Tag: emotions

A Squalid Policy

The UK Home Secretary wants to ban homeless people’s tents

The Financial Times’s Peter Foster and Lucy Fisher report on plans by the UK’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman to crack down on those who are called “rough sleepers” on this side of the pond, or simply homeless people on the other. They would be banned from sleeping in ― and charities that help them would be banned from distributing ― tents. The report quotes predictable and understandable criticisms of this on the merits, but I would like to make a different point about Ms Braverman’s plan: namely, that it is yet another example of a policy that seeks to nudge people by “crapping on them”, to use the language of that noted political philosopher Emmanuel Macron.

To be a bit more specific, unlike most laws ― good or bad, smart or stupid ―, which appeal to either the moral sense or the self-interest of the people who are supposed to comply with them (or, frequently enough, to both), some operate by triggering emotional responses, from exasperation, to disgust, to fear. I have written about this a number of times.

First, in the context of Canada’s prostitution legislation and, also, of prohibitions on flavoured tobacco products. I argued that, while the former is often roundly (and I think rightly) condemned and the latter broadly accepted and indeed welcomed,

[i]n both cases, the government (and advocates urging it on) seek to deter a behaviour that prevailing morality finds reprehensible (the sale of sex, the use of tobacco) not by prohibiting it, but by subjecting those who engage in it to the heavy pressure of their own negative emotions (fear, disgust).

Something similar is at work in the widespread prohibitions on “human smuggling” ― that is, unlike human trafficking, is the transportation of consenting, indeed willing, persons across borders they are prohibited from crossing. The effect of these bans is to raise the cost of the smugglers’ services: not just the pecuniary cost of course, but also the riskiness and the exploitativeness. As a result,

[w]e say that we welcome refugees, but actually we put barriers that not only make it difficult for them to come, but ensure that those who make the attempt are more likely to suffer or even die. That this barriers are invisible makes it worse. Ostensibly we protect vulnerable people from exploitation. In reality … we create incentives for the smugglers to exploit them. 

Anti-smuggling laws work similarly to prostitution legislation that follows the “Nordic model”, as Canada’s now does:

Only one side of the consensual  transaction, the one allegedly exploiting the other, is criminalized (in the case of smuggling, the supply; in the case of sex work, the demand), but the putative victim is endangered, and probably also stigmatized, as a result. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that, as with sex work and other activities considered reprehensible, regulations that ostensibly protect people from their ill-effects are actually meant to scare or disgust them out of engaging in these activities; or at least that, even if this is not the intent, the supporters of such laws really do not mind if they this effect.

And then there was the pandemic policy of Mr. Macron ― and of many others, in fairness to him, though few have been as explicit about their reasoning. Faced with the reluctance of a relatively small but determined bunch of anti-social idiots to get vaccinated against the plague, the French president propounded the following doctrine:

The unvaccinated, I very much want to crap on them. And so we’ll keep on doing it, to the end. That’s the strategy. … [I]t is only a very small minority that is refractory. … How do we reduce them? We reduce them, sorry to say it this way, by crapping on them even more. … I’m not going to put them in prison; I will not forcibly vaccinate them.  And so we have to tell them: … you will not be able to eat out, you won’t be able to get a coffee, you won’t be able to go to the theatre, you won’t be able to go to the movies. (Translation mine)

As I wrote here,

To crap on people, Macron-style, is not quite like telling them that they ought to live in fear, as Canadian law used to tell and still tells prostitutes. It’s not even quite like physically disgusting them, as it does with smokers. But the way in which regulation that aims to crap on them acts is not that different from regulation that acts through fear or disgust.

Ms Braverman’s plans, to return to them, are not as subtle as Mr. Macron’s. They quite transparently enlist fear, cold, and squalor. Rough sleeping, she believes, is a “lifestyle choice”, and the choice needs to be painful to be unattractive, so she is willing to inflict pain. As I wrote in my first post on this topic, the one about sex work and cigarettes, ― though I am less tentative now than I was then ― “this approach is wrong, whether in the case of sex work, abortion, or smoking” ― or rough sleeping:

As Jeremy Waldron’s work on the Rule of Law and human dignity emphasizes, law normally tries ― and ought to try ― to treat those subject to it as human beings, endowed with dignity and capacity for rational choice. It does not, and ought not to, treat them as objects or beasts who need to be prodded around. Regulatory schemes that rely on visceral negative emotions such as fear, disgust, or shame seem to me to come close to doing that. To be sure, law often relies on a certain fear of negative consequences of non-compliance with its substantive or formal requirements (whether punishment, liability, invalidity or unenforceability, etc.). But, for one thing, it seems to me that, although the difference is difficult to put into words, the nature of this fear is not the same, and not as disturbing. Perhaps more importantly, and more clearly, the unpleasant consequences of non-compliance  are something the law explicitly tells people to avoid. There is no manipulation going on. They are also produced by the legal system itself ― by the judges who announce them, by the prison wardens and bailiffs who enforce them, and so on, not by external factors for the law purports not to take responsibility.

