounding population while there is no significant risk involved in vaccination. For a ban on such a medical procedure to be justified, there would need to be compelling evidence that there is no medical benefit or that the medical risks outweighed the medical benefits. In the case where the medical outcome is unclear, the only moral policy is to defer to the wisdom of a child's parents.
I'm going to leave the medical details at the bottom in case you want to take my word for it or don't feel like reading about circumcision in detail. The conclusion about medical risks/benefits is pretty clear, though. There are cases in which male circumcision provides substantial medical benefits, most significantly where there is a high risk of HIV among the heterosexual male population. There are also cases where male circumcision involves significant risks, such as the circumcision of premature infants and older boys, and extreme risks, such as when the procedure is performed by someone other than a trained medical professional.
As far as religious choice goes, I am aware of no situations where someone has been denied admittance to a religion on the basis of that person's circumcision. So, unless I've overlooked something, it seems bizarre to suggest that circumcision contravenes ones right to choose religion later in life. However, due to the increased risk of undergoing the procedure later in life, in cases where the state forbids infant circumcision, the state actually creates a barrier to particular choices of religion, though I'm not sure this should effect legal consideration.
So, on balance, the only moral and just policies seem to be those policies that (A) carefully regulate the practice and ensure that it is performed safely by trained medical professionals with minimal risk; (B) encourage or make standard the procedure in situations where it is safe and there is a significant public health benefit; and (C) allow or require the wisdom of parents and medical professionals to intervene in cases where the procedure does not meet criteria (B).
The fact that this is a judicial precedent and that it regards the circumcision of a 4-year old boy means that it could very likely not result in a de facto ban on infant male circumcision, despite what we are hearing from the talking heads. But, to the extent to which the decision of this judge affects the circumcision of infant boys, it ignores strong medical and scientific results and contravenes, not the ability for adults to freely choose religion, but the moral duty of parents and doctors to decide in favor of the well-being of their children and patients.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Why liberals are scared of SCOTUS and you should be too.
I think campaign finance is of the highest importance, though it's also tedious and disappointing to analyze. One important thing to understand is how and when campaign contributions affect the outcomes of elections.
The common misunderstanding is that the function of democracy is exclusively proactive, that, individually or in aggregate, voters will make rational, informed decisions in their best interest. But elections also serve a reactive role, to modify the incentives for those who rule as they rule. The distinction is subtle but important. If I reduce the security of voters' property rights, I will be voted out of office, so I won't do that no matter to what party I belong or why I feel I was elected.
The common misunderstanding is that the function of democracy is exclusively proactive, that, individually or in aggregate, voters will make rational, informed decisions in their best interest. But elections also serve a reactive role, to modify the incentives for those who rule as they rule. The distinction is subtle but important. If I reduce the security of voters' property rights, I will be voted out of office, so I won't do that no matter to what party I belong or why I feel I was elected.
The same goes for campaign contributions. There is a proactive role: if I am a wealthy hedge fund manager and I am not burdened with generous intentions, I will contribute to exactly the politicians (or, more accurately the political institutions) I feel are most likely to give me the best outcomes. But there is also the reactive role: if I am a politician and I know that hedge fund managers are unlikely to buy ads for me after I raise taxes on the wealthy, then I'm going to be marginally less likely to do that relative to a world free of hedge fund managers.
So whether or not they ask for it, any politician who has ever received contributions from any interest, has had their incentives shifted by the campaign contributions they receive. This is why Wall-Street's heavy financial support of Obama during the 2008 crisis after which new regulation of Wall Street would be legislated, made my stomach turn.
Absent any campaign contributions, the interests of the voters are the primary source of incentives for politicians, both as politicians run for office and as they govern. Campaign contributions significantly alter these incentives because they come (at least disproportionately) from a very specific group of people, the economic elite.
As I understand it, the primary role of a political system is to control in whose interest the political elite govern. Or, to set up a network of incentives for the rulers. To the extent that we want the economic elite to be more empowered than the majority of americans, things like the Citizens United ruling are a good thing. But to the extent that we believe every american should be equally empowered, it is a failure. Even more so, it is a failure that results in a vicious circle of failure. As the economic elite are given more weight to affect the incentives of politicians, policy is more likely than before to solidify and augment the power of this very elite.
Just to take one example, Sheldon Adelson, whose annual income is roughly $7 billion*, has said he is willing to donate something like $100 million to the presidential race this year ( McCain/Palin's total 2008 direct budget was $85 million). As long as he is able to affect the political landscape such that whoever wins lowers his overall tax rate by 1.5% of his income, he gets a complete return on his investment in just one year. And this may be done by donating to someone who supports such a tax policy, or by incentivizing the opposition to do so in the hopes of getting his money the next time around.
