"Mudd points only to the consequentialist reasons in favor of someone being held accountable for their wrongful actions. But there are other consequentialist reasons that are quite relevant here, starting with those that focus on the harm that a very influential person might do in signaling to his followers that an infectious and deadly disease is no big deal, say, through holding a public event while still contagious to show to mask-less followers that they don’t need to worry about a thing. The death of such a person might finally wake said followers up to the realities of the threat, saving countless lives. Wishing such an influential person dead might again actually reflect a commitment to life and its dignity."- Moral philosopher David Shoemaker, 'Pea Soup', blog
Moral philosopher Sasha Mudd has recently tried to make a case that Trump - as "a human being with dignity" - is still owed good will and best wishes despite contracting Covid -19. Also, irrespective of the fact this malignant narcissist maggot is devoid of moral principles himself and likely caused the deaths of tens of thousands by downplaying the virus and creating a fractured national response - that also increased political divisions.
Before skewering Mudd's muddy philosophical bollocks let me begin by noting most "moral philosophers" are insufferable, unctuous and have their heads in the clouds. This lot would have allowed vermin like Hitler to live out of some misplaced concept of "human dignity" - i.e. rather than allowing a timely assassination. Arguably, because their moral mush has insinuated itself so thoroughly into our culture we find our nation in the midst of moral rot - because of the squeamishness in valuing all life without discrimination.
Let's now turn to her essay and try to put it into perspective. She begins:
"Mr. Trump’s diagnosis generated an immediate torrent of glee, gloating and schadenfreude on social media. It was followed by an equally quick and ferocious attempt to tamp it down. Joe Biden and Barack Obama, among other Democratic politicians, offered well wishes for the president and his wife, while left-leaning columnists rushed to wish them a speedy recovery. Many went on to admonish those rejoicing in the president’s misfortune, suggesting that such apparent mean spiritedness is but one more symptom of the moral rot that has come to consume our political culture."
Mudd's description is essentially accurate but I disagree that this "mean spiritedness" is just another symptom to "consume our political culture". In fact, it is a justifiable counter reaction to the endemic mean spiritedness of Trump and his cabal - for the past 4 years- which has also manifested in incredibly mean-spirited, virulent actions. These include: locking up infants in cages after separating them from their parents, inciting racial hatred and violent acts of extremism - including vicious attacks on synagogues, etc. As such it is natural for those who've been victimized or been witnesses to these moral transgressions of Trump to "rejoice" now that he's getting a karmic blow.
This is especially as it specifically comes from a non-human virus given that NO humans in our midst have been able to exact payback or justifiable retribution - even those who've stood up to his authoritarian, fascist excesses. Then there are the legions who haven't even stood up to this pestilence, especially the Republicans, who've only enabled him instead of providing a critical constitutional check on his power.
The sanctimonious prigs who "admonished" those rejoicing at his illness merely reflect the enormous deficiency of the corporate media in handling Trump - namely treating him as just another normal president with perhaps a few "issues". This, as opposed to treating him uniformly as the mentally deranged, narcissistic wannabe tyrant he really is. A monster out to destroy the country and as such not deserving of any respect, or goodwill or attribution of dignity.
Mudd is more on target when she writes:
While I agree that the gloating over Mr. Trump’s illness is morally concerning, I also find it fair to ask whether certain less celebratory but still positive reactions to his disease are entirely blameworthy and without moral merit.
Mudd is basically attempting to be more fair to the "gloaters" but in a circuitous, verbally ambiguous way. To cut through she'd have been better served with greater clarity, by simply writing: There is moral merit to wishing Trump ill given his guilt in causing hundreds of thousands of American deaths by his mendacious and reckless attitude toward the virus.
Which her next paragraph basically confirms, e.g.
"It is generally accepted that Mr. Trump’s mendacious and reckless attitude toward the coronavirus, including his contempt for his government’s own public health guidelines, has helped lead indirectly but predictably to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. This is not to mention the individuals he directly and perhaps knowingly endangered once he had learned of his own diagnosis. In light of these catastrophic misdeeds, was it morally wrong to want Mr. Trump to suffer the consequences of his own callous incaution?"
