Articles by Nicole Hassoun

Some people might be interested in an experiment that will be appearing in Utilitas on how people think about meeting needs. I should mention that the experiment plays a rather minor role in the paper which argues for a new principle for meeting needs and critiques several of the alternatives (including the principle David Miller advocates in Principles of Social Justice). It will appear on my website shortly. I should also mention that the experiment was conducted with Yali Corea-Levy at the University of Arizona.

experiment

Thanks! -Nicole

I came across a nice paper by John Simmons a while back on why libertarians should be actual consent theorists and decided that I could combine his argument with something derived from an argument I’ve got coming out in the American Philosophical Quarterly to show that libertarians (who accept the following assumptions) should be welfare liberals. I’ve got the link to a draft of the paper on my website (http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/hassoun/papers.php) but thought I’d post the argument here, just to see if any one has any thoughts on it. The assumptions that follow block some obvious objections.

1) Assumption: Libertarians agree that any existing states must be legitimate and some states should exist.
2) Assumption: Libertarians hold that for any existing states to be legitimate they must only exercise coercive force over (rights respecting) individuals to protect these individuals’ liberty.
3) From Simmons’ argument in “Consent theory for libertarians”: Libertarians should agree that for state to be legitimate, they must secure their subjects’ autonomous consent.
4) For states to secure their subjects autonomous consent, they must do what they can to enable their subjects to secure sufficient autonomy to autonomously consent to its rules.
5) To secure this autonomy most people (in all states) must be able to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
6) So, states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter.
7) Implicit premise: If libertarians must agree that states must do what they can to enable most of their subjects to secure some minimal amount of healthcare, food, water, and shelter, they must be (some kind of) welfare liberals.
So libertarians should be (some kind of) welfare liberals.

Thoughts?

Thanks, -Nicole

So, I’ve been thinking about utilitarianism and non-ideal theory. Although what I’ve come up with may be quite obvious, I’d be interested in reflections on the thought.

It seems to me that there are times when we might do best (even on utilitarian grounds) not to do what would maximize utility in non-ideal circumstances. Consider an instance in which this point may have practical bite. Some argue against ending child labor because the children we prohibit from working may suffer more for our good intentions. Child prostitution may be their second best option. But that this would be so, holding everything else fixed, does not mean we should not try to end child labor. What it shows is that we should try to end child labor and help educate the children we liberate. If one says that we do not have the resources to do this then we should reply that we can and need to find the resources — that is what justice requires. Even for a utilitarian, there are times when we should not do what might initially seem to maximize utility because doing that will only maximize utility conditional on facts that we can and should change. Perhaps there is reason to worry about doing non-ideal theory in some circumstances. Or, more precisely, that we have to be careful about what kind of non-ideal theory we are doing. Consider another example to support the point. Aid organizations spend a great deal of time and money figuring out how to allocate scarce resources. For instance, the WHO tries to prioritize health interventions to maximize the number of disability adjusted life years (or whatever) that it can save with its resources. But if the global distribution of medical resources is unjust and can be changed, the WHO might better spend its time trying to change the global distribution of medical resources.

Hi,
So I have this argument I’ve been thinking about for the conclusion that, theoretically, it is quite possible that Fair Trade will offer Pareto superior improvements for the poor. I’d love any thoughts. The argument makes the standard economic assumptions about competitive markets and consumers and producers trying to maximize profit and utility respectively and tries to show that Fair Trade will offer Pareto superior improvements for the poor if the consumer does not change the amount of goods she purchases and will continue to buy Fair Trade goods into perpetuity.

Here’s the thought:

Suppose that a consumer is trying to decide whether or not to buy Fair Trade bananas and will either purchase bananas from a Fair Trade source for (say) $2 a bag or non-Fair Trade source for $1 a bag. If the consumer buys from a Fair Trade source the poor people who receive her money would, without her money, either have gone out of business or not. If the poor people she supports would otherwise have gone out of business they would have either gone into a more profitable business (than the regular banana business) or not. If not, then the consumer has benefited them. If the poor people the consumer supports would have otherwise gone into a more profitable business (say sugar) then they have done better to make Fair Trade bananas, otherwise they would have gone into sugar. The poor people this consumer supports are, thus, better off with Fair Trade. The consumer knows that she has helped the poor people who make her Fair Trade bananas.

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