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Invitational Ethics Addendum #1 Some of you wanted to see more examples and
more details concerning how our society might work if we all rejected the religion of coercion.
I'll tell you some of my visions, but I need to emphasize that I'm not proposing any of
these things; I give these examples as elaboration, not prescription. All I'm proposing is that
you give up coercive ethics. I'm not saying we need to implement these specific changes.
In the series I discussed some of the unacceptably high ethical costs of state punishment, and
suggested a couple of possibilities concerning how we might treat potential offenders. Some
of you asked me to elaborate. Let's say that we want to protect children from pedophiles.
Of course, we wouldn't use the coercive word ***. We'd say we want to prevent a certain
kind of suffering among children. In this case, the psychological scarring that goes
along with being sexually molested by an adult. This is not just word play; by leaving the
perpetrator out of our goal, we emphasize the victim, which affects the way we approach
the problem. Second, we get our best experts to provide recommendations on the most effective
ways to prevent that suffering. Imagine a list of such recommendations. Doing anything
that singles out a group of potential perpetrators is probably not even in the top five. Maybe
just by implementing the top five you can all but wipe out this kind of suffering among
children without ever applying restrictions to anyone. But let's say that we can't wipe
it out that way, that to reach our goal we must consider profiling and pre-emptive restrictions.
How would we decide what kinds of restrictions? First, we look to science to quantify and
estimate the total suffering of all children due to *** molestation each year, then
quantify and estimate the total suffering of all potential child molesters under various
different kinds of restrictions. Then we could clearly see, perhaps for the first time in
history, not only the ethical costs of passing our laws, but also the ethical costs of not
passing them. Second, we analyze the data and find an optimum solution, where we keep
the suffering of children below a chosen level. Why not zero? Because we understand the law
of diminishing returns. Sadly, zero cases of child molestation per year would require
total mind control. So we balance the amount of suffering we estimate will occur due to
child molestation against the amount of suffering we know will occur when we impose restrictions
on those who fit the profile. Note that the restrictions don't involve hunting
down and electronically marking those who fit the profile. We could simply restrict
their employment opportunities, for example, to keep them out of the kinds of situations
that foster molestation. Naturally, we'd always want to track our efforts and use science
to improve the results whenever possible. Improved results could mean a reduction in
the number of molestation cases, or lighter restrictions on those who fit the profile,
although I'm sure we'd tend to favor children on that particular score.
Note that I've used an idealized scenario for simplification. I don't have any details
on the criteria we would use to quantify the total suffering of anyone. I would leave that
to the scientists. But I think you'll agree that some standard means of measuring it could
be contrived, and even if it were imperfect, it would still be a huge aid in making laws
that balance the suffering of potential victims and potential perpetrators.
It occurs to me that when I propose the end of coercive ethics, in a sense, I'm saying
that it's time for us to grow up as a society. Little kids on the playground think primarily
in terms of should and ought, in terms of coercing each other. Adults, at least when
we're on our game, can think in other terms, such as looking at the big picture, planning
ahead, and especially, complex judgment calls. Adults can make difficult choices without
having to appeal to an authority. Kids look to adults as final arbiters. Adults, at least
sometimes, are able to make choices that have no apparent justification other than, "It
seems like the right thing to do." Our society still thinks like a child, looking
for absolute justifications for our behavior. We say that society is justified in punishing
you because you deserve it. If we ditch coercive ethics, then society must think like an adult:
doing the best we can, knowing that there's no justification anywhere, just knowing that
we want everyone to flourish, and what we impose on anyone is demonstrably necessary
to prevent certain kinds of suffering. Who chooses which kinds of suffering? We do. Naturally
that leads to the question of how we decide, which leads me to the idea that science could
be brought to bear on our very system of governance. Consider the process we use for selecting
lawmakers, that is, democratic election, the supposed salvation of the world, and note
that the process provides entirely the wrong incentives to attract people skilled at making
good laws. Rather, it provides incentives for charismatic speakers with good hair, no
intelligence or even soul required. Surely the game theorists have already come up with
ideas that would work better at attracting qualified candidates and discouraging empty
shells. Surely there are better ways to govern ourselves. Again, I propose that we look to
science for answers. That's #1. Thanks for watching