Waaah Waaah Waaah

I tried to muster some sympathy for the federal judges who say $169,000 is too little salary, but it just isn't happening. I hope that the reason the article downplays the fact that there's little to no evidence that low pay is actually turning talented jurists away from judgeships is that the judges' whining is self-evidently ridiculous, not that the writer sympathizes. But at least now we can rest assured that Rick Santorum won't aim for a spot on the bench, considering he had to beg his parents for money to supplement his similarly generous Senate salary.

Address Equality

I happened to notice today's Dear Abby, in which a letter writer reveals something of the discomfort behind same-sex marriage and the idea that SSM is "redefining" marriage in a fundamental way. "Straight But Not Narrow in Glendale" doesn't bear any conscious prejudice toward SSM, but is confused as to how to address correspondence to same-sex couples:

Example: Now that Ellen DeGeneres has married Portia de Rossi, would I write to "Mrs. and Mrs. Ellen DeGeneres"? "The Ellen DeGeneres Family"? or "Ellen and Portia DeGeneres"?

Abby's answer -- ask them how they want to be addressed! -- is correct as far as it goes, but neglects to challenge the presumption of "Straight But Not Narrow in Glendale" (and the person who wrote the column's headline) that this problem of address is new and unique to same-sex couples. But it applies to opposite-sex couples too. For example, my wife and I both kept our original names. Therefore, it is incorrect to address cards and letters to "Stentor and Christina Danielson," and extremely incorrect to address them to "Mr. and Mrs. Stentor Danielson." (When we get letters like that, we joke that the writer has inadvertantly revealed the existence of my secret second wife who did change her last name.) "The Stentor Danielson Family" would be troublesome as well (since it still implies that I am the singular head of the household), but I would accept "Stentor Danielson and family" if the writer is primarily interested in me and/or is unsure of the number and identity of the other people in my household.

Same-sex marriages make unavoidable the fact that marriage can be (or at least, can be intended by the members to be) a partnership of equals, not an institution with two distinct-but-complementary, gender-assigned roles. Though opposite-sex couples can try to put their relationship in that egalitarian mold, it's still easy for outsiders to treat them as if they fit the gender-differentiated pattern -- e.g. it's clear that if we were to be a gender-differentiated couple on the name issue, then "Danielson" would be the last name we'd share. Some people find that total loss of formal gender role differentiation morally objectionable, and launch attacks on the "redefinition" of marriage by gya rights activists. Others simply take certain elements of gender-role-differentiated marriage so for granted that encountering egalitarian marriages just confuses them -- as seems to be the case for "Straight But Not Narrow in Glendale" (and for my grandmother, who once apologized for addressing a Christmas card to "Mr. and Mrs. Danielson," since she knew my wife kept her last name, but said she just didn't know how else to address it).

The Problem With Comparisons

Whatever the merits of various foundationalist moral theories, in practice ethical debate involves seeking out contradictions between already-held moral beliefs and proposing resolutions*. And this process is not done in a neutral, consistency-for-the-sake-of-consistency way. Rather, people who hold one belief strongly attempt to win over others by finding contradictions that those others are caught up in by their denial of the target belief.

Merely pointing out a contradiction is not enough -- since every contradiction involves at least two terms, there are at least two ways to resolve it (assuming there's no way to rebut the claim that a contradiction exists). In general, people will resolve contradictions by changing 1) fewer beliefs, and 2) weaker beliefs. Thus, the trick for someone trying to get others to change a target belief is to find a contradiction between that belief and a more-strongly-held one. Further complicating things is the fact that the strength of a belief is not just a matter of subjective commitment, but also the belief's percieved social stability.

All of this I think helps to explain why arguments that compare oppressions are so appealing to those who use them but so problematic in practice. Take, for example, the "marginal cases" argument for animal rights. This argument says, roughly: Most people say animals do not have rights, but all humans -- including humans with severe mental disabilities -- have rights. However, animals and severely mentally disabled people are alike in all relevant respects that could be the basis for ascribing rights (they both feel pleasure and pain, neither can talk, etc.). Or, in schematic form, there is a contradiction among:
X -> Z
Y -> ~z
X=Y

To the animal rights activist making this argument, the solution is obvious: toss out the second premise (animals lack rights). In doing so, the animal rights activist is using the first premise (severely mentally disabled people have rights) as a sort of lever, a fixed point around which other premises have to adjust.

To the disability rights activist, on the other hand, the implications are rather different. While the animal rights activist takes the rights-holding of all disabled people as given and uncontestable, the disability rights activist is keenly aware of the many ways that severely disabled people's rights are denied in practice (even if few people might admit so starkly to believing disabled people have fewer rights**). There are then two problems.

First, the ongoing struggles of disability rights activists are erased by the casual treatment of their cause as already settled. (Melissa and Renee have longer treatments of this phenomenon in the context of comparing gay rights to black civil rights.)

Second, the weakeness of the first premise means that it may be the one to fall when people strive to resolve the contradiction. The disability rights activist may be free enough of false consciousness and internalized self-doubt, and open enough to the possibility of animal rights, to not personally fall into this. But their understanding of the way disabled people's rights are routinely denied presents the choice as a real one, and makes them aware of the danger in how other, less progressive, people may respond. (The fact of this threat may also create a strong motivation to deny that the alleged contradiction exists at all, i.e. to deny premise 3 -- in this case, by finding some other grounds for ascribing rights that would apply to people with severe mental disabilities but not animals.)

My point here is not that certain contradictions should simply be ignored. Rather, it's that it is best resolved by finding a different route to weaken the target belief, one that does not threaten another belief that the argument-maker presumably wishes to retain but which is not so well-suited to be used as a lever.


*Actually, most ethical "debate" consists of trying to raise clashing emotional responses. But I think (pace Bourdieu) the logic of affect is close enough to the logic of propositional statements that most of my post applies to both realms.

**Indeed, this clash between professed position and practice makes this type of argument all the more troublesome, since it's the widespread and sincerely-believed claims about the first group's rights that make them an appealing lever to use in proving the second group's claims.