Anyway, this is why liberals are scared. Because while deregulation and lower taxation may be painted in terms favorable to individual liberties in general, they disproportionately favor the liberties of individuals who have a whole lot already.
*In the original post, I referred to Adelson's net worth as being taxable and equal to $3.4 billion. That was incorrect on multiple levels. Thanks goes to Patrick for spotting the error.
Anyway, this is why liberals are scared. Because while deregulation and lower taxation may be painted in terms favorable to individual liberties in general, they disproportionately favor the liberties of individuals who have a whole lot already.
*In the original post, I referred to Adelson's net worth as being taxable and equal to $3.4 billion. That was incorrect on multiple levels. Thanks goes to Patrick for spotting the error.
Friday, June 22, 2012
A Statist Summer
This Summer I've been doing some research on broad strategies for positive societal progress.
In Robert Zubrin's Merchant's of Despair, Zubrin offers a critique of anti-humanism, or the institutions and philosophies that prioritize the well-being of humans below other goals such as environmentalism. Zubrin offers, to my eyes, a new form of humanism which is much more practical in its pursuit of human well-being at the expense of almost everything else (DDT may not be so bad after all if it eliminates major disease vectors and some of history's most vigorous diseases at the small cost of a few soft bird eggs).
Paul Krugman in End this Depression Now argues that empirical economic theory, including old-school Keynesianism, provides us with all the tools we need to get past the current economic depression, if only our Global elites weren't stuck on morality-based austerity. He also offers an outline of how the ruling elites might have gotten to be so misguided: inequality. Krugman argues that extreme inequality has thrown off the balance of political discourse between policy for the general population and policy for the very wealthy.
Where Krugman wrote a few passages on the causes of inequality and the negative outcomes that result from it, Chris Hayes has written a book on it: his debut, Twilight of the Elites. Hayes argues that meritocracy, for all of it's virtues, contains vicious circles which, if left unchecked, tend to create a ruling elite doomed to fail. This phenomenon of failure is caused primarily by an increase of social distance between the ruling elite, selected by meritocratic institutions, and those who are ruled. This increased social distance reduces the costs of failed policy and of rigging the system. Chris Hayes introduces the valuable ideas of the fail decade (2000-2010) and fractal inequality, wherein each fractionally smaller division of the US population, there is a similar distance between economic status.
Stephen Pinker's deep tome of optimism, Better Angels of Our Nature, is as valuable as it is large. Pinker's argument is that we are unequivocally better as a society now than we were at any time previously. Pinker's analysis might be called fractal progress, as each fractionally smaller span of time (The last 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years) tell the story of similar levels of societal benefit. Pinker argues that this phenomenon is the result of an expansion of the circle of concern and an the collectivisation of the enforcement of good behavior.
Finally, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson seek to account for the stark contrast (and its relative persistance) between rich and poor nations with Why Nations Fail. Their thesis is both somewhat new and somewhat obvious: economic and political institutions (and not geography, culture, religion, or race) are the primary causes of the success and failure of nations. Many factors influence the development of such institutions, primarily, the two types of institutions, extractive and inclusive, tend to reinforce and magnify similar institutions in vicious (or virtuous) circles. But, also importantly, exogenous events have the capacity to create inflection points where institutional drift may change courses and inclusive institutions may begin to overcome the perverse incentives provided by extractive ones (or vice versa).
I have a few friends with whom I like to discuss things-that-seem-important-at-the-time. Somehow, all of them are either explicitly anarchists or at least have anarchist tendencies. If it wasn't obvious from my summaries, each of the books I've been reading more or less presuppose a state and then seeks to justify a vision of what sort of state works best or how a state might be improved. This makes conversations somewhat difficult. My project for the next little while will be to build (or find) an argument for statism.
In Robert Zubrin's Merchant's of Despair, Zubrin offers a critique of anti-humanism, or the institutions and philosophies that prioritize the well-being of humans below other goals such as environmentalism. Zubrin offers, to my eyes, a new form of humanism which is much more practical in its pursuit of human well-being at the expense of almost everything else (DDT may not be so bad after all if it eliminates major disease vectors and some of history's most vigorous diseases at the small cost of a few soft bird eggs).
Paul Krugman in End this Depression Now argues that empirical economic theory, including old-school Keynesianism, provides us with all the tools we need to get past the current economic depression, if only our Global elites weren't stuck on morality-based austerity. He also offers an outline of how the ruling elites might have gotten to be so misguided: inequality. Krugman argues that extreme inequality has thrown off the balance of political discourse between policy for the general population and policy for the very wealthy.