And, of course, the answer is 'no'. It was not morally wrong to want Trump to suffer the consequences, again, primarily because no human agent has been able to hold him to account. Even his justifiable impeachment turned into a partisan effort (by House Dems) because the Republicans in the Senate refused to find their traitorous leader guilty after trying to get the Ukrainian president (Volodymyr Zelensky) to attack Joe Biden and son, Hunter, to do Trump a nefarious campaign "favor".
So by simple process of elimination, with Trump defying political payback and crushing all human checks, whistleblowers, political opponents and efforts to control him- it was logical to want the virus to do what all the impotent human agents could not. The virus then became the essential (and necessary) moral sword of retribution.
So yes, the moral human witnesses to Trump's hundreds of transgressions were elated at finally seeing him get his comeuppance. Those namby pamby politicos, pundits tut-tutting or admonishing simply don't get it or that they themselves - by their finger wagging at said gloaters - became no different than the sycophantic Republicans or too respectful mainstream media.
Mudd again hints at the justifiable nature of the gloating reaction:
Ambivalent reactions to President Trump’s medical condition become more understandable when we appreciate that valid moral principles are often in tension with one another and can pull us in different directions. Condemning the pleasure that his misfortune has produced is certainly correct from one moral perspective, but there are also valid moral reasons to regard his illness as a potentially positive thing. Judging the moral meaning of Mr. Trump’s bout with Covid-19 — and our reactions to it — is no easy task.
Mudd then proceeds to recite the usual objections which are more cultural conventions of Western societies than bedrock moral principles, e.g.
"The same bedrock moral principles — that life is sacred, that all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect — make it wrong both to wantonly endanger others and to wish suffering and death upon any individual. We appeal to these principles in objecting to the glee and schadenfreude that engulfed Twitter in the wake of Mr. Trump’s diagnosis."
But if human life is so sacred why not protest avoidable poverty, and the tens of thousands of unnecessary infant deaths due to lack of water purification that costs pennies? Why not work to support anti-malaria measures that would save millions of sacred human lives? Why not work to end war or to protect children from environmental contaminants that kill thousands every year? If all people "deserve" to be treated with dignity and respect why were elder patients allowed to die in many hospital ICUs across the Western world - "triaged" if you will- because of the lack of sufficient medical resources? If there is this innate sacredness of life why do the evangelicals and fundies not hold funerals every year for the millions of naturally miscarried embryos and fetuses? Inquiring minds want to know. The gist of it is that while talk is cheap and principles rarefied, actual human response discloses the sanctity of life is a cultural myth.
From this perspective, it does not matter how morally corrupt he may be, nor the harms he has inflicted on others, wittingly or unwittingly, directly or indirectly. This is all beside the point when we consider that the president is a person with dignity or, as columnists more often put it, “a man with a family.” According to this line of thought, we should not wish to see Mr. Trump fighting for his life on a ventilator, no matter what he has done, and we are right to be concerned by attitudes that seem to contravene this principle.
But if the sanctity of life trope is at root a cultural convention- nothing more - then it does matter how morally corrupt Trump is as well as the harms inflicted on others. As for "dignity" that is not granted a priori, sorry. Just being human doesn't mean one is automatically accorded dignity. Beyond the age of reason (7 yrs. according to Catholic theology) it must be earned. Any malevolent person that's ever lived, say Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin, doesn't get the mantle of dignity merely by being a human. If one's deeds then betray disrespect for the dignity of fellow humans (such as when Trump caged migrant infants) then there is no reciprocal dignity deserved by that human. Further, one's mere station or position does not imply dignity or confer goodwill. As blogger Ted Rall put it in a recent post:
"Being famous and or a billionaire and or President of the United States does not entitle you to universal goodwill."
Trump's being a "man with family" is also irrelevant to the debate. The murderous tyrant Kim Jong Un is also a "man with a family" but that provides no dispensation given the tens of thousands he's willfully butchered. If one then wishes Covid 19, or bubonic plague or cholera to take him out, it is quite justified. I go so far to insist it is a morally righteous attitude. So yeah, it is justified to want to see Kim fighting for his life on a ventilator, just as in Trump's case (or at least until the election is over and there's no more chance he can maliciously interfere.) Again, given there is no real sanctity of life (other than a cultural convention), it matters not that we wish the most horrific circumstances to visit proven human tyrants and mass murderers.
