August 22, 2008

Harsanyi - "Let's Chuck the Drinking Age"

I strongly agree with this. Sham indeed.

Posted by armand at August 22, 2008 10:22 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Culture | Law and the Courts | Liberty


Comments

It all comes down to the mysterious and elusive idea of informed consent. Does an 18 year old whose executive brain functions will not be fully developed for another five years have any less right to not be exploited than (Binky will love this) an intoxicated woman? That is, we say an intoxicated woman is not capable of giving consent for someone to sleep with her, because she's intoxicated, and in that state her executive function is compromised, so she is not capable of making a rational choice.

If you want to look at it biologically, you want to push it the other way, raise the age to vote or drive a car. However, this raises the question as to whether it isn't as a consequence of making adult decisions that this part of the brain completes its development.

And this whole thing is complicated by the issue of whether someone is capable of giving informed consent to a compulsive act, which can flip a switch that will never flip back the other way. Would a truly rational person take that chance? Mirapex was just sued successfully for not warning its Parkinson's patients about compulsive spending and gambling resulting from its dopamine agonism. But anyone who knows anything about compulsive disorders can tell you that once the switch flips, the warning doesn't matter, so any doctor who now prescribes this medication to Parkinson's patients even with a warning is open to liability suits for giving someone access to a door to compulsive spending which their patient cannot close. So goodbye to Parkinson's meds.

Do you put a decision of that magnitude in the hands of someone with a compromised mind, or is it only in making these kinds of decisions that a mind completely develops?

Posted by: Morris at August 22, 2008 11:08 AM | PERMALINK

So you want to infantilize all Americans in a host of actions in life until they are in their mid-20s? Obviously, I disagree.

Posted by: Armand at August 22, 2008 03:12 PM | PERMALINK

I'm shocked, shocked that Morris doesn't like this idea. Morris, is there ANY separation between you and full-blown authoritarians?

Posted by: jacflash at August 22, 2008 04:04 PM | PERMALINK

I'm shocked, shocked that you assume I was using a rhetorical question when I was just wondering which is the truth. But if we did say these are just the kinds of decisions people make in their lives, a lot of lawsuits and social programs will go belly up.

Posted by: Morris at August 23, 2008 12:29 AM | PERMALINK

I just think it's conspicuous that Morris has stayed away from the question of Selective Service and enlistment. Bad decision get people killed, sure, and occasionally lawsuits arise. But the chances of drinking young and dying are a lot lower than of enlisting, going to Iraq or Afghanistan, and dying. At least over the last five years. But hey, the military is all about not having decisions to make, at least when you're a seventeen year old enlisted man. (Especially if your decision is to have sex with someone of the same sex.)

I don't buy it. I can't ask a kid to die for his country but deny him alcohol. Like I said earlier, that's where it begins and ends for me.

(One also might argue that voting for zealots masquerading as conservatives is a compulsive act, although one hopes that's a switch that can be flipped back.)

Posted by: moon at August 23, 2008 10:27 AM | PERMALINK

This, like the discussion of reproductive autonomy, is not so much about the consequences, as whose decision leads to the consequences. Heavenly father/paternal states makes the decision that prevents the growth of a fertilized egg/fully formed young soldier dies? A-OK. Woman/adolescent makes a decision that leads to one of these results (and of course, reflects the idea that they believe they have free will)? All kinds of bad.

Posted by: binky at August 23, 2008 07:05 PM | PERMALINK

Right, Binky. Because everbody's okay with soldiers dying in Iraq.

Moon, if you're looking for consistency, make it consistent. But I'm not sure that throwing every sinlge right an adult has on them all at once goes along with Bandura's ideas about a zone of proximal development. Why not let them master certain rights before moving on to other rights? Instead of putting them in a dozen kinds of danger at once, why not make it one by one?

Culturally, a step by step approach may take away the meaning of adulthood, but I don't see that in our culture to begin with. If you think that's important, then go with all at once, because in some ways it's a lot easier to hear people talking about people dying for decisions they made and are responsible for, rather than to hear how Big Brother or the insurance companies or MADD ruined their life.

A cultural agreement on these issues, even if reluctant, would stop a lot of bitching in its tracks about people too young to serve or too young to drink. Only when people get the message that it isn't MADD who's responsible for them to get a DWI do they start taking responsiblity, as an adult. I have seventy year olds in my groups who can't figure that out, and it sucks the blood out of their potentials. But somehow I don't think that people are going to stop blaming Bush for soldiers dying as soon as we agree that people can have a beer at eighteen. That's another kind of emotional payoff, contempt.

Posted by: Morris at August 26, 2008 09:56 AM | PERMALINK

And, it bears noting, is a pile of distraction thrown at a simple proposition. The country that is unprepared to grace a certain demographic with the full privileges of adult citizenship should not ask that demographic to risk its lives on the field of battle. Anyone deemed too immature to drink is, a fortiori in my bike, too immature to decide whether or not to pull the triggle on the adolescent villager who may or may not pose an imminent threat to the safety of the squad.

Posted by: moon at August 26, 2008 09:03 PM | PERMALINK

And, it bears noting, is a pile of distraction thrown at a simple proposition. The country that is unprepared to grace a certain demographic with the full privileges of adult citizenship should not ask that demographic to risk its lives on the field of battle. Anyone deemed too immature to drink is, a fortiori in my book, too immature to decide whether or not to pull the triggle on the adolescent villager who may or may not pose an imminent threat to the safety of the squad.

Posted by: moon at August 26, 2008 09:03 PM | PERMALINK

And, it bears noting, is a pile of distraction thrown at a simple proposition. The country that is unprepared to grace a certain demographic with the full privileges of adult citizenship should not ask that demographic to risk its lives on the field of battle. Anyone deemed too immature to drink is, a fortiori in my book, too immature to decide whether or not to pull the triggler on the adolescent villager who may or may not pose an imminent threat to the safety of the squad.

Posted by: moon at August 26, 2008 09:03 PM | PERMALINK

I love how you're still trying to pick a fight over this. So then can we agree that if we lower the drinking age to eighteen, we will hear an end to the bitching about old men sending young boys to die? And we will begin hearing libs give credit to brave MEN who choose to risk their lives for their country, knowing full well that they could go to Iraq or Afghanistan, and signing up because they believe in what we're doing there. Or does the maternal state still reign?

Posted by: Morris at August 27, 2008 04:24 PM | PERMALINK
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