Dress codes and individual freedom: Topless vs. Burkas

In many countries politicians try to rule about what is acceptable or not in terms of dressing in open public places. Frequently, legislators are moved by political and religious prejudices and fail to distinguish between the various dress codes and the distinct nature of public places.

Currently the debate is mostly about the use of burkas and veils by women. In the past similarly heated discussions were about topless, barefoot and mini-skirts. Then as now, many justify the prohibition on the grounds that its use offends other people´s beliefs and moral values. Namely, that they encourage the oppression of women or the lust of men.

Whether these are true or not (they may be true) they should not be an acceptable reason to limit individual freedom. Indeed, any offence taken is the result of one’s moral and religious beliefs. But, one of the basic freedoms is the freedom of religion. Therefore we cannot use one’s freedom to prevent other people’s freedom.

Acceptable limits to individual freedom may be universal or apply only to designated professions or places, and their justification varies. Nevertheless, one should only apply universal limits to individual freedom if it may endanger other people’s life or property, not its moral beliefs. For instance, the public use of balaclavas or burkas may be prohibited only if there are reasonable grounds to assert that they pose a threat to our security.

However, in restricted places it is acceptable that the operators of such places impose specific dress codes, such as uniforms for schools or the military, formal dress for some concerts and casual for others. The objective of such dress codes is to facilitate identification or to signal specific characteristics.

Humans’ dressing varies not only with income, tradition, climate or circumstances but also with the desire to signal specific messages. For instance, in egalitarian institutions without a dress code such as universities, it is often observed that finance professors dress formal while sociologists may dress in rags. The first wish to signal the financial relevance of their field while the later may wish to signal their left leaning politics.

Yet, there are some types of signalling that we may consider controversial. Among the most controversial is the signalling of mating desires. The arousal of sexual interest in humans is stimulated by displaying some parts of the body. Therefore, some types of dressing (topless, mini-skirts, etc.) can be designed to display such parts and be used to signal a mating mood. Here we confront two distinct possibilities. First, to argue that if society forbids sexual relations in public it should also ban the signalling of mating desires. The second is to argue that signalling is not the same as soliciting and therefore the public exhibition of such body parts should be free.

In general, the second argument seems more reasonable. Especially if one bears in mind that the interpretation of the signalling may diverge substantially between issuer and receptor due to tradition and personal circumstances. For instance, the male reaction to a topless female is substantially different whenever he is before a young or an old female and whether he is in the beach or in a night club.

So, we may conclude by saying that, under liberal principles, the ban of some forms of dressing in free public spaces can only be justified in the case of unequivocal danger to people and property. Prohibitions based on whim, fashion or religious beliefs do not qualify as legitimate restrictions of individual freedom. However, in delimited public spaces more restrictive dress codes may be applied. For instance, if, within his power, the director of a public school decides to ban mini-skirts or burkas he should be entitled to do so. Another completely different matter is the civilized expression of disapproval or dislike in relation to some outfits. In a polite manner we may criticise friends and acquaintances.

Listing Virtues and Vices

The pursuit of virtues and the avoidance of vices are important for the progress of humanity. Both sets of rules and personality traits are designed to improve humankind individually and collectively. Two important affiliated questions are how many rules or qualities we need and how to enforce them.

Fortunately, nowadays, the internet facilitates listing the inventory of such rules. For instance, this site lists a total of 650 virtues and 350 vices. Obviously, not everyone will agree with the classification of a given rule or trait as a virtue or a vice and many rules are correlated or are only variants of other rules. For this reason we need taxonomy to group and classify them.

Indeed, the Wikipedia entry for list of virtues is based on 5 categories defined in relation to their purpose, namely: self-control, self-efficacy, regard, respect and kindness. Others choose to select the top 5, 10 or whatever number they feel appropriate. What is undeniable is that such lists or taxonomies reflect both their historical context and their religious or philosophical roots.

