Consequences

One of the startling moral surprises that a moral agent, sincerely dedicated to making the world a better place, must accept as likely, were she self-aware, is that the unintended consequences of the solution she introduces to the world makes things worse, maybe a lot worse.

 

For example, a social justice warrior is angry that the rich have so much, and the poor have so little. To remedy this she advocates socialism, mandatory governmental force brought down on businesses and the wealthy to redistribute wealth to end economic disparity, and to move wealth from the haves to the have-nots. Let us say her program takes hold: here are three results.

 

Now, the capitalist economy, for all its faults, the greatest engine of prosperity ever known, is now crippled if not outright shut down, making all poorer, and relegating the poorest to an even more grinding poverty, even starvation.

 

By giving the government that much power, it is now a totalitarian monster oppressing all citizens. Democracy and liberty have been routed and disappeared.

 

By making all dependent upon the state, the individual initiative to work hard out of self-interest and the reasonable materialistic desire to enjoy prosperity is diminished, even gone, so permanent poverty is the lot of the entire people.

 

Unless she is a nihilist or misanthrope, she would not intend these dangerous consequences.

 

We are, to some degree, responsible for the thoughts, plans and actions that we introduce to the world. A wise person will learn to be cautious about what she introduces.

 

Take the social justice warrior mentioned above: if she wants to come up with an economic plan that lifts all boats, her most effective solution would be to teach all youth, but especially the children of the poor, to live as individuators that bootstrap their way to prosperity through hard work and economic prudence.

 

This way they will be successful, feel good about having done it on their own, and they will not have had to overthrow a free market, constitutional republic to satisfy the flawed, idealistic ambitions of the social justice warrior mentioned above.

 

 I keep hearing on talk radio a putative quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln that what is taught in the classroom in one decade, 10 years later is the political philosophy of the entire nation.

 

We must get better at anticipating the consequences of the idea, plan, and actions that we originate and choose to implement. Everything we think, do, do not do, and propose has influence on God’s plans for the world, for the community, for others, our family and ourselves.

 

It is not enough that we are motivated by noble motives: it may well be more important how we choose to achieve those goals, and what will the outcome create as it ripples out onto the world.

 

We currently do not lack for arrogance, self-confidence, will or energy to do what we think is correct, but are we actually doing any good, if indeed we are not making things a whole lot worse than they otherwise needed to have been?

 

I am a normative and rational egoist, and I approve of people believing in themselves. This is  not at all the same as complete lack of epistemic humility and a willingness to research consequences, to study history for parallel pitfalls to sidestep. We should ask peers to review our plans. To act unreflectively because we feel noble and superior, utterly incompetent, wallowing in insane pride, recklessly plunging into a quagmire predicated on willful ignorance. Most of us are far too willing to experiment upon society—these macro-collective solutions are worse than the disease we aim to cure.