All this applies, I think. I only add two side points about Ms Braverman’s plan for crapping on rough sleepers.

First, she says she “want[s] to stop … those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering, and blighting our communities”. Pretty much all of these things can be and are criminalized quite independently of the possession and distribution of tents, and many of them should be criminalized. The question, perhaps especially acute in this country at present, is whether the police are willing to enforce the law. But adding to the list of laws that need to be enforced does not help address the problem.

And second, legalize housing. Just legalize housing already, instead of criminalizing tents. How’s that for a less squalid policy?

Tous mes emmerdements

L’État peut-il obtenir l’obéissance des citoyens en les « emmerdant » ?

Quand les gens ne font pas ce que l’État voudrait qu’ils fassent, comment faire en sorte qu’ils changent d’idée et se mettent au pas? On peut interdire ou ordonner, amende ou prison à l’appui. On peut viser le portefeuille et imposer une « taxe pigouvienne » sur une activité ou un bien auquel on voudrait qu’ils renoncent en partie sinon entièrement, la pollution ou l’alcool étant des exemples classiques. Ou encore, on peut les dépiter, les dégoûter. Les emmerder, selon le vocable recherché d’Emmanuel Macron, président de la République française.

Je cite un reportage de l’AFP repris par La Presse :

« Les non-vaccinés, j’ai très envie de les emmerder. Et donc on va continuer de le faire, jusqu’au bout. C’est ça, la stratégie », déclare sans ambages le chef de l’État.

« La quasi-totalité des gens, plus de 90 %, ont adhéré » à la vaccination et « c’est une toute petite minorité qui est réfractaire », ajoute-t-il.  

« Celle-là, comment on la réduit ? On la réduit, pardon de le dire, comme ça, en l’emmerdant encore davantage. […] 

« Je ne vais pas les mettre en prison, je ne vais pas les vacciner de force. Et donc, il faut leur dire : à partir du 15 janvier, vous ne pourrez plus aller au restau, vous ne pourrez plus prendre un canon, vous ne pourrez plus aller boire un café, vous ne pourrez plus aller au théâtre, vous ne pourrez plus aller au ciné… », explique le chef de l’État.

En sus du vocabulaire, l’idée frappe. Que l’État aimerait que les gens se fassent vacciner et, ainsi, se protègent et réduisent la pression sur le système de santé, ça se comprend. Que l’État soit réticent à mettre les récalcitrants en prison, peut-être aussi ; il y en a trop, et on ne veut pas créer les martyrs pour la télévision. Soit. Que l’État se sente à court de moyens, donc, on peut aussi le comprendre. Mais n’empêche, l’État peut-il ― du point de vue de la moralité politique ― emmerder les gens?

Je me suis déjà posé une question semblable ici, au sujet notamment de la prostitution et de la lutte anti-tabac, deux domaines où on cherche à décourager les gens en leur faisant peur et en les dégoûtant, sans pour autant interdire. Voici ce que j’écrivais alors (je traduis) :

J’ai tendance à croire que cette façon de faire est injuste […]. Comme Jeremy Waldron le souligne dans ses travaux sur la primauté du droit et la dignité humaine, le droit cherche normalement ― et devrait chercher ― à traiter ses sujets comme des être humaines, doués de dignité et d’une capacité à faire des choix rationnels. Il ne les prend pas et ne devrait pas les prendre pour des objets ou des bêtes qui ne répondent qu’à la force. Or, il me semble que c’est justement à cela que s’apparente la règlementation qui produit des effets à coup d’émotions négatives viscérales comme la peur, le dégoût ou la honte.

Bien entendu, le droit compte souvent sur une certaine crainte des conséquences négatives de la désobéissance à ses exigences […]. Cependant, il me semble que, même s’il est difficile d’exprimer cette différence, la nature de cette crainte n’est pas la même et n’est pas aussi troublante. Quoi qu’il en soit, ce qui est plus important et plus clair, c’est que le droit prévient explicitement les gens des conséquences fâcheuses de la désobéissance. Il ne s’agit pas de manipulation. Ces conséquences sont l’oeuvre du système juridique lui-même ― des juges qui les annonces, des huissiers et des gardiens de prisons qui les mettent en oeuvre, et ainsi de suite ― et non des facteurs externes dont le droit se déresponsabilise.

Emmerder les gens à la mode Macron, ce n’est pas tout à fait comme leur dire qu’ils devraient vivre dans la peur, comme le droit canadien disait et dit toujours aux prostituées. Ce n’est même pas tout à fait comme les dégoûter physiquement, comme il le fait avec les fumeurs. Mais le mode d’action d’une réglementation qui vise à emmerder n’est pas si différent de celui d’une réglementation qui agit par la peur ou le dégoût.