In fact these are often outdated and prevail over a classification system based only on an empirical analysis of their contribution to the betterment of humankind. For instance, the Ten Commandments, The Hadiths, The Modes of Sattva and the Ten Perfections followed by Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, respectively, have many virtues in common but cannot explain the civilizational differences between their followers.

So, when picking up a list of virtues one must choose on the basis of their universality, longevity, and rationality. On the basis of the first two criteria we must certainly include Aristotle´s list of virtues and using the third criteria one must include lists based on the philosophy of enlightenment.

Aristotle defined a virtue as a balance point between a deficiency and an excess of a trait that lies not in the exact middle, but at a golden mean sometimes closer to one extreme than the other (see list here).

From the enlightenment philosophers we can build multiple lists ranging from the popular list of 13 virtues by Benjamin Franklin to Adam Smith´s analysis of the amiable, respectable and intellectual virtues discussed in his Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Yet, some modern philosophers have associated the virtues of enlightenment with being tantamount to bourgeois virtues (e.g. McCloskey) or have criticized them for failing to include the Aristotle´s concept of mean (e.g. MacIntyre´s book After Virtue).

Following on Francis Wheen's defense of the principles of the Enlightenment against various strands of irrationalism in his book How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World; we believe that it is possible and desirable to merge the ethics of Enlightenment and Aristotle. We will try to do so in future posts on specific virtues and come up with our own list of enlightened virtues.

Taxation and Moral Values – the Case of Conspicuous Consumption

Everywhere, politicians advocate public policies to foster virtues (e.g. philanthropy) and discourage vices (e.g. smoking) through both the revenue and the spending side of the budget. However, they frequently treat them differently by failing to measure separately the costs of tax breaks and surcharges applied to achieve such policies.

Free markets do not require neutrality in the rates of taxation on property, income and consumption. Indeed, they should not be neutral in relation to the taxation of consumption for the satisfaction of basic needs (food, healthcare, etc.) and the taxation of luxuries and conspicuous consumption. Fiscal neutrality is often defined as in the FT Lexicon: “when the impact of taxes and of government spending cancel each other out, with demand neither boosted nor curbed”. Others add the requisite that it does not cause distortions. Besides, to some extent, the use of taxation for policy purposes goes against the principle of budget unity, and the repudiation of earmarking specific revenues for given expenditures.

However, in general, when it comes to differentiating between different classes of conspicuous consumption there is a strong case to advocate the rule of fiscal neutrality. We will exemplify with a choice between spending on impressionist masters and trophy wives, because the first may have some cultural value while the second may be morally degrading.

Imagine for example an ostentatious billionaire who is considering spending 50 million on a master’s painting or in marriage to a super-model under a pre-nuptial agreement that grants her the same amount if the marriage lasts three years. Since he is neither an art lover nor is he in love with his trophy wife both types of investment are morally questionable.

Yet, most countries will treat differently the two investments when he decides to file for divorce or sell the painting. Assuming that he cannot earn transfer fees on his wife and makes a capital gain in the painting, some tax codes will give him a tax credit on his divorce settlement and charge capital gains in the sale of the painting. As a result, he will be rewarded in the most degrading investment and will be punished in the cultural investment. This is exactly the opposite of the proclaimed objective of encouraging virtue and discouraging vice.

Not only is the taxation of virtues and vices difficult on practical grounds. For instance, it is impossible to distinguish between a genuine and a convenience marriage. But it is also impossible to make a distinction between capital gains and losses on ethical grounds. Therefore, taxation should be kept away from policies based on moral judgments. Its concerns should be based mostly in a fair sharing of the funding and the minimization of the government revenue collection costs.

You do not need to agree with James Buchanan and other libertarians that a moral order is preferable to moral anarchy and moral communities because it only requires a minimal intervention of the Government. Simple common sense tells us that governments are not apt to judge on the basis of moral merits, without becoming an easy prey of vocal interest groups.