Ethics Without Borders

One organization which I have been interested in learning more about ever since I first heard about it is Ingen människa är illegal (No one is illegal). The name is, in my opinion, extremely well chosen, and each time I hear it I can’t really shake it off. It gets to me.

IMäI is a network for people who believe in open borders, that everyone should have a right to live anywhere they choose ‘with the same social, political and economic rights’. It has chapters in four cities in Sweden. IMäI helps refugees that hide from the authorities in fear of being sent back to the country from which they fled, by helping them with food, clothes and rent.

IMäi’s ground principle is, as I said, that borders should be open. The network doesn’t believe in the notion of nations and claim to lack moral obligations to uphold them. They don’t see why anyone could have a right to close borders and classify anyone as an ‘illegal immigrant’. Until all borders are open, they will help refugees to hide from the authorities.

This is a clear case of civil disobedience, which I did not particularly like in my entry about Planka.nu. However, this network might have a point. They won’t obey by the rules (in this case, laws) because it would hurt people. Their reasoning is obviously ethical in some way; they aren’t just choosing not to follow rules because they don’t want to.

So, what sort of ethics do the members of this network abide by? I would deem it some kind of utilitarianism, most likely preference utilitarianism. They want people to be able to live where they choose to. Another view would be to classify it as hedonistic utilitarianism, as they want to make people happy. The reasoning then would be that the happiness of the people who get to stay in their new countries by far outweighs the unhappiness of anyone else.

I am, as I wrote earlier, all for following rules in most cases. I think that it’s my moral obligation to follow the laws that we all, in a way, decided on together (also some form of preference utilitarianism – if we decided on the law together, a majority of the people would be happy if I followed it). But in this case, I am willing to rethink that. Ok, I don’t think that a world without borders is a viable option, but I also think that the immigration policies in Sweden and most other countries are pretty messed up. Sometimes, the people working for the authorities have made the wrong decision, and I won’t be the one to judge people who try to help fellow human beings.

Don't Free the Animals

It's not easy to be ethical when nothing seems to be the 'right' choice or view. Take, for example, the PETA and PAAP organizations. Looking around on the PETA site, you read about why animals should have rights just like people, and sure, I am not a big fan of fur. Then you look at sites such as the PAAP one - and of course, I'm not against research that could find a cure for AIDS.

Being able to access all this information this easy on the Internet is a great thing, I guess, but it makes it hard to say anything at all for sure. I want easier times where everything is black and white and the bad guy is called something like Xzargrohk and wears a devilish grin!

Do Unto Others...

I was planning on writing something long and elaborate about the sites godhatesamerica.com, godhatesfags.com and godhatessweden.com. However, I'm having a hard time taking the author and his church seriously. I know they probably mean every word of it... but to most of the people who link to those sites they are a source of comedy. I guess that, in a way, they see it as 'no publicity is bad publicity', as they would be utterly unknown to most people without the Internet.

Most Christian people I know are pretty nice and peaceful, even though some have views I do not share. Those people probably despise this church even more than I do for doing what they do in the name of God. Kinda like Islamic terrorists ruining things for normal muslims around the world.

Ok, not going to write much more about this. I just want to say that the ethical grounds for this church are, in my opinion, highly questionable. I know that the Bible has things to say about homosexuality and that this could be wiewed as an ethical ground for 'preachings' such as what is conducted on these sites, but the Christian love and 'Do Unto Others' messages seem like so much better grounds.

To Pay or Not to Pay

Planka.nu is a site and network with the intention to form opinions about public transport in Sweden. The group behind it is a syndicalist movement who believe that people should not have to pay for the use of public transport. The website offers a form of 'insurance' for people who skip paying. The 'insurance' consists of paying 100 SEK (compare with the prices in Gothenburg: a monthly fee of 375 SEK for people under 26 years and 500 for people above) and then, if you get caught not paying, having the organization pay your fine.

So is this civil disobedience aiming to change something about society, or a way for people to save money without a 'higher cause'? Planka.nu argues that if enough people stop paying for public transport, there will be no choice but for politicians to make it free and financed by taxes. This argument can be seen as some form of welfare utilitarianism; the members of planka.nu have decided not pay their fees to, in the end, make public transport available to everyone regardless of their ability to pay for the service. Critics of the network argue that this is not what will be achieved, that the fees for the people who actually do pay will increase instead.

I think that the reasons why people join Planka.nu are not always a will to change the future of public transport. The people who do this for their own benefit I cannot view as ethical. I can, in a way, understand those who use this form of civil disobedience to change the rules, and I applaud their ingenuity – it is a very clever idea.

However, there are two reasons why I don’t like their reasoning. First, I don’t think they will succeed and this pretty much means that the only thing this network has achieved is higher fees for the people who do pay, just as the critics say. If this is true, the welfare utilitarianism argument will be reversed: instead of a large number of people benefiting from the actions, a small group of people ride the busses and trams for free while the larger group has to pay for them.

The other reason is that I think there is a value in following the democratic process. Civil disobedience is acceptable in certain extreme cases. But generally speaking: if you want to be part of a democratic society, you have to accept that a certain number of things about it won’t be to your liking. If you want to change them, you should use democratic tools to do that. If you join Planka.nu, you have decided to not play by the rules and every time that happens the democratic process is weakened a bit. In this case, I don’t think that it’s worth it.