Moral Social Probls

Gun Control is an ethical question:

The good life + morality

Social Contract This moral problem is discussed here from the point of view of the social contract, Hobbes' social contract. What is involved in the social contract of Hobbes?

• state of nature

• Rights

• Covenant with the sovereign.

• Given those dimensions we have to distinguish between fundamental rights and derivatives rights.

Pro regulation: Hugh LaFollete

This argument is about deciding who can own which guns under what conditions

LaFollette’s argument is ethical and not just moral. Ethics involves the study of morality and the good life. The good life is that for the sake of which you do the other things, what you value the most, what life is all about.....

Whatever the good life is for you, will give you the motivation to pursue one or another set of moral principles

Do citizens have a “serious right to bear arms”? this a moral question not a lawful one. Are there enough arguments to change the constitution?

What is a fundamental right? It is a non-derivative right protecting a fundamental interest.

A fundamental interest: it is integrally related to a person’s chance of living a good life. No matter their particular interest, goals, needs etc.

What is the good Life? • Pleasure • Ascetics • Freedom • Power and Creativity (Nietzsche) • Religion, etc

Happiness (Aristotle's highest good, the contemplative life, which depends on virtue, but he also recognize, magnanimity and pleasure as the other two kinds of lives) So happiness is not just content but it is what defines or at least determines morality. Eudaimonia

Rights: fundamental-derivative Fundamental right: we all have a fundamental right of not interfering: I can live my life as long as I don't harm anyone: "I can share my 🍺 with my friend"

Derivative right: having a beer (it can be replaced)

Guns do not constitute my flourishing life, it doesn’t express a fundamental interest. Fundamental rights protect our fundamental interests

Fundamental rights are autonomous, they don’t depend on other rights

Otherwise everything could be considered a fundamental right

Fundamental Rights

• Right to self-determination[1] • Right to liberty[2] • Right to due process of law[2] • Right to freedom of movement[3] • Right to freedom of thought[4] • Right to freedom of religion[4] • Right to freedom of expression[5] • Right to peacefully assemble[6] • Right to freedom of association[7] etc

A Derivative Right

• They cannot be restricted without good evidence. • Derivative rights are derived from fundamental rights. • Drinking alcohol is a particular interest, but it doesn’t constitute a

fundamental right, easier to constrain than the fundamental right. (driving etc)

II LET’S START WITH THE QUESTION IS THERE A GOOD REASON TO BAN GUNS? HARM, DANGER, RISK Autonomy

vs. Risk to Others. (Freedom vs. coercion)

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”

It is true: murder is the act of an agent.

Guns are not moral agents. Guns are objects. But not all objects are the same.

Could we say: “Nuclear weapons don’t kill people, people do”Guns are not nuclear weapons but they are dangerous.

Instead of NRA, “NNWA:” national nuclear weapons association.

We should balance: RISK vs. COST OF INTERFERING

E.g.People released from prison are more risky of misuse guns. So prohibit their use. Why? E.g. driving sleeping less than 6 hours...

Not all drunk drivers will hurt someone but the danger increases to a level that is unacceptable

Armchair Arguments

Easiest and safest to kill

Angry: people are not themselves

Depressed: people are not themselves

Every time someone handles a gun more probability of injury.

Finally: the more widely available guns are, the more people will be murdered, commit suicide and will die of accident

Guns more dangerous than other weapons: 5:1 (no less than 2 to 1) if people have a fight, the chances that someone will die is at least twice as many but as much as 5 to 1.

Secondary gun markets increase the risk. Criminals steal from legal market.

Therefore restricting the availability of guns restricts the availability of guns to criminal, suicides and teenagers.

It also increases the price. For every time a gun in the home was involved in a self-protection homicide, they noted 1.3 unintentional deaths, 4.5 criminal homicides, and 37 firearm suicides.’’

Samuel C Wheeler Against Regulation. Fundamental Rights

Self-defense and Coerced Risks acceptance: Utilitarian Issue

Self-defense argument: against reasonable expected threats

Giving that firearms are the only practical means of selfdefense.

Weighing the risks:

The risks will depend on the weapon and the person’s disposition.

B. “Arms as insurance”…….SOCIAL CONTRACT ISSUE

Between 100 and 170 million people have been murdered by own regime.

A recurrent theme: one side of the social contract breaks the contract: becomes oppressive, turns against the media, reduces liberties for the sake of safety etc.

The social contract introduced for the first time the idea of consent. The sovereign rules by consent. That means that without the support of the people sovereign cannot rule. But:

• Because the government are ultimate the arbiters, they have the capacity to change the terms of the contract.

• The government can monopolize the power and change any rule they wish

• So there is nothing within the contract itself that can preserve the contract from being abused

Arms as insurance

Having arms empower citizens to go “some way” toward nullifying the social contract etc..should the government reinterpret it.

Raising the social cost of social contract violation makes the violation less likely.

Rule by consent only makes sense if there is right “that makes it possible for citizens to resist their government if it behaves unreasonable towards them” (Wheeler 20)

Answer to objection

Utilitarian Argument: reason for violence, not guns but inequality Assumption: there is correlation between guns and crime, but existence of guns is not the reason for the violence: inequality is.

Why does United States lead in crimes and violence? 1. disparity of income and wealth.

• greatest disparity between the 10% lowest and highest 10%

• 5% owes over 60% 2. Drawn Laws create violence and affect the lower 10% 3. Ineffective drug laws that create more crime than

security . 4. It is also true: more guns than any other country.

Answer to objection

OBJECTION: The cause of violence is the number of guns and the solution is restriction of guns

ANSWER TO OBJECTION:

a. It cements the inequality: disarmament leaves the power to those who already have it.

Who benefits from gun control the most: the haves or the have-nots

b. smokescreen: It is used as a diversion, any laws that restrict the ownership of guns will always lead to more laws, resistance by law abiding gun owners citizens, THIS MEANS that serious discussion of solutions to reduce the disparity of income.

B. CRITIQUE OF LaFollette "More on personal defense”

Derivative rights and fundamental rights

e.g. allergic to peanuts: almost equivalent in strength to the fundamental right.

e.g. beer: a have a right to drink beer, but the derivative right is...

disjunctive: expressing a choice between two mutually exclusive possibility.

clarification of meaning: (as opposed to copulative: connecting words):

Disjunctive choices, that is derivative choices are eliminated only when all of them are eliminated.

Self-defense IN the case of self-defense, in some cases the derivative value is as strong as the fundamental.

e.g. women alone in the parking lot, kidnapped to be raped, taken to the dessert…only a gun in the compartment could have prevented this from happening.