the slippery slope

Ethics and the San Francisco Pet Ban Proposal

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

San Francisco is considering accessing its inner PETA by enacting a ban on a the sales of any pet with fur, hair or feathers, meaning that little Scotty will have to make do with a boa constrictor, an iguana or a guppy if he wants a non-human companion to cheer him through grade school. The measure began as a ban on pet store sales to stick it to unscrupulous puppy mills, then gradually morphed into a nearly China-like proposal  to ban almost all pets. True, the city’s proposal would still allow the adoption of dogs and cats from shelters, but don’t bet on that being the final result. PETA-ism, once it gains a foothold, won’t be satisfied until we are all tofu-sated and pet-free.

A Los Angeles Times story on the public debate over the ban concentrated on the business angle, for pets are big business. This is, however, an effort by the city government to set ethical values and standards, a legitimate government role when  necessary and reasonable. Protecting innocent and vulnerable animals is an important government function; the question is whether it is necessary to protect animals from those who love them as well as those who abuse them.

Well, why not? There are slippery slopes all over this issue, in all directions. Laws ban the sale of exotic animals like tigers, wolves and chimps in many jurisdictions, because keeping them in private captivity is viewed as inherently cruel. Hmmmm…more cruel than keeping Shamu in that small tank? More cruel than keeping a polar bear in a Washington D.C. zoo? The logic for banning birds and small mammals as pets is pretty much the same: it’s inherently cruel. Does the life of a hamster deserve as much protection as the life of a leopard? Why stop at hamsters, then?

Are ant farms cruel? ( I know what happened to mine, and I don’t want to talk about it…) Continue reading →

Arizona, Illegal Immigration, and Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

The State of Arizona has passed a controversial law to address the serious social, economic and law-enforcement problems caused by the bi-partisan abdication of the core government responsibility to protect our borders and enforce a fair and rational immigration policy. President Obama calls the law “misguided,” which suggests, in the absence of any current efforts by his administration to deal with the illegal immigration crisis, that he believes that doing nothing at all is “well-guided.” It isn’t. It is irresponsible and unethical.

The governance ethics principle involved here is clear, and it is one that the Obama Administration has been willing to embrace when it considers the objective important enough. For example,  national health care insurance reform will not work unless everyone who can afford to do so buys health insurance. This raises serious issues of Constitutionality and, as two seconds of listening to conservative talk radio will let you know, slippery slope problems. Never before has the State presumed to order individuals what to buy. (You don’t have to buy auto insurance if you’re willing to eschew driving.) It doesn’t take much imagination to think of ways this intrusion into personal liberty could be abused, but the alternative is not to fix the problem, Obama reasons, and that is even more unacceptable, at least if you care about the problem. In leadership and government, fixing the problem is the prime directive, and yes, this means Utilitarianism in its strongest and most potentially dangerous sense. You have to make the system work, and often, more often than we like to admit, that means ethical trade-offs. The government ethics principle is “Fix the problem with a good faith solution, and do everything possible to minimize the bad side effects as they appear.” Continue reading →