The Ethics of Congressional Action
Pragmatism and political savvy are always the order of the day in Washington in general, and on Capital Hill in particular. Still, it’s impossible for a concerned observer to miss an incredible lack of moral and ethical seriousness in the climate change debate. And congress is not, in general, actually a total ethics-free zone. If a congressman from a coal state or a farm state or what have you were to fly to Bangladesh, massacre a whole village, steal their stuff, then fly back home and redistribute the proceeds of his slaughter to his constituents nobody in the press corps would shrug and say “well, he’s just looking out for his district.”
It’s not the same, I know. But still, to make a somewhat serious point an awful lot of Derek Parfit’s errors in moral mathematics seem to be taking place when people think about the climate change.
16 Responses to “The Ethics of Congressional Action”
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June 24th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
You need to make the following correction to your post
If a democratic congressman from a coal state or a farm state or what have you were to fly to Bangladesh, massacre a whole village, steal their stuff, then fly back home and redistribute the proceeds of his slaughter to his constituents nobody in the press corps would shrug and say “well, he’s just looking out for his district.”
June 24th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Thank you so much for your ongoing focus on climate.
June 24th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Contrast this with a new President who is sometimes shockingly consequentialist in his decisions. His word for it is “fierce pragmatism”…
June 24th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
What you describe is not so far off from imperialism.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Let it be noted again that a substantial number of people, who are not part of the normal Democratic or more alarmed man-made climate change faction, greatly favor consumption taxes to income or employment taxes. If failing to reduce carbon emissions is such a moral and physical catastrophe, why won’t Democrats and those who have the more alarmed view of carbon emissions propose that employment taxes be replaced with carbon taxes?
June 24th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Hum. With this logic if you buy, say, a Kindle, then you are a monster because instead you could have donated this money to a NGO and saved an African child. Representatives represent.
I just think global warming is too complicated for many people, especially those who consider scientists as children of Satan, or who are waiting for the oceans to evaporate in front of their eyes before believing the Earth is really warming. More education on this subject is needed.
Of course, the main obstacle is that denying global warming has become one of the foundations of conservatism in the US.
June 24th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
I have to applaud Will Allen: who knew global warming could be solved by a regressive tax code?
Is there any problem that can’t be solved by lowering taxes on the rich?
June 24th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Because a carbon tax with a per capita rebate of most of the proceeds of the tax does the same thing without turning a big firehose of money on the rich.
You can tax carbon, or auction off carbon permits, divide the proceeds by 300 million and either rebate them to the people or make them tax credits on a per capita basis. This way, taxes still deter carbon emissions, but you don’t grind the poor under regressive taxation. It is what most Democrats want, unfortunately, we don’t live in a nation where the majority can control policy if the minority is sufficiently immoral.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Earth to to why oh why: it is the working poor, not the rich, who carry the burden of employment taxes. Must everything be explained?
Njorl, if you simply stopped taking 15% off the top of every wage earner, you could have a big whopping carbon tax without any net change in regressivity. Institute a larger negative income tax, and the system would be less regressive than it is now.
Yes, Njorl, to differ with Njorl is to be immoral.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
What Sam Penrose said. Thank you for continued serious focus on climate change.
June 24th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Let it be noted that listening to Will Allen’s brilliant analysis got us another 50 dead Iraqis.
Will Allen’s idea of freedom
Where the fuck do you, as a supporter of mass murder, get off talking about morality?
June 24th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
How goes the slavery biz, Stupid? Morally, of course…
Now drive over to Starbucks, and get yourself another latte!
June 24th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Hell, I’d get behind politics-by-Viking, but I suppose that’s just one more way I’m superior to you.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Poor Bangladesh. You can see from the satellite photo they do not have much time. It almost looks like their deltas are backing up and actively moving inland.
There appears to be some high ground to the Northeast. Valuable real estate, no doubt, with 140 million people soon to be searching for higher ground.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
And congress is not, in general, actually a total ethics-free zone. If a congressman from a coal state or a farm state or what have you were to fly to Bangladesh, massacre a whole village, steal their stuff, then fly back home and redistribute the proceeds of his slaughter to his constituents nobody in the press corps would shrug and say “well, he’s just looking out for his district.”
I wouldn’t assume that until it’s actually happens. I’m sure Alaskans would be overjoyed if their congress critter did that, not sure about the rest of the states.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Interesting. I just had a student fail my class by turning in a Parft paper with his name on it.