M. Macron dit que « “l’immense faute morale des antivax” est de “saper ce qu’est la solidité d’une nation” ». Peut-être. (Que les antivax soient en faute morale, j’en conviens. Ce que c’est que « la solidité d’une nation », je n’en ai pas la moindre idée.) Or, un dirigeant qui veut « emmerder » des citoyens commet donc lui même une faute qui fait en sorte qu’il est mal placé pour faire la morale à qui que ce soit.

Sex and Cigarettes

In defending the provisions of the Criminal Code relative to prostitution which the Supreme Court ultimately invalidated in Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2013 SCC 72, the federal government argued that their goal was to deter prostitution ― which, however, they did not criminalize. Presumably, given their effects, which were mostly to expose sex workers to violence from clients and pimps, these provisions were supposed to make them too afraid of sex work to keep at it. (The Supreme Court, I should note, did not accept the government’s characterization of the prostitution provisions’ purpose.)

As I wrote in discussing the Bedford decision, this is a hypocritical approach ― “[n]ot criminalizing prostitution but hoping that if we make it awful enough it will go away.” Unfortunately, Bill C-36, the federal government’s proposed response to Bedford, in many ways doubles down on this approach of hoping to drive people out of sex work by making it desperately miserable, without prohibiting them from engaging in it (although it does criminalize the sex workers’ clients). In the case of sex work, this strategy has attracted withering criticism, and rightly so.

But in at least one other context, it is deployed without any protest. When it comes to government attempts to deter smoking, hardly anyone these days thinks it wrong to disgust smokers into quitting (or to disgust potential smokers into not taking up the habit), while not banning cigarettes (and eagerly continuing  to collect taxes on them). The government requires printing disgusting graphic pictures on cigarette packaging, and it tries to prohibit tobacco products that taste like something other than tobacco. As tobacco companies try to get around these rules, scientists and advocates urge it to widen the bans, arguing that

If people are going to use tobacco, then it should taste like tobacco … It should be harsh smoke that they’re inhaling and should not be hidden in the flavours that are being added to the products.

The reasoning is an exact parallel of that which the federal government applies to prostitution. It is not very much of a stretch to imagine Peter Mackay thinking, if not saying, that if people are going to become prostitutes, they should feel like prostitutes; that it should be the fear and squalor that they’re feeling, which should not be hidden behind the comfort and safety of well-protected work environments.

Needless to say, tobacco policy does not raise quite the same sort of concerns as sex work policy does. Legally, there is a constitutional right to the security of the person, but no right to be free from disgust. At the level of morality, it is arguably less objectionable to “nudge” people through disgust than through fear. Yet the similarities between the two policies are remarkable. In both cases, the government (and advocates urging it on) seek to deter a behaviour that prevailing morality finds reprehensible (the sale of sex, the use of tobacco) not by prohibiting it, but by subjecting those who engage in it to the heavy pressure of their own negative emotions (fear, disgust).

I’m not sure if there are other examples of laws that operate in this way in Canada. (One superficially similar case, Québec’s former rule prohibiting butter-coloured margarine, was obviously motivated not by moral concerns but by the pressure of the dairy lobby.) One example that does come to mind, however, is the laws requiring one or both of the parents of a minor to be notified before she can have an abortion, which exist in a number of States in the U.S. Again, the governments of these States seek to deter what they regard as a morally undesirable practice by exposing those about to engage in it to shame and possibly fear (as well as financial and other pressures).

I am inclined to think that this approach is wrong, whether in the case of sex work, abortion, or smoking. As Jeremy Waldron’s work on the Rule of Law and human dignity emphasizes, law normally tries ― and ought to try ― to treat those subject to it as human beings, endowed with dignity and capacity for rational choice. It does not, and ought not to, treat them as objects or beast who need to be prodded around. Regulatory schemes that rely on visceral negative emotions such as fear, disgust, or shame seem to me to come close to doing that. To be sure, law often relies on a certain fear of negative consequences of non-compliance with its substantive or formal requirements (whether punishment, liability, invalidity or unenforceability, etc.). But, for one thing, it seems to me that, although the difference is difficult to put into words, the nature of this fear is not the same, and not as disturbing. Perhaps more importantly, and more clearly, the unpleasant consequences of non-compliance  are something the law explicitly tells people to avoid. There is no manipulation going on. They are also produced by the legal system itself ― by the judges who announce them, by the prison wardens and bailiffs who enforce them, and so on, not by external factors for the law purports not to take responsibility.

These thoughts are somewhat tentative, and I would welcome correction and contradiction. If I am right however, this sort of manipulation by negative emotions in the service of majoritarian morality is wrong, and we should oppose it, regardless of whether it is applied to sex work, abortion access ― or cigarettes.