Where Krugman wrote a few passages on the causes of inequality and the negative outcomes that result from it, Chris Hayes has written a book on it: his debut, Twilight of the Elites. Hayes argues that meritocracy, for all of it's virtues, contains vicious circles which, if left unchecked, tend to create a ruling elite doomed to fail. This phenomenon of failure is caused primarily by an increase of social distance between the ruling elite, selected by meritocratic institutions, and those who are ruled. This increased social distance reduces the costs of failed policy and of rigging the system. Chris Hayes introduces the valuable ideas of the fail decade (2000-2010) and fractal inequality, wherein each fractionally smaller division of the US population, there is a similar distance between economic status.
Stephen Pinker's deep tome of optimism, Better Angels of Our Nature, is as valuable as it is large. Pinker's argument is that we are unequivocally better as a society now than we were at any time previously. Pinker's analysis might be called fractal progress, as each fractionally smaller span of time (The last 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years) tell the story of similar levels of societal benefit. Pinker argues that this phenomenon is the result of an expansion of the circle of concern and an the collectivisation of the enforcement of good behavior.
Finally, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson seek to account for the stark contrast (and its relative persistance) between rich and poor nations with Why Nations Fail. Their thesis is both somewhat new and somewhat obvious: economic and political institutions (and not geography, culture, religion, or race) are the primary causes of the success and failure of nations. Many factors influence the development of such institutions, primarily, the two types of institutions, extractive and inclusive, tend to reinforce and magnify similar institutions in vicious (or virtuous) circles. But, also importantly, exogenous events have the capacity to create inflection points where institutional drift may change courses and inclusive institutions may begin to overcome the perverse incentives provided by extractive ones (or vice versa).
I have a few friends with whom I like to discuss things-that-seem-important-at-the-time. Somehow, all of them are either explicitly anarchists or at least have anarchist tendencies. If it wasn't obvious from my summaries, each of the books I've been reading more or less presuppose a state and then seeks to justify a vision of what sort of state works best or how a state might be improved. This makes conversations somewhat difficult. My project for the next little while will be to build (or find) an argument for statism.
Update on Religion
For the past 4 years, when I've been asked "why are you an atheist", I've responded along the lines of "because I think it is true".
This is changing, though.
Which of these two possible uses for religious belief–'to accurately represent the world' or 'broadly, to improve society'–is most important? I don't think it ever has been the first. Religious beliefs arise in people as a result of a variety of complicated factors but there must be straightforward reasons that the beliefs are held.
To hold a belief, it must be holdable, i.e. it must not conflict too strongly with any existing beliefs. But also, if one is to hold onto a belief in a sustained manner, one must be motivated to do so. Religious believers hold onto their beliefs because they consider the belief to be beneficial to them, their circle of family and friends, and society at large. Nearly every religious belief comes in a package that is sometimes referred to as 'life stance'. This package of beliefs must be considered holistically in order to see both how any religious life stance is a holdable belief and why one might be motivated to consider this the most beneficial of many mutually exclusive life stances.
And this is the sense in which I consider religious life stances (those that require an acceptance of the supernatural as opposed to secular life stances) to be failures. It can be demonstrated that, for instance, Christianity does not benefit individuals, their kith and kin, or society at large. (I need to demonstrate this)
PS This blog will not be exclusively about religion.
This is changing, though.
Which of these two possible uses for religious belief–'to accurately represent the world' or 'broadly, to improve society'–is most important? I don't think it ever has been the first. Religious beliefs arise in people as a result of a variety of complicated factors but there must be straightforward reasons that the beliefs are held.
To hold a belief, it must be holdable, i.e. it must not conflict too strongly with any existing beliefs. But also, if one is to hold onto a belief in a sustained manner, one must be motivated to do so. Religious believers hold onto their beliefs because they consider the belief to be beneficial to them, their circle of family and friends, and society at large. Nearly every religious belief comes in a package that is sometimes referred to as 'life stance'. This package of beliefs must be considered holistically in order to see both how any religious life stance is a holdable belief and why one might be motivated to consider this the most beneficial of many mutually exclusive life stances.
And this is the sense in which I consider religious life stances (those that require an acceptance of the supernatural as opposed to secular life stances) to be failures. It can be demonstrated that, for instance, Christianity does not benefit individuals, their kith and kin, or society at large. (I need to demonstrate this)
PS This blog will not be exclusively about religion.
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