Read it for yourself: Epstein, Richard A. "AIDS, Testing and the Workplace." U. Chi. Legal F. (1988): 33 - 56. It's probably pay-walled.
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This guy has been monumentally wrong on infectious disease and public health for DECADES but he is, of course, a regular lurking presence on the New York Times Op-Ed page and people couldn't wait to suck up his ignorant COVID-19 take.
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As
@DavidAstinWalsh and I have mentioned before, and as Melinda Cooper covers extensively, the HIV/AIDS takes of nearly everyone associated with the Chicago School are just appalling.Show this thread -
Their general argument was that any government action that "lowered the costs" for PWAs would constitute a moral hazard, where the gov't would be incentivizing the underlying "bad" behavior that carried risk. IOW reducing pain and suffering to PWAs would cause more infections.
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This extended to frank sexual education and efforts to promote condom use, which they contended endorsed promiscuity. Again, their argument was that gov't policy to encourage condom use would lead to more infections.
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Just like with Epstein in his conversation with
@IChotiner, they claimed this was a "theoretical" model and they evinced little interest in actual empirical evidence to the contrary from epidemiologists and public health scholars.Show this thread -
And, indeed, the contrary of their view was *empirically* correct: Encouraging condom use was the most singularly effective way to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.
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Thus, they were not only arguing an immoral position, and not only were they driven to it by the rigid application of an abstract libertarian dogma, but it required they ignore, and perhaps suppress, contrary empirical evidence.
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This is a perfect illustration of what Eve Sedgwick--one of those wretched pomos who dismisses science and reality unlike Epstein and his ilk--wrote about as the privilege of ignorance in Epistemology of the Closet.
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That is, when you're rich and powerful, you can afford to be ignorant and you can be sure you won't be held accountable for your ignorance. And that, friends, is the story of the career of one Richard A. Epstein.
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Since this appears to be going viral, please feel free to read my own COVID-19 take, substantially less hot than Epstein's and grounded in my field of expertise, published yesterday in the Washington Post.https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/03/29/government-must-pay-people-stay-home/ …
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