Killing in the Name Of

On vigilante justice, utilitarianism, and healthcare system reform.

Source: International Business Times

We don’t know if Luigi Mangione is the killer. He commented that the ends justify the means, but so has a generation of neo-Marxists and their professors. He could be another guilt-ridden rich kid assuaging his guilt with tough talk online. Or he could be a mini Ted Kaczynski. But for such a smart guy, he made some stupid mistakes. If official reports are to be believed, they found him with some vague anti-corporate commentary and a ghost gun. Surely, he would not have kept the murder weapon on him, especially one made out of polymer plastic. Maybe he’s an ideologue lacking common sense—an absent-minded autist. But let’s assume Mangione is indeed the culprit. He’s got throngs praising him on TikTok. Behind such celebrations, is there anything to the consequentialist rationale?

If a health insurance company denied my dying wife or child needed care, you’d be angry. You might even fantasize about making someone pay. The problem with such fantasies is that the ghost of Immanuel Kant rightly tuts against rage-filled vigilantism. Kant said we must consider our duty to be good, where a good act would be universalizable. Kant also said people, even the most despicable CEOs, are ends in themselves.

But Luigi Mangoine considers himself a virtuous utilitarian—or seemed to on social media.

Utilitarian ethics holds that the ‘greatest good’ or ‘greatest happiness’ justifies the means—any means. If knocking off a CEO would spark a revolution against Big Health Insurance, making more Americans happy and healthy, those means would be justified.

But for most people of conscience, such an ethic is counterintuitive.

While considering consequences is an important aspect of moral reasoning, utilitarianism is, at best, incomplete.

1. No one knows whether an act will contribute to the greater good or good consequences in the future. (It’s easy for people to claim they’d take a time machine to kill baby Hitler, but that’s just posturing and 20/20 hindsight.)

2. The idea that happiness or well-being or good consequences are objective, measurable, objective phenomena is absurd. Even if we could intuitively guess what will give rise to greater happiness, there are strong reasons to respect people’s rights and due process. (Some are even utilitarian.)

3. Ignoring duties (and virtues) is a bad idea, but to be a consistent utilitarian, you must ignore duty and virtue.

4. Actions can have unintended consequences. Aiming to maximize utility can lead to unforeseen harms beyond just violating people’s rights.

5. If a knowable greater good could be served by a mob burning you at the stake, wouldn’t you want to appeal to some moral reasoning beyond speculative social utility?

Some utilitarians might argue that certain acts—such as killing in the name of better health insurance—are not likely to bring about the greatest good. And they’d probably be correct on consequentialist grounds. But respect for persons and acting according to virtue militate against pure utilitarianism.

Cheerleaders for Murder

Those cheering for Brian Thompson’s murder have to imagine a world in which his killer’s act would be universalized—that is, any and every perceived perpetrator of injustice ought to end up in a pool of blood. Even if we’re not Kantians, we can see how such a rule would accelerate civilizational decline.

Remember, though: the righteous, bloodthirsty chorus is the same group that offered thunderous applause at the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This law ignored every single fundamental reform needed to make healthcare more *affordable* and accessible.

Obamacare enriched the same greedy Care-tel—providers, insurers, and pharma—to divide the spoils of higher premiums. Skeptics warned of said higher premiums, deepening federal debt, and losing your choice of policies. And the skeptics were right on all three counts. Yet no one has tried to murder the former president for signing the law that bears his name.

Where are the chalk outlines for Emanuel, Pelosi, Gruber, and Obama?

Hate the Game, Not Just the Players

Those who swooned over Anthony Fauci and are aghast at the notion of bringing him to justice for negligent mass manslaughter are, quite bizarrely, joining the vigilante’s chorus—despite all the damage the overpaid NIAID director left in his wake. One can’t accuse this mob of consistency.

Has anyone taken a shot at Castro’s bastard son, given that in 2022-2023, more than 17,000 Canadians died waiting on care in a system that forces rationing—in a population of only 40 million? SecondStreet.org, which conducted a similar study of Canadian healthcare, estimates that as many as 31,397 patients may have died in that country since 2018 while waiting for medical procedures. By contrast, in a nation of 330 million, less than 45,000 annual deaths were associated with a lack of insurance coverage, according to a 2009 Harvard Medical School study estimate. (I could find no studies on deaths due to denied care.)

If I see another clueless online activist call for Medicare for All, as if such a reform would mean fewer deaths due to denied care, I might go postal. (Okay, fine, Herr Kant. I’ll keep it together.) Why is such irony not lost on this army of bloodthirsty Tiktokers?

Instead of taking out CEOs, why don’t we strive for reforms that actually make healthcare more affordable and accessible?

Remember that Singapore, which has a patient-driven system, only spends 2-3 percent of GDP on healthcare. Yet it has some of the world’s best health outcomes. By contrast, the US spends 17-18 percent of GDP—the world’s highest—on healthcare and cannot boast similar health outcomes. Such indicates a corrupt, rotten American system—a rigged game built by the politicians who have auctioned their souls to the Care-tel.

But that doesn’t mean we need to hunt down CEOs.

Nor does it mean we need to adopt a Canadian-style single-payer system, aka “Medicare for All.” Instead, we need to put the patient back at the center of a far less distorted healthcare market, making the insurers, the providers, and pharma compete for every patient dollar.

Perspective

If you’re thinking about becoming a copycat killer, remember: most Big Insurance companies make only about 3 percent margins. By contrast, Big Hospital nets about 10 percent on average. Big Pharma is about 13 percent. And don’t forget that behind every member of the Care-tel is a politician.

I’m not calling for putting politicians in the crosshairs. I’m saying that our corrupt healthcare system is a multi-stakeholder orgy. System reform requires opening our eyes to the problems of a rigged game. And as we patiently implement such reforms, don’t forget about Kant’s ghost whispering in your ear: Murder is not the way.

Stay tuned for my list of healthcare reforms that will fix American healthcare.