Mudd veers closer to my position when she writes (ibid.):
"Society also has a legitimate moral interest in seeing wrongdoers face consequences for their actions. The sense that justice requires punishment for wrongs runs deep and is not the same as a mere thirst for revenge or a desire to get even."
Again, true, but there is doubt that Trump will ever face it from any human court or group. Hence, we posit the virus as the moral punishment. To an extent Ms. Mudd appears to agree with this, writing:
" Imagining Mr. Trump’s illness as a metaphorical punishment for his misdeeds helps to satisfy at the level of fantasy a legitimate need to see justice done. Because Mr. Trump contributed to the illness and death of so many Americans, it is understandable that many feel satisfied in seeing him forced to contend with a harm to which he has exposed so many others."
True, but the visitation of the virus upon him is not a "fantasy" - but quite real. I would also argue that it satisfies a legitimate need for justice fulfilled and also real (and valid) in terms of the fulfillment. Given no human agent has been able to hold him responsible for his moral transgressions, it is logical to hope and expect the non-human agency of the virus to do what the humans could not - or in the case of the GOP- would not. Even so, Trump disrespects the virus as much as he does human opponents. As one WaPo writer (Kate Manne) put it: To Trump:
' Illness is a weakness, and those who succumb are feeble, even pathetic. Those who conquer it are, conversely, strong and morally admirable."
Providing even more reason for the virus to bring him to his knees to show him who's boss. The same, of course, goes for those pseudo-masculine types who support Trump and believe masks are "effete" or "effeminate" and wearing them shows 'one is afraid of catching the disease.' Newsflash, you better damned well be afraid of this disease as we approach a third wave with potentially 400,000 dead by January 1st and maybe at least that many on dialysis machines or ventilators. Needless to say, I have no more sympathy for fake macho punk males who embrace Trump's maskless posturing, than Trump himself- say if they get Covid and need to be put into a coma to get ventilation. Meanwhile, we behold apes like Newt Gingrich growling, "this is not the land of the timid and home of the scaredy cats."
This fake hyper-masculine worldview holds that any change in our behavior, any restriction on normal activity — no matter how beneficial and rooted in scientific evidence — constitutes an unacceptable “feminine retreat.” Taking precautions against catching or transmitting a potentially lethal disease somehow means that we have allowed the virus to win, to dominate, and hence acting the part of a submissive female. This purportedly explaining why the GOP is the party of "manly men" and why Dems are the party of the "Nanny state". How about GOP being the party of stupid apes? Because: Masculinity MINUS intelligence = APE.
Ms Mudd goes on:
"The moral complexity becomes greater still when we consider that from a purely consequentialist point of view, there are reasons to view Mr. Trump’s potential incapacity as the best moral outcome. Most famously associated with the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, consequentialism is the philosophical position that affirms that what is morally right is whatever makes the world best in the future. If one believes that Mr. Trump has unleashed a tremendous amount of suffering and death through his mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic and that he is likely to continue causing harm on this scale, a consequentialist argument can be made that his speedy recovery from Covid-19 would not be the best moral outcome."
Exactly so. And as a consequentialist (and atheist) this is also my position, in addition, that the world can only be better in the future with Trump out of it. No more rage tweeting, sowing political discord or conspiracy mongering - especially if a President Biden is trying to get the nation back to normality and functionality. If Trump were to be taken down by the virus this better world would manifest. It is true his zombies would remain and still be full of "piss and vinegar" - likely their grievances spilling into the streets (especially if the election is close) but there would be no more insane tweets to feed their froth, and fuel their bigotry.
Mudd continues:
"The consequentialist argument, while repugnant from the perspective of human dignity, tells us that a world in which Mr. Trump is unable to commit harm would be morally better than a world in which he continues to harm freely. This philosophical approach to weighing moral outcomes conflicts with the principle of individual human dignity and offers no easy guideline for reconciling these powerful yet opposing ways of thinking about what is best.
