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1. Counterexample: if I were to become an arms dealer I should have more money with which to educate my children. It is not narcissistic to give nonzero weight

1. Counterexample: if I were to become an arms dealer I should have more money with which to educate my children. It is not narcissistic to give nonzero weight to the greater good. Inevitably one attempts to achieve that by implementing the conception of the greater good to which one subscribes. 2. The author strictly speaking isn’t doing what you call narcissistic, and doesn’t seem to be advocating that either. What is noted is that the result of many parents’ seemingly individually innocuous actions is an overall injustice. The author does not send the child to the worst school mentioned and does not therefore prioritise “ideology” over children. Moreover the author is not saying that this is the obviously correct course of action to take. It is merely noted that to take this course of action is part of a collectively regrettable pattern.

microcolonel 7y ago
There's a big difference between using your own children to grandstand about your personal political beliefs, and choosing to sell arms to known violent criminals (which is, I presume, what you mean by "become an arms dealer"). > an overall injustice. An injustice done to whom, by whom? I understand there are tragedies of the commons, but it seems to me that charitable giving or basic activism will solve the tragedy better than some misguided idea that you should weigh a perceived social good (the specific kind marketed to you by activists in the school system) above a known affinal good; and this can be accomplished without lowering the standards for your own children's education. I get that the differences in level of funding in a catchment/district sometimes seem unpleasant, but I don't see how they're unjust. To me it seems this is akin to lying to your children to make strangers more comfortable. You have no obligation to do it, and your kids now have the right to resent you. If it's a legal obligation, that's maybe another matter, but as of now there is (in most places) no law stating that people from a given school district should send their tax money to a different school district as a function of their means; and most states don't impose serious restrictions on how the district/catchment boundary lines are drawn.

microcolonel 7y ago

There's a big difference between using your own children to grandstand about your personal political beliefs, and choosing to sell arms to known violent criminals (which is, I presume, what you mean by "become an arms dealer"). > an overall injustice. An injustice done to whom, by whom? I understand there are tragedies of the commons, but it seems to me that charitable giving or basic activism will solve the tragedy better than some misguided idea that you should weigh a perceived social good (the specific kind marketed to you by activists in the school system) above a known affinal good; and this can be accomplished without lowering the standards for your own children's education. I get that the differences in level of funding in a catchment/district sometimes seem unpleasant, but I don't see how they're unjust. To me it seems this is akin to lying to your children to make strangers more comfortable. You have no obligation to do it, and your kids now have the right to resent you. If it's a legal obligation, that's maybe another matter, but as of now there is (in most places) no law stating that people from a given school district should send their tax money to a different school district as a function of their means; and most states don't impose serious restrictions on how the district/catchment boundary lines are drawn.