And as I noted there is no innate or assumed, a priori human dignity, at least beyond a certain age. So that perspective - like the one assuming sanctity of life- is also a myth, or better a cultural convention, not an abiding moral principle. If one then dispenses with the cultural artifact of innate human dignity then the apparent conflict in weighing moral outcomes is resolved. So there is no need to "reconcile" these opposing ways of thinking because one of them (assumed permanent human dignity) is fatuous, fictitious. Mudd again:
"Can those who rejoice in Mr. Trump’s misfortune claim the moral high ground? Not so fast. Those who regard Mr. Trump as the enemy may simply wish to see him suffer. Such a wish may be entirely untethered from concerns about justice or the consequentialist moral appeal of a world where he is too ill to campaign effectively. For these reasons we are right to be skeptical of their reaction. Moreover, the principle of human dignity tells us that even the president, for all the wrong he has done, deserves our good will."
Again, wrong, given there is no pre-existing or innate human dignity, nor does Trump "deserve" any good will, He has to earn both. The fact is he has not. He has earned moral opprobrium and sanction in whatever guise it appears. Given no human agency has delivered sanctions then we look beyond human agents and the virus satisfies as a proxy. Now, as a consequentialist I do not claim any moral "high ground" only a needed moral balance- which the virus has delivered. If then this virus ensures he can work no further mischief to our electoral system, our people or our constitution I am totally for it.
Mudd again, lapsing into soft-headed moralism:
I am sad that Mr. Trump got sick because in general suffering is bad, and I don’t want anyone to suffer, but on the other hand I think he should suffer consequences for the harm he has done. This answer seemed satisfying enough at the time, but it left out an important distinction. What I did not try to explain is that the punishment that Mr. Trump’s bout of Covid-19 represents is merely symbolic, a stand-in for the real punishment he deserves, which is necessarily social in character. Mr. Trump deserves to be punished at the ballot box and to be held accountable for any possible criminal wrongdoing in a court of law. I hope this both because Donald Trump is a human being with dignity, and also because the world needs this president to get his real just deserts.
As I stated, Trump is not a human with dignity, just the opposite: an undignified, shameless con man, criminal and traitor. As for "real" just deserts who is Mudd to say what those are? Is she in a god -like aspect or position to see the future and all potential outcomes? I doubt it. Failing that, the only real just deserts have to be those actuated in real time with the potential to exact sanction. That would be the non-human virus. Look at it this way: humans, including GOP politicians, had every chance to check Trump's excesses and violations of norms and laws and failed miserably. They failed because they chose not to act responsibly, but rather to leave Trump to his own devices to further their own self-promoting agendas (tax cuts, deregulation, gutting ACA, Supreme Court Appointment).
Hence, I maintain Trump's bout of Covid is not "merely symbolic" or a "stand in" for the "real punishment" he deserves. Besides, what is this real punishment? Mudd doesn't say. She only states he "deserves to be punished at the ballot box" or "in the courts" - neither of which is a gimme. Indeed, the first assumes the election isn't thrown into the courts thanks to Trump's interference and desire to have no peaceful transfer of power. Or that he doesn't exploit bogus Republican state electors to overturn those actually designated to sneak into power through the back door. See the Atlantic article by staff writer Barton Gellman, e.g.
----------------------
Addendum: The Extreme Consequentialist position:
The extreme consequentialist position- referred to as "moral radicalism" is highlighted in Kai Nielsen's book, Ethics Without God, 1990, Prometheus Books, pp. 159-160. This is in respect of the "Hitler problem". To wit: If Hitler's intentions were known (i.e. final solution, world conquest), would his assassination be justified at almost any cost. Neilsen's answer is a resounding 'yes' even to the extent (p. 160): "Would it have been wrong to assassinate Hitler by tossing a grenade into a crowd - even if innocent people might be hurt or killed?" His answer is not only yes, but he takes to task those who'd hold back - presumably like Ms. Mudd - who'd argue Hitler is "a human being with dignity".
In Neilsen's words: "To assert that such acts are never morally justifiable, are categorically not to be done, is - I submit-- to call into question the very humanity of such a Christian or deontological absolutist.
To be such a moral fanatic that one will insist on acting in accordance with such deontological principles -come what may - is to hold a truly monstrous moral view."
See also:
by Sonali Kolhatkar | October 10, 2020 - 7:47am | permalink
No comments:
